Chapter 4 — Rooftop

The rooftop was Maya's secret — or had been, until the evening Daniel walked past while she was hauling her fold-out chair up the building's back stairs and offered to carry it without being asked."You don't have to," she said."I know." He picked it up anyway. "Lead the way."So now there were two fold-out chairs on the roof of her building, and two people sitting in them, facing west at eight-thirty on an evening in early summer. The city spread out below them, indifferent and brilliant.They had a bottle of wine that Maya had been saving for a reason she could never specify. This seemed like enough of one."I like this," Daniel said. He had his camera in his lap but hadn't lifted it."You're not shooting.""No." A pause. "Just looking."She understood. She poured more wine.There was something different about tonight. She'd felt it since he arrived at her door — something quieter in him, something closer to the surface. He kept looking at her in the way he sometimes did when he thought she wasn't watching.She was always watching."Can I ask you something?" she said."You can ask me anything." He'd borrowed her words. She liked that."Do you think about the future?"He was quiet for a moment. Below them, a car horn sounded three times."I used to think about it constantly," he said. "Five-year plans, ten-year plans. Where I'd be, what I'd be doing. What I wanted it to look like.""And now?"He turned the wine glass slowly in his hands. "Now I think about tomorrow. And if tomorrow is good, I think about the day after."She looked at him. "That sounds like something happened.""A lot of things happened," he said. The words were light but the tone behind them wasn't.She let it sit. She was getting good at that — at letting the spaces breathe.The sun was sinking now, going down in the slow extravagant way it did in summer, painting the buildings amber and pink. Daniel raised his camera, then lowered it again."Why do you keep doing that?" Maya asked."Doing what?""Raising your camera and then not shooting."He looked at her. In the golden light, his face was very clear — the scar, the dark eyes, the set of his jaw."Because what I want to photograph isn't the sunset," he said.Her heart did something she decided to ignore for the moment.She turned back to the horizon. They sat in the particular silence of two people who have said almost too much. The evening cooled around them. At some point she became aware that his shoulder was against hers and she didn't know when that had happened.She turned to say something — she wasn't sure what — and found he'd turned at the same moment and they were very close. Close enough that she could see the exact colour of his eyes and the way his breathing had changed.He reached up and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. His fingers were warm against her cheek.Then he stopped.He moved back. Not far — a few inches, maybe — but far enough. His hand dropped. He looked at the city."I'm sorry," he said quietly."Don't be," she said. But her voice came out softer than she intended.He didn't explain and she didn't ask. They finished the wine as the city went dark around them and neither of them mentioned what had almost happened.But she carried it home inside her like something fragile. Like something worth protecting.