NICK
The bedroom was a tomb of high-end minimalism, the air-conditioned chill pressing against the skin like a cold compress.
Lila lay beside me, her breathing still erratic, the post-coital quiet of the room already being eroded by her restless energy. Lila didn't do silence.
Silence required a level of internal comfort she lacked, so she filled it with motion, the rustle of silk sheets, the soft friction of her skin against mine, the inevitable arrival of words.
I lay on my back, staring at the ceiling. In the technical sense, my body was satisfied. The tension had been bled out through the mechanical exertion of the last hour.
But my mind was a different matter. It was still running, still cataloguing, still performing the cold, systematic accounting it did when I would have preferred it to rest.
I was cross-referencing everything Lila had told me over the last few hours.
