After Hours_ (InterMix) - Cara McKenna

INTERMIX BOOKS Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) Inc. 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have control over

and does not have any responsibility for author or thirdparty websites or their content. AFTER HOURS An InterMix Book / published by arrangement with the author PUBLISHING HISTORY InterMix eBook edition / April 2013 Copyright © 2013 by Cara McKenna. Excerpt from Unbound copyright © 2013 by Cara McKenna. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions. For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. ISBN: 978-1-101-62198-1 INTERMIX InterMix Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group and New American Library, divisions of Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014. INTERMIX and the “IM” design are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Contents Title Page Copyright Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Acknowledgments Special Excerpt Unbound About the Author

from

Chapter One

I heard the sign before I saw it, bent metal rattling in the breeze as my car rounded a curve. DO NOT PICK UP HITCHHIKERS! The directive was bisected by a ribbon of red rust, as though the sign were bleeding out from its bolt. Duh-duh-dunnn . . . Cue the requisite horror-movie music. But ominous sign notwithstanding, the road was quiet and pretty. Elms and oaks and firs rose up on either side, watery

dawn sunshine winking between green leaves to the east. There were no pop bottles or old fast-food bags littering the roadside, those scraps of urban apathy I’d grown so used to, living in southeast Michigan my entire life. Too quiet and pretty, my paranoid inner narrator whispered. My eyes narrowed at an elderly man shuffling along the shoulder with a walking stick. Though he looked harmless, I knew better than to trust such a thought. But he didn’t acknowledge my approach let alone try to thumb a lift, so I decided he probably was just an old man, out for an early stroll on a June morning.

Then again, I was heading in the wrong direction. If he’d just escaped from a mental institution, hitching a ride from me would land him right back where he’d come from. My heart slowed when a bend in the road took him out of my rearview. I spotted the gate first—a tall, stately gate, its wrought iron glossy with a fresh coat of black paint, and the name Larkhaven glowering from fifteen feet up, flanked by security cameras. I could feel them blinking at me, curious as crows. I edged my cranky sedan forward to a brick pedestal, and leaned out to press a button below a panel labeled Intercom. A vision of a hand grasping

my wrist flashed across my brain and I yanked my arm back inside, bonking my elbow. “Mother—” A speaker crackled, followed by a bored female voice. “Good morning. What brings you to Larkhaven today?” This was the guest entrance, I knew, and employees, deliveries, drop-offs, and pick-ups usually came the back way. But I didn’t have security clearance yet. “I’m Erin Coffey,” I told the panel, rubbing my elbow. “I’m starting today, with Dennis Frank?” Was I? It came out as a question, like I didn’t really believe it myself. “Hang on.” Silence, then another

crackle. “Okay, come on in. Employee lot is all the way around to the left. Follow the signs to the Starling building and the staff entrance, and hit zero on the intercom.” The gates glided in, divorcing the Lark and haven. I cranked up my window on the sweet spring air and punched down the door lock. I drove slowly, taking in the grounds as I passed a stand of pines. If it weren’t for the imposing black fence, it would’ve passed for a small private college—five or six three-story yellow brick buildings connected by paved walking paths, green lawns dotted with benches. Nicely maintained, if a bit

worn around the edges. A bit eerie as well, with no one to be seen save for a tall woman in blue scrubs, speedwalking across the grass. The main hospital that governed Larkhaven was a quarter mile away, this campus dedicated to outpatient programs serving those with developmental issues, mental illness, substance abuse problems and the like, along with several short-term residences, plus an eldercare facility with a focus on Alzheimer’s and dementia. Skylark, one building’s prominent placard proclaimed. Warbler, said another, and Waxwing. The employee lot was just behind the building labeled

Starling, Limited Access. My building. Made sense, that the locked ward would be closest to the drop-off zone. I eyed the windows as I pulled into a free space, searching for signs of violence and chaos, confirmation that I’d made a Big Mistake, but I saw only slim metal bars. They were a grim comfort, at least while I was outside. They kept the scary people in. But once I was inside, I might not find them so reassuring. And I didn’t mean it, about them being scary people. The mentally ill had enough stigmas to bear without a psych professional casting aspersions. But I was scared. It felt like someone had drawn my ribs together with corset

laces, tugging them tight, tight, tight until I couldn’t get a deep breath, lungs and heart bound. I’d been immersed in my slow-motion nursing education for four years, now certified as an LPN, and had spent six years as my grandmother’s live-in caregiver. She’d passed in the winter, peacefully. A mercy, by the end. But she’d been the center of my life, and losing her had left me adrift. My certification felt like the only anchor I had, the only arrow pointing me toward anything. My grandma’s dementia may have disturbed its fair share of people, but she’d been a gentle soul, generally.

She’d only ever shouted out of fear and confusion, never anger, whereas this was a high-security ward designed specifically for men who suffered from persistent, disruptive psychotic episodes. A dozen unpredictable, occasionally violent men. And little old me, the LPN who’d had exactly one real patient in her entire so-called nursing career. And I was little. An inch or two shorter than average, plus after a few years on what I called the Social Security Diet—a lot of beans and toast and soup to stretch the pathetic amount of money the government deemed adequate to keep me and my grandma

warm and fed and clothed—I didn’t cut a very authoritative figure. I had a baby face and round blue eyes to match, toosoft light brown hair that defied all promises made by thickening shampoos. Once on the ward, the most intimidating thing about me would surely be the syringe in my hand. All my worries gathered in a scrum and elbowed for attention. You’ll get stabbed with a plastic fork. You’ll fuck up some poor man’s medication and give him a seizure. Your coworkers will treat the patients cruelly and you’ll be too chickenshit to report them. Amber’s stupid redneck boyfriend will pick today to show up and cause drama, and

you won’t be there to rescue her. Fucking Amber. My fucking sister whom I fucking loved. I’d loved her from the moment I first held her as a baby, when I was five, but I wouldn’t be here—taking a job that frightened me in this nowhere corner of the state—if it weren’t for her. Her and my nephew Jack in that grubby little house on that grubby little block, thirty minutes’ drive from Larkhaven. If I wasn’t around to check in on them, nobody else would be doing the job. Nobody except Amber’s awful boyfriend or ex-boyfriend or ex-fiancé or whatever she was calling him this week. Jack’s father, she was seventy

percent sure. When she was mad at him it dropped to ten percent, soared to ninety-nine whenever they reconciled. She’d turned into our mom. Same temper, same lousy taste in men; a tooyoung mother prone to impulsive, dramatic mistakes. Our mom had worked two jobs and treated dating like the night shift. Treated dating like playing the lottery, always imagining, This guy will be the one to lift me out of this shithole. She’d never been a lucky one, but you couldn’t fault her determination, putting in the hours at the singles’ bars, upping her odds. I’d basically raised Amber from when I was ten or so, been the one who got her

up for school, fed her, cracked the whip on homework. Not that I did such a great job, considering she’d dropped out at sixteen. I only prayed she wouldn’t take yet another leaf out of our mom’s book and ask me to raise her kid . . . Though mainly because I knew, given how much I adored Jack, there was no question I’d choose to turn my life inside out and accept. After I shut off the engine, I held the steering wheel and counted my breaths, waiting for my heart to slow, for those corset laces to go slack. They never did. I pocketed my keys and stepped into the cool, damp morning air. There was birdsong all around and the grounds

smelled of spring, like the final weeks of school before the freedom of summer. I sucked it in, knowing my first day would be busy, and that I might not get outside again until the end of my twelve-hour shift. My flats crunched across the gravel lot, to the door labeled Staff Entrance. I pushed the zero key on a bank of buttons. “Yes?” “This is Erin Coffey, for Dennis Frank.” “Hang on.” I waited in silence for a full minute or more, then the metal door swung in, and a man was smiling at me. “Come on in,” he said. “Welcome to

Larkhaven.” I stood aside in the little windowless foyer, and the man I assumed was Dennis let the heavy door hiss shut before swiping another open with a keycard. He led me down a short hall and into a cramped break room with a kitchenette, tidy but cast in a sickly glow by the fluorescent bulbs. Dennis looked about fifty, with goldrimmed glasses and a professorial goatee, and overgrown salt-and-pepper hair. He wore scrubs, pale blue, and boat shoes. He seemed at once kind and exhausted, defeated and determined, with one of those expressive, guileless faces that told you everything he was

feeling. “Coffey?” he asked. “Yes,” I said. “Erin Coffey.” “Oh, sorry, I meant, would you like some coffee?” To demonstrate, he filled a paper cup from a carafe on the counter. When I waved it away he added a packet of sugar and took a sip. He smiled. “Six thirty in the morning on your first day and no caffeine? We’d been hoping to find somebody superhuman for the day shift.” “I had a cup on the drive over.” Plus, being here had me so jittery, more coffee would surely plunge me headlong into my own psychotic break, landing me in Larkhaven as a patient.

“Well, Erin Coffey, I’m Dennis Frank.” We shook. He paused to check a roster of names listed on a large whiteboard beside the door. “I’ll be showing you the ropes this morning, before I hand you off to one of the senior nursing staff. The nurses run this ward. You’ll see doctors around, of course, for groups and oneon-ones. But their offices are all here on Starling One. S1. Up on the secure floors, S2 and 3, where you’ll spend most of your time, it’s the nurses’ show.” He said it with a little air of false haughtiness. Dennis and I had spoken a few times already. I’d gone through the interview process at an affiliated hospital back

home, recruited via a job fair. Dennis had been present, if only as a kind voice coming through a conference line. He was a veteran nurse himself, turned shift manager and administrator, and he’d been working at Larkhaven for fifteen years, most of them on the locked ward, the unit reserved for the most dangerous patients. What shocking things had he seen in all that time? What shocks were in store for me? My invisible corset gave a mean squeeze. “So we’re standing in the most important room in the building,” Dennis said, swiveling, gesturing with outstretched arms. “The coffee room. Some argue the smoking patio is more

important, but to be fair, it’s not technically a room. Do you smoke?” I shook my head. “Give it a week,” he teased, but the joke was playful, not cynical. “Actually where we are now is called the sign-in room. Everyone comes in, writes their name in the appropriate slot so we know what their duty is for the day. You’ll be signing in as a general LPN, so easypeasy, everyone will know to find you in the usual places throughout your shift. But our orderlies, for example, might sign in for general duties or be assigned for close obs on a difficult patient, so everyone will see they’re busy with a specific resident.”

He grabbed a dry-erase marker for me, and tapped the whiteboard. I printed my first name carefully in a free slot in the nurses’ section, and my in and out times, the same number for both columns— seven to seven. Dennis told me to write nurse shadow in the duties column, so I did, picturing myself as a mysterious Batman-like figure in a dark gray catsuit, black cape, stethoscope glinting in the moonlight. Nurse Shadow. A useful vision, lending me the illusion of unflagging competence until the day I’d feel it for real. Dennis led me next to a storage room, eyeballed me and said, “Definitely a small.” He slid a bin from a shelf and

handed me a set of butter yellow scrubs. “The women’s lockers are through there,” he said, pointing to a door. “There’s a hamper for the dirties, and you can grab a fresh set from in here each morning. Yellow for the nurses and techs, green for the orderlies, blue for senior staff and managerial scum like me. Plus the classic white coats for the doctors and therapists. The residents in this ward wear gray. The residents in other programs are allowed to wear their own clothes, but at Starling we keep a dress code. Some say it’s depressing, makes it feel like a prison. But our patients do best when things are predictable—egalitarian, if you will—

and we’ve found the uniforms help.” “Right.” “Bring your own lock if you’ve got valuables, but don’t worry if you don’t have one today. We’re all too tired to steal much of anything.” I didn’t own anything of value. My cell phone was six years old, practically a brick, and I hadn’t worn any jewelry. If anyone swiped my car keys, they’d wind up driving off in a ’93 Ford Tempo, more orange than teal these days from the rust. The thing had been cranky since I’d inherited it from my uncle in my junior year of high school, and the only force holding it together now was a kind of willful, joyless, made-in-Michigan

pride. The thief was welcome to it. I changed quickly and met Dennis back in the hall. “Every morning at ten to seven we have a hand-off meeting in the lounge,” Dennis said as he led me into a stairwell with another swipe of his keycard. We hiked up two flights, then banged a left down an echoing corridor. “The overnight staff catch the day crew up with anything that’s gone on. Ditto in the evenings. Bit old-school, but that’s kind of the Larkhaven way, you’ll find. Usually takes five minutes or less. Then at seven we start waking the residents.” With a combination of a swipe and deft punching at a keypad, Dennis

preceded me into a more welcoming hallway, lined on one side with tall windows, weak morning sun glinting off its clean linoleum floor. Another swipe and code and we were inside a nurses’ station, with a counter and a wired glass window for handing out meds, lots of shelves arranged tidily with boxes and equipment, a scrub sink, and a halfdozen filing cabinets. The station looked onto a plain room with beige couches and chairs, two big windows; a high-ceilinged space lit equally with overhead bulbs and sunshine, as square and adequate and inoffensive as a Saltine. There was a patient dressed in the

requisite gray in the lounge, leaning a hip on the deep windowsill with his large arms crossed over his equally large chest. He stared over his shoulder into the yard beyond the glass, a placid expression suggesting he hadn’t noticed the cage of white bars marring his view. His head was shaved to brown stubble, and even from twenty feet away I could make out the scar running from beneath his ear down his neck. More an inmate than a patient, he seemed to me, fresh from a brawl in the exercise yard. I eyed the glass of the nurses’ station window, suddenly doubting its un-shatterability. Jesus, what on earth have I signed up for?

Salary, I reminded myself. Insurance. And cheap rent, for as long as I could stand living in the drab little apartment I’d been offered, in the transitional residence just across the road. It primarily housed adults who were enrolled in or had completed programs at Larkhaven, a stepping-stone toward truly independent living. I’d been sent photos. Its walls were painted cinderblock, the space tiny, and I’d be sharing a communal bathroom and kitchen. In all likelihood it would feel far too much as though I were going home to another ward, after I’d clocked out of this one. “Shouldn’t he be supervised?” I

murmured to Dennis, staring at the lone resident and trying to guess his diagnosis. Dennis laughed, freeing a clipboard from a hook on the wall. “That’s not a resident. That’s Kelly.” A frown tugged at my lips as I processed the nested facts: he wasn’t a patient, and he had a girl’s name. “Kelly Robak. We call him ‘the Disorderly,’” Dennis went on, gaze skimming his clipboard. “He can wrestle down a psychotic like nobody else. Of course we like to have three men on hand for the job, but he’ll do on his own in a pinch.” “For sedation?”

He nodded. “De-escalation’s always best, but failing that, we’ve got Kelly. You two’ll be working together plenty.” I eyed my new colleague with guarded curiosity, realizing that at some point in the indeterminate future, Kelly Robak and his beefy arms and shaved head might be the only thing that stood between me and a grown man in the throes of a violent psychotic episode. “I hope he’s good. Why isn’t he wearing scrubs?” “He’s the best. So good we let him wear what he likes. And he likes gray, to keep himself on par with the patients. I wish he’d just get psych tech certification already, but he seems to

prefer to keep his role as minimalist as possible. I’ll introduce you.” Dennis set his clipboard on the desk and unlocked the metal door that separated the nurses’ station from the lounge with a tap of his keycard. It locked behind us, the sound heavy and hard and confident. Kelly Robak’s body looked much the same. “Kelly.” He turned at his name and stood, meeting us halfway across the room. Up close I saw the gray he wore wasn’t a uniform, after all, or rather one of Kelly’s own making—thick canvas pants and a tee shirt, the latter snug not for stylishness, I suspected, but to give

his charges as little fabric as possible to grab hold of. Same strategy with the hair. I saw scars on his head, small streaks of white skin where his brown hair hadn’t grown back so densely. From fingernails? I wondered. Or from broken bottles in rowdy bars, off the clock? He looked the type, though looks occasionally deceived. “Kelly Robak, this is Erin . . . sorry, Erin. I’m hopeless with names.” “Erin Coffey,” I supplied, and Dennis slapped his forehead to say, duh. I accepted Kelly’s shake. His arm was a huge python, massive hand swallowing my tiny, mousy one whole. He gave it two firm, businesslike pumps, and his

warmth lingered long after he let me go. I rubbed idly at my knuckles, noting the bruises decorating Kelly’s arms, like smudges of paint, yellow and olive and dark purple. “Our new LPN,” Dennis added. Kelly nodded. “Welcome aboard.” His voice befitted a man of his size, the words dark and deep from tumbling around his broad chest. He made me feel small and vulnerable, dependent. Not sensations I liked, but given our relationship they seemed somehow essential. After all, this was a man who’d keep me from bodily harm—if not emotional damage—if this job did indeed seek to break me. I didn’t like

feeling reliant on men, but concessions could be made, considering the context. “Nice to meet you,” I said. A nurse arrived, then a pair of orderlies in mint green scrubs, toting paper cups of coffee. Everything looked like a weapon to me —pens to stab, hot drinks to scald, drawstrings to choke, just about anything a ready projectile. But they seemed bored, if anything. I was introduced and their names and titles immediately fell out of the back of my head, so preoccupied was I with the immense mistake I must be making. No. Not a mistake, merely a challenge. With training and patience, I

could do this. Another nurse arrived, somehow managing to look harried and tired at once; a doctor in a white coat, and then another; then two fresher faces who must be just coming on duty, both orderlies. I forgot all their names as well. The senior of the two doctors led the brief meeting, which took place standing, most people balancing clipboards and coffees. I noted the bolted brackets pinning the armchairs and sofas in place, precluding the assembly of a cozy circle. The docs ran down their notes on the patients from the latest one-on-one and group sessions, then the senior nurses put in their two

cents, then the LPNs and techs and orderlies were allowed to ask for clarification or share their own thoughts on the residents. Kelly Robak didn’t have a clipboard and didn’t take notes—his role seemed less reliant on dosages and exact times than most people’s. The overnight staff walked me and Kelly and the other dayshifters through any “incidents.” The patients’ names meant nothing to me, and my skittish brain eagerly filtered out the words that validated my fears. Outburst, belligerent, episode, agitated. And these were the men I’d be jabbing full of sedatives. Not a function that seemed likely to endear me to them.

“How was Don?” Kelly asked the overnighters. A meaty female tech with eyebrows plucked into slashes of permanent annoyance shrugged. “Quiet. But he got a dose at nine. Before that he was his usual effervescent self. I’m sure he’s saving up his energy just for you, Kel.” Kelly nodded, expression perfectly neutral. I stole glances at him as the meeting went on. His irises were pale with a dark ring, gray like his self-designed uniform— almost as though he were withholding color on purpose, lest he paint this place as anything other than the stark fortress it was. Clear eyes, pretty and cold as ice.

Pretty eyes, pretty name, those ugly scars and bruises along the arms he recrossed. And a gold wedding band on his left hand. I wondered idly what Mrs. Robak was like, and whether she occasionally enjoyed getting wrestled into submission by her gigantic husband. The meeting broke up, and suddenly my workday was starting. Dennis reintroduced me to a nurse practitioner named Jenny—a sturdy gal of early middle age, with tight blond braids like a milkmaid and cheeks stained by rosacea into a look of constant mortification. She spoke briskly. I could sense her patience had bounds, and I

didn’t care to ever mess up enough to discover them. She was my supervisor, and I was going to shadow her closely for the first few days as I got accustomed to the ward’s routines. Routines were everything, I’d learned over and over in school. “Routines are a promise that must be kept,” Jenny echoed, prepping dosage cups at the nurses’ station counter. And with doctors, nurses, techs, and orderlies all on staggered shifts, falling out of sync with the ward’s rhythm was a ready invitation for chaos. “The second we break the promises the ward rules make to our residents, we’re back to square one. Especially with the paranoid

cases.” The patients had to bathe—or be bathed, depending on how lucid they were on a given morning—shave with single-blade safety razors under exceedingly close supervision by the Kelly Robaks on duty, dress, then be led to the dining area. There were fifteen male residents in the S3 locked unit, plus a handful of women on the Starling building’s second floor. Most arrived in the midst of major psychotic or substance abuse crises—or often a combination of the two—and weren’t expected to stay long before being cleared to move to more lenient programs, other facilities, or back home

to their families. Of the fifteen men in my ward, nine had potentially dangerous disorders and were prone to lashing out, verbally and physically. Contrary to pervasive popular belief, most people suffering from serious psychological disorders, if a threat to anyone, are only a danger to themselves. But our unit specialized in the minority of patients who were subject to fits of deep paranoia and resulting rage. If they acted out, they did so with the fervor of men whose very lives were in danger. Because in their minds, that was exactly the case. The morning was quiet, which Jenny told me was typical. Patients had a half

hour to eat breakfast and come up to the nurses’ booth to accept their little plastic cups of pills. Some were sullen, a few friendly, a couple completely blank. At least five demanded in tones of varying suspicion to know who I was, and somehow I retained their names far more ably than I had my colleagues’. Carl. Thirty-six, paranoid schizophrenic, said the clipboard I glanced at as I helped Jenny with the meds. He was cheerful, with sharp eyes and a too-eager smile. John B. Forty-three but looked to be pushing sixty, with a gravelly chain smoker’s voice. He had PTSD coupled with bipolar disorder, and after he left,

Jenny told me he often woke thrashing, screaming his brother’s name. Lonnie. Sixty-one, another schizophrenic. Lonnie was chatty, moving with quick, birdlike twitches accenting each gesture, an effect that didn’t match his doughy frame. He wore thick glasses strapped to his head with an athletic band, dividing his frizzy, graying hair into two lobes. The resident Kelly had asked about in the morning meeting, Don, was plump and pale, as chipper as one could expect of a middle-aged man at seven thirty. I asked Jenny why Kelly had inquired about him, of all the patients. “Don and Kelly have a . . . special

relationship. When Don goes into a psychotic episode, Kelly’s the only one who can ever seem to settle him down, short of a jab.” “What does he do?” She shrugged. “Nothing extraordinary. Nothing any other orderly wouldn’t. But Kelly’s got a certain calm about him. Like a wall. You can fight a man and maybe win, but you can’t fight a wall.” “How often do Don’s episodes happen?” “He’ll have a violent one twice, maybe three times a week, nearly always in the early afternoon. Kelly shadows him between lunch and about four, and just knowing he’s there seems to keep

Don under control. I think Kelly’s a comfort to him. Some people like having a wall near them, especially paranoid people. Something to lean against. Some sense of security at their backs.” Junior nurses’, techs’, and orderlies’ shifts were long and irregular. Mine were all 7:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m., two days on, then one or two days off in between. One week I’d work Monday, Tuesday, Friday, Saturday; the next just Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Plus Sundays on a rotating, monthly schedule. After six years with an exceedingly rigid daily routine, I found it all at once confusing and luxurious. Weekends? What were those? And some weeks I got

four entire days to myself? I might need to cultivate some kind of social life. Whatever that was. “How does Don do on Kelly’s days off?” “Worse,” Jenny said, melancholy in her voice. “But what can you do?” Some of the patients lingered in the lounge after receiving their medication, gossiping in small groups or staring out the windows, but most eventually disappeared down a hall, to the recreation room, I was told. The rec room had a television, mounted below the ceiling in one corner. It was tuned to a game show when Jenny took me there after post-meds

paperwork. Beneath it stood a shelf stacked with books and a small selection of board games. No Monopoly, no cribbage board. Nothing with sharp metal bits, basically, nothing that required a pen to record scores. It didn’t leave much. “But a lack of variety beats a tiny metal knife in the eye,” Jenny told me, surely dooming me to tear up every time I thought of playing Clue again. Kelly had been off doing his orderly rounds in the patients’ residential wing, but he appeared in the dining room toward the end of the breakfast period, accompanying a slow-moving older man I hadn’t met during morning meds. Once

again, I mistook Kelly for a patient at first, in his light gray shirt and pants. They could have been a father and son having a friendly talk, except for the way the man’s hands and elbows jabbed the air as he spoke . . . just a bit off. Just a bit manic, if you knew how to spot it. Kelly led him to a table, then commenced patrolling the room’s periphery, strolling silently with his hands clasped behind his back. It’d take more than that show of deference to make a bruiser like him pass for nonthreatening, I thought, but he looked as calm as he did alert. We were in a sliver of downtime before the various morning therapy

sessions and support groups began, one of a limited number of unstructured “social” periods that peppered a given day. Kelly circled like a prowling animal—fluid and silent, watchful. His sharp eyes scanned everything, but they didn’t dart. Nothing about him promised sudden movement, and I could understand what Jenny had meant. He was an impenetrable, unscalable presence, gray and huge and immovable. Comforting to everyone in the room. Me in particular. There were lots of boring lulls between intermittent administration and meds prep, and I passed much of it—too much of it—watching Kelly Robak. He

was on general duty, playing UNO with two patients during the pre-lunch break, until one became agitated. Such a normal scene suddenly launched into crisis. “Here we go,” Jenny said, getting to her feet beside me. I followed her into the rec room’s little nurses’ booth, where she prepped a Haldol dose with shocking speed—those shots were a bitch to draw, but she snapped the vial open and switched out the needles, smooth as a close-up magician. “We’ll wait and see if he calms first,” she said, discarding the sharps, “but knowing this one, he won’t.” Beyond the booth’s glass, the angry patient was on his feet, as was Kelly.

Kelly listened patiently to the vitriol suddenly streaming from the older man, nodding with his thick arms locked benignly across his chest. While my body vibrated with adrenaline, his looked positively serene. “Red cards!” the man was shouting. “Six reds cards in a row! Six six six! Red like the Devil! He’s leading me into sin!” He pointed at the other patient who’d been playing. The accused was so stuporous, he looked close to dropping off to sleep, which seemed to enrage his fellow resident more. He made to lunge, but Kelly had his arms behind his back in a blink, holding him in place as two more orderlies ran over.

The man kicked, the table jumping and a stack of cards fanning across the wood. In seconds they had him belly-down on the ground, a man securing each arm and one his legs. I hurried out of the booth behind Jenny, heart thumping. Often a physical restraint was enough to calm this type of episode, but Jenny had called it—this guy was not soothed. Quite the opposite. Normally the shot would go in the patient’s shoulder, but with a table and two orderlies in the way, we had to go to Plan B. “Pants,” Jenny ordered me, and in a robotic, unthinking daze, I knelt to pull the elastic waistbands of the patient’s pants and underwear down. Jenny

scouted the injection site in a fraction of the time I’d have needed, and gave him the dose. And just like that, I’d taken part in my first restraint and sedation. It happened so fast, I hadn’t had time to register my fear as much more than a chemical rush. In its wake I felt high, but knowing maybe I did possess some modicum of instinct was a relief beyond measure. I got to my feet, shaky but proud, feeling like a part of a team. “Well done,” Jenny said, once the patient was calm and settled once more and his doctor had been paged. “Thanks.” Back in the booth, she jotted a note on

a clipboard. “Dennis said this is your first psych gig.” “Kind of. I was my grandma’s live-in caregiver for six years. She had dementia. My psych hours for school were at an outpatient substance abuse facility. So no hands-on experience with . . . you know. Nothing this intense.” Nothing this dangerous. “Ambitious,” she said, scribbling. Ambitious wasn’t quite the word. This position was the only one I’d found within an hour’s drive of Amber. I’d have far preferred to get work in a nursing home, but I didn’t think it’d curry me much favor to tell Jenny I was only here as a matter of complete

desperation. “I saw on the roster you’ll be doing restraint training the next three days,” she said. “Yeah.” And I couldn’t for the life of me decide if I was pleased about it. This was restraint as in wrestling a patient into submission in order to calm him or administer a sedative, not restraints like you’d use to strap him to a bed. Mastering the drill in the event of an outburst was essential, of course, but I worried that after I’d completed the training, the danger would feel all the more acute. The training would also take a bite out of my days off, Wednesday and Thursday, which I could have used to

process all these changes, get my things unpacked, and explore my new town. “It usually takes place in the gym in the Warbler building,” Jenny said. “You’re the only new hire from our ward who’ll be taking part, but Kelly helps teach, so there’ll be one familiar face, at least.” As if I could call anyone’s face familiar yet. And as if I’d be able to relax, counting down the hours to when six-feet-several-inches of Kelly Robak would likely be pretending to assault me. The thought of his massive arm locked around my neck made my southerly lady region flutter to sudden life. Oh dear. That wasn’t right.

Kelly Robak was not my type. He was too big, too covered in bruises, and far too married—just too much. Most worrisome of all, he looked an awful lot like Amber’s type, which meant I’d already spent years fostering a grudge against him. Still, he drew my eyes from across the rec room, some obscene muscle or other flexing in his forearm as he reached up to change the channel on the television. Knowing my luck, I’d seize up and faint in his demonstrative choke hold, outing myself as the neophyte I was. Though perhaps I’d ought to be more worried that some sexual monkey wrench would jam my good sense during a drill and my

body would refuse to fight him off. In any case, all the logical, northerly regions of my being decided restraint training was something to dread. *** Things got busy after the morning lull. Lunch meant more meds to organize and distribute, then Jenny took me through the exhaustive inventory rigmarole in the various nurses’ stations. There weren’t any more incidents after the UNO debacle, and by late afternoon I’d gotten most of the patients and their diagnoses and treatment plans copied onto a mental crib sheet, having spent a couple of hours studying their files.

Rattling off their histories and dosages couldn’t hold a candle to actually having relationships with them, though, and when dinner was getting underway, Jenny suggested I join her, eating with the residents in the dining room. I’d scarfed a banana for lunch, feeling pokey with my paperwork, so the promise of a sit-down meal was enough to steel my resolve. Since breakfast I’d been hearing mutterings of “pizza day,” and now I could smell it. Ambrosia. I followed Jenny and we got in line alongside patients and staff at the S3 cafeteria counter. I grabbed two cheese slices and a root beer, and tailed Jenny to one of

several large, round tables. I caught sight of Kelly not far away, eating with a group of residents, a circle of gray. He’d taken a seat with a view of the entire room, and I bet it wasn’t an accident. “Has everyone met our new LPN, Erin?” Jenny asked brightly, glancing around our table. There were three patients, and I tested myself on their names and conditions. Lonnie and Carl, both schizophrenic, and Les, a deceptively cheerful sociopathic type who’d served three separate prison sentences for arson. I remembered him easiest, as I’d employed the thoroughly un-PC mnemonic device of “Les be sure to not give that one any matches!” while

quizzing myself earlier. The three men murmured greetings, and Jenny nodded to a seat between Lonnie and Les, taking her tray to the other side of the table. Conversations resumed, which meant Lonnie and Carl went back to arguing. Paranoid schizophrenics can be prone to that, and both of the men were clearly feeling a touch self-righteous. As best I could gather, Lonnie was insisting that the military had planted him here on the ward, and that they’d be coming any day to collect his findings. Jenny had told me he was what the Starling staff called a popper, meaning his illness was particularly potent and frequently

“popped through” the bubble of civility created by his meds. Carl seemed simultaneously unnerved by the notion of a government operative in his midst and annoyed by Lonnie’s self-importance. He’d been distractedly cutting his pizza slice with a plastic knife for some time, so long he now seemed to be trying to saw through the tray. I stole a glance in Kelly’s direction, suddenly wishing he were at my table. Jenny attempted to shift the topic. “I wonder what movie they’ll show in the rec room tonight.” Carl dropped his knife, shooting her a patronizing look. “It’s Monday. On Mondays we watch the singing show. We

always watch the singing show on Mondays.” Lonnie wasn’t listening. He was studying me as I stripped the wrapper from my straw, hazel eyes squinting magnified skepticism through his thick lenses at my hands and face and the shiny new picture-ID badge clipped to my scrubs. “Do you like the singing show?” Carl asked me earnestly. “I don’t think I’ve seen it. Maybe I’ll check it out, later.” There was a TV in my apartment. I could watch whatever program it was, and have something to talk to him about tomorrow. “I know what she likes,” Lonnie said,

in a slow, snide, creepy murmur, loud enough for most of the table to hear. I took a bite of my pizza, ignoring his attempt to affect me. He was only testing the new girl. Don’t take the bait. “Do you like the singing show, too?” I asked him politely. Lonnie stood, fast enough to topple his chair. He grabbed a pizza crust, and jabbed it toward my face and shouted, “You’ll like this when I jam it up your cunt!” The room went flat, panic reducing everything to soundless slow motion. Like being underwater. I lunged to the side, a second’s scrambling that felt like an hour’s swim. Smooth, cold tile found

my palms, and legs rustled past from above—orderlies rushing to restrain Lonnie. Sound returned. Someone was helping me to my feet. Lonnie was on the ground, face pressed in my direction, wild eyes locked on mine. One orderly held his ankles while Kelly Robak knelt straddling his waist, pinning his arms. “She’s an agent!” Lonnie was shouting. “Don’t trust her!” Jenny must have dashed for the nearest nurses’ station and prepped a syringe. She reappeared, offering Lonnie a seeming eternity to settle before deciding to give him a jab in the deltoid. “That’ll calm you down, Lon.”

“Agent!” he shrieked, eyes blazing hatred up at me through his skewed glasses. “Bitch agent! Sent by the council!” The shot took effect in a matter of moments, and Lonnie’s fiery eyes went dim under heavy lids. I watched him blinking groggily, everything seeming to me as if it were happening on a TV screen, two-dimensional and glassy and unreal. A tech was rubbing my back, saying something soothing. She may as well have been speaking to a coatrack. The numbness slowly lifted, uncovering a crisis in my body. My heart had never beat this hard—my head

pulsed, my eyes, my bones. I knew my chest was heaving so violently it must’ve looked as if someone were thumping me with invisible defibrillator paddles, but it was theoretical. The entire room was a theory, as all I could do was stare at the floor, blood and breath crashing through me in waves. Jenny’s hand on my arm. She was saying something. I was being led to the nurses’ station and steered to sit, my hand wrapped around a white paper bag and coaxed to my mouth. I huffed into it. Soon I could control my eyes enough to blink and scan the room. I felt my fingers and toes, my prickling cheeks, the padded chair under my butt.

“There we go,” Jenny said. “Keep that up.” After another minute my wheezing quieted and my head cleared, the fog lifting to reveal a massive headache. “Sorry,” I gasped. It came out thin and high. “Hyperventilation’s a joy to treat, compared to what I’m used to.” She stood and gave me a soft, casual clap on the back. “Sit tight for a few. Actually . . .” She consulted her watch. “Your shift’s done in twenty minutes. Why don’t you take your paperwork down to the sign-in room, have a Coke, take your time with the forms? Don’t worry about evening hand-off. I think

you’ve had enough excitement for your first day.” As much of a relief as the offer was, I felt like a failure and a coward as I gathered my clipboard. I thought I could feel everyone’s eyes on my back as I headed for the stairs, hear them thinking, Well, she’s done. Another one bites the dust. Tears stung my eyes and I could feel my face going pink . . . if it wasn’t already from the anxiety attack. I bought a pop from the vending machine and sat at the table, pressing the cold aluminum to my burning cheeks before I cracked it open. I hadn’t felt this defeated and useless in ages, not since the early challenges of

caring for my grandma. Not even physically touched by a patient and I’d fallen to pieces. I shook my head and a lone tear made a break for it. I wiped it away with my wrist and sighed. My whole life, I’d been the one who kept it together. Grace under fire. I felt more lost than I could remember, naked with my veneer of capability stripped away. Paperwork helped. It required me to recount what had happened in clinical detail, to label Lonnie’s outburst in impersonal terms and remove myself from it. Though it seemed callous to draw the analogy, I told myself it was no more personal than an angry dog

snapping at me. I’d been nothing more than the least trusted face in the room. Or maybe he’d smelled my fear. I’d do best to quit thinking of the patients like they were some other species. I never, ever would have let myself think about my grandma that way, and those men were all somebody’s family—somebody’s son or father or brother or lover. The thought left me more exhausted than ever. Though I’d stopped shaking, my handwriting was barely legible and stringing coherent words together was a struggle. A sob of frustration rose in me. I tamped it down, knowing other staffers could appear at any time to sign in or

out. I sat up straight and tried to look studious. Well, she had a scare, but she bounced right back. Worth a shot. I finished my incident forms, three pages that left me as spent as a triathlon. I stood to toss my can in the recycling bin, then yelped when I turned around, finding a huge body materialized in the threshold. But it wasn’t the shivwielding maniac my brain expected, only Kelly Robak. Just as scary in his size and general ominousness, but unarmed, and placid as always. My hand had flown to my chest, like an old lady set upon by ne’er-do-wells. I dropped it hastily. So much for looking cool and collected.

“Hey,” Kelly said. He wiped his name from the whiteboard with his improbably big thumb. It was useless to pretend I wasn’t upset, so I let him see as I combed my hair with shaky fingers. “Hey.” He leaned against the door frame. “Lonnie gave you a scare, huh?” “Yeah. I’m okay. Just, you know. My first day.” I rubbed at my sternum, trying to soothe my panicky heart. “It’s my first clinical job. My first real psych job.” One of his brows rose a fraction. “You picked a real deep end to jump into.” I nodded. True, it would’ve been nice to start at an end with steps, not a high dive. “It was the only end with a job

opening.” “Get changed and I’ll take you out for a drink.” “Oh jeez. I better not. I’m really tired, and I have to be up at six again tomorrow.” I hadn’t even unloaded my car or set foot in my new apartment. I wanted to change into my familiar pajamas and reread a few nursing textbooks’ chapters on paranoid schizophrenia, try to figure out how I could have handled myself better with Lonnie. Kelly shook his head. “Get changed and meet me in the lot. You can follow me in. You living in town now?” “I’m staying here. In the transitional

housing.” He gave me skeptical look, the most judgment I’d seen from him. “Just temporarily,” I added. “I’ll drive you, then. You can leave your car.” And then he disappeared, giving me the distinct impression that his invitation was as negotiable as a hostage taking. I was pooped. I obliterated my name from the duties board, dropped off my paperwork, and changed, tossing my scrubs in the hamper. The day had done the same to me—wiped me clean out and wadded me into a rumpled heap. Though Kelly was surely only trying to be helpful in his bossy way, I resented

being ordered around, especially by a man. Like I needed rescuing. I didn’t want to be rescued—in my family, I did the rescuing. If I suddenly needed assistance, who in the hell was I? But it was good, I decided as I buttoned my sweater—an invitation to grab a quick drink with Kelly. I was in over my head, and he’d have advice to help me stay afloat. He’d had a first day once, too. We’d talk and it’d push the incident a bit further back in my head, so it wouldn’t be the only thing running through my mind as I tried to fall asleep in a strange room. That voice, those words; that accusing pizza crust pointed

like a switchblade at my face. As I left the locker room and headed down the hall, I felt that corset sensation again. Only it wasn’t from the scare. Every step I took toward the exit, closer to Kelly, tighter, tighter. Funny how my body reacted to him the same way it did to the thought of getting assaulted by a patient. Punching the keycode to the foyer, I wondered idly what Kelly’s wife looked like. And what she’d make of some underfed, round-faced urchin of a hapless trainee LPN going out for a drink with her oversized husband. She probably wouldn’t think anything of it, I reminded myself, since it doesn’t

mean shit. It’s a pity drink with your married coworker. Still, as my fingers punched the final code, those laces yanked tight, tight, tight. At least if I passed out, Kelly was strong enough to carry my sorry ass home.

Chapter Two

He was waiting outside under the darkening sky, dressed in his civilian clothes—jeans and a black zip-up sweatshirt. It made him look like even more of a thug, but I followed him nonetheless. A thug who was on my side felt like a precious commodity. Kelly led me to the far corner of the employee lot, to a late model GM pickup, probably the same vintage as my car but far-better maintained. He came close to unlock my side, seeming taller

than ever, seeming huge and looming but strangely reassuring. A breakwater to keep the storm of stress from washing me out to sea, never to be found. Maybe I could steal some of his bricks and fortify myself, so the next run-in with someone’s psychosis wouldn’t shake me so badly. He started up the truck, wipers knocking droplets from an afternoon shower off the windshield, headlights illuminating the sign posted at the head of each space that read, NEVER LEAVE YOUR KEYS IN YOUR VEHICLE!

“Everyone in that ward’s had their own first day,” Kelly told me, driving up to the first of two security boxes that would let us exit the campus. He

punched in a code, drove through, waited for the first automatic gate to shut before jabbing at the second keypad. “I know.” He turned us onto a narrow service road I hadn’t taken in. “I don’t want to make you feel worse, but that wasn’t such a terrible day to start.” “I know that, too. And I don’t want to be as upset as I am, by what Lonnie said. It’s not like he stabbed me or anything. It was a frigging pizza crust.” “But what he said slapped you across the face,” Kelly said. “So it’s fine to let it sting. Next time it won’t sting so hard, and soon enough the words won’t even

hit you.” “I hope so.” “Just know that whatever anyone in there says to you when they’re having an episode, it’s not personal. You’re the just the face that was closest to theirs when the impulse hit. Like you happened to be walking by when they whipped a door open, and got clocked in the head.” I nodded, finding some comfort in that. “They didn’t know who was behind the door. They just needed to shove. But letting them see you flinch is like handing them a weapon—they’ll use it if they know it’s there.” I knew he was right. But skins didn’t thicken overnight, and realizing the only

way to get my armor built up was to be verbally assaulted over and over was a defeating thought. Defeating and dehumanizing. Probably felt an awful lot like being locked in a psych ward. I sighed, and the exhalation made room for a measure of calm. I gulped it down like a quenching drink, thirsty for more. “How long have you worked on the ward?” I asked, just as Kelly pulled us onto a rural route, trees giving way to a vast stretch of fallow fields. “Four years. Four and a half.” “Is there a lot of turnover with the patients? Have any of them been there as long as you?” “Sure, two or three. Don and I came to

the ward the same week, actually. Probably part of whatever bond we got going.” “How long do most patients wind up staying?” “’Til they’re better.” “On average?” “Couple weeks, maybe a month. Tough to say. Lots get on the right antipsychotic regimen, get better, get cleared, think they’re cured and go off their meds. Or they go home and get triggered by the same shit that landed them with us to begin with. So maybe a month, but then another month, and another . . . Some patients in Larkhaven have been institutionalized on and off for twenty

years or more, but most don’t stay in the locked ward for longer than it takes for their drugs to kick in or their addictions to be treated.” “That’s good.” “Most patients don’t want to stay in a unit like ours long-term. They want their own clothes back. They want to be trusted with metal cutlery and get more visiting hours with their families, stand a chance at meeting a woman or seeing their loved ones with a bit more dignity. There are a few types like Don, though. Guys who thrive on the routine and the restrictions, real institutional cases. Or ones like Lonnie, who’ve been in and out so much, the ward has become their

own little world. A place where they feel they understand their spot in the pecking order, unlike on the outside. But it’s not ideal. After years of the same gray pajamas, same meals, same views out the same windows . . . Sounds like prison. To me, anyhow, to lots of those guys. But it keeps the ones like Don safe, I guess.” “I hope that’s not how it feels, working there—like it’s a prison.” “Not when you get to clock out every night, get paid and have the freedom to drive to a bar once the working day’s done, order whatever you want to eat. Leave the job behind the second you wipe your name off that board.”

“I guess.” But I worried it’d feel like a sentence to me. I’d chosen this job, but out of duty and under duress. I’d be going home to just another ward, practically, as long as I stayed in the transitional residence, and playing nurse on the weekends for free, trying to enact order to combat my sister’s chaos. Would I ever feel like I was off duty? Would I ever leave the day behind when the door to Starling clicked shut at my back? Right now, I couldn’t imagine it. The outskirts of a small city appeared beyond the fields. Buildings drew closer, revealing their wear. The sun was just meeting the horizon, ripening the clouds to a warm mauve.

Kelly drove us past a huge factory, windows shuttered in plywood, its vast parking lot eerily absent of cars. Corroded wisps of razor wire coiled along the top of the chain-link fence. “You been to Darren before?” Kelly asked. “No. Do you live here?” “Yeah.” “You like it?” I asked, as another block of urban decay slid past. “It’s a shithole.” “Oh.” “Former factory and mill city—no shock—now it’s caught someplace between ghost town and ghetto, with a little river of civilization running through

the middle, paying taxes.” “Is it dangerous?” “Parts are, sometimes. But mainly it’s just quiet. We got substance abuse issues and the crime that goes with it, but not as bad as other places, since public services are practically nonexistent here. But you can buy a two-bedroom house for twenty grand, so here I am.” “You’re not really selling me on it.” “Wasn’t trying to.” “Did you grow up around here?” I asked. “Not really, but it’s a lot like where I did.” “Where?” “Hamtramck.”

I sort of knew where that was. A poor city outside Detroit, crippled like so many in the state in the wake of plant closures. “I didn’t grow up too far away. On the other side of Dearborn.” Kelly nodded, his stern face looking different in the sky’s pink cast and the glow from the dash—somber, if not soft. “Some people grow up on the ocean, by the mountains, places where it snows or places with palm trees. That’ll always be the kind of stuff they want surrounding them. Guess I’m hardwired for cracked concrete and rust stains.” He turned us down a more civilized block, past a hardware shop and a karate studio, an AT&T store, other signs of

life. There was a heart beating inside the city’s bones, if faintly. He parked along the curb outside a bar called Lola’s and we swung open our doors, slammed them in unison. The town was half-dead but the bar had a pulse. I could hear it thumping to the rhythm of classic rock and loud conversations. Kelly held the door for me. The patrons seemed lively enough for a Monday night, though there were plenty of places to sit. Back in manufacturing’s heyday, it would’ve surely been packed with factory workers. Kelly brushed past me and I followed him to the bar. “Heya, Kel,” said the bartender,

tossing two napkins on the wood before us. He gave me a lukewarm nod and the most cursory male assessment. “White wine,” Kelly said, shocking me speechless. Just as well, as the bartender didn’t ask for my order yet. So my companion had a girl’s thirst to match his name. “Sit tight.” Kelly tossed some bills on the bar and left me, presumably for the men’s room. I studied the taps and liquor bottles but decided I’d probably get wine as well. “Hey.” I turned, finding a guy about my age leaning casually on the corner of the bar. He wore baggy pants and a white tank, a

gold chain. He wasn’t my type at all, but his friendly, hopeful smile made me think maybe I didn’t look as wretched as I felt. “Hey,” I said, and offered a little wave. The bartender returned, plunking Kelly’s wine and somebody’s beer by my elbow. “Buy you somethin’?” the friendly guy asked. I hadn’t come here to flirt, and a polite decline was halfway to my parted lips when the guy’s face suddenly fell. I sensed Kelly at my back, tangible as a shadow cooling us. When I craned my neck to look, I

understood why the guy had withered. Kelly’s eyes had gone black, jaw set, expression like a rusty steak knife. His fingers closed over my shoulder, spreading warm misgiving down my arm, up my neck, through my chest. “Can I help you,” he said to the guy. It was no question, just cold, hard words wrapped in barbed wire. “No, man. Sorry.” And the guy slinked away with his tail between his legs. Kelly let me go and took his seat. I resisted an urge to rub my shoulder and see if the skin really was as feverish as it felt. This man had a wife, and if anybody got to feel all hot and confused by his touch, it was most definitely her.

“Who was that?” I asked. And what had he done to get on Kelly Robak’s bad side? Drug dealer? Maybe some old beef over a woman? “Never seen him before,” Kelly said. “Oh. Then—” I stopped, frowning as Kelly slid the wine glass in front of me, the beer bottle before himself. Did I really look so rattled that I couldn’t choose my own drink? Or for that matter, handle myself around a stranger? He held up his beer, and I went ahead and tapped my glass against it, miffed. “Congrats on surviving day one,” he said, and took a deep pull off his bottle. “Thanks.” He stared at me, his pale, hueless

irises tinted by the beer signs, blue and yellow and every other neon color. He had a scar above one brow, a thick shiny line that must’ve needed stitches in its day. To my great surprise, he reached out to run a fingertip up and down the frown crease between my own brows. “What’s put that there?” I tried to snuff out the spark I’d felt from his touch, hot and startling and inappropriate. “You could’ve asked me what I wanted to drink,” I said, hoping to camouflage my unease behind annoyance. “I’m paying.” “That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get to pick.”

He made a puzzled face like I was speaking Chinese, and took another sip of his beer. I decided to drop it. Maybe it’d been some kind of ignorant chivalry, antiquated bull, like choosing your date’s order off a menu. Not that this was a date, of course. Surely Mrs. Kelly Robak would have something to say about such a notion, same as I would. Same as Kelly ought to. I rubbed the spot he’d touched, finding my forehead greasy from the day’s long shift. I ran the heel of my hand across it, more tired than ever. My stomach gave a gurgle, anger pooling in my belly as I began to suspect maybe Kelly hadn’t

brought me here to be understanding. Maybe he’d brought me here because I seemed vulnerable, amenable to a roll in the hay with a married colleague just because he’d deigned to buy me a fourdollar glass of chardonnay. But I was also exhausted, and not thinking clearly. It was a Mom-thought, as Amber and I had years ago christened our impulsive suspicions, the little embers that could burst into blazes with the mildest provocation. Time for a nice, neutral change of subject, before my tinder went up. Wanting Kelly’s own answer to the question I’d posed Dennis, I asked, “Why do you wear gray, like the

patients? Isn’t it confusing?” “Sure, but the free benzo jabs are a decent trade-off.” “Why, really?” He shrugged. “I think it’s helpful for some residents, seeing me in their colors. It’s my job to restrain them, and I’m good at it. It’s easy for me to be the enemy, when it’s my role to physically dominate them. Just a way to say, ‘Hey, I’m on your side. Trust me.’ Because I know I don’t look like the most sympathetic guy.” No, he didn’t. He’d been born with a cruel face, just as my little sister had been born with a deceptively wide-eyed, innocent one. Both their faces said things

to men—in Kelly’s case, Don’t even fucking try me, and in Amber’s, Lead me astray. If only my sister’s choices more often contradicted the invitation. For a while we sipped our drinks without speaking. The bar was warm, and Kelly shed his jacket. He’d swapped his gray tee for a black one, and the scars and bruises decorating his arms looked like blurry tattoos in the dim light. I could have studied them for an hour, but I forced my gaze onto the muted TV behind the bar and pretended to read the news headlines. Those arms are spoken for, I reminded myself. And you wouldn’t know what to do with them if you got the chance.

Kelly leaned over me to grab a napkin from a nearby stack, his bare forearm brushing the clothed one I had propped on the bar. The wine commandeered my lips to announce, “You don’t look like a Kelly.” One of his brows twitched. “No? What do I look like?” A Lance, maybe a Butch. Brutus. Killer. “I dunno. Just not a Kelly.” He sipped his drink. “It was my grandfather’s name.” “What does your wife do?” the wine blurted. “I’m not married.” “Oh.” Something different in my middle squirmed, some troublemaking

attraction embryo wriggling, kicking aside the anger that had been pacing there. “You still wear your ring. Has it been a long time?” Since his divorce, or maybe since she’d died, who knew? I’d let him fill that in as he wished. He shook his head. “I’ve never been married.” “Well, your ring is misleading. Is it to keep female patients at bay?” I teased. He teased right back, the shadows of a smile playing about his lips as he leaned closer. “Female patients and half-drunk nurses.” I rolled my eyes, but a hot flush crept up my neck. “Work Kelly” had clearly clocked out, and I wasn’t sure who this

man was. “I’m not even a quarter drunk.” He straightened, looking at his hand. “It was my grandfather’s ring. Same one I’m named after. My mom gave it to me when he died. That’s the finger it fit on, and I was wearing it around for a while after I got it, thinking I’d buy a chain to put it on or something. Then I wound up in a grapple with a resident and got my hand slammed against a metal door. Finger swelled up, haven’t been able to get it off since.” He presented the finger in question as if he were flipping me a lesser bird. I gave it a tug, but his thick knuckle kept it from so much as budging, corroborating his story.

“Ouch.” “It’s either keep it on or have it cut off. And I haven’t been able to bring myself to get it clipped.” “Understandable. Though it’s a liability. Safety-wise and romancewise,” I said, instantly regretting it. But I’d gone there. May as well commit. “Have you had any girlfriends take issue with it?” Had or currently have . . . ? Oh God, who was this woman in my head who even cared? “The sorts of issues I offer women tend to overshadow concerns about misleading jewelry.” I frowned at his cryptic answer. “You mean like ordering them drinks without

even asking what they like?” He eyed my glass. “All women love white wine. White wine and salads with cut-up chicken on them.” I scoffed. “That’s so sexist.” “If it offends you, get your fellow females to quit ordering it all the time.” He narrowed his eyes. “What did you want to drink?” White wine, probably. But it would’ve been nice to be consulted, what with this being the twenty-first century. “Whiskey,” I lied, wanting to sound tough. “I stand corrected, then.” To my dismay, Kelly flicked his hand at the bartender and ordered me a double

shot of Bushmills, no ice. With this morning’s four thirty wake-up call, a twelve-hour shift, a banana for lunch, and a single bite of pizza for dinner, I’d be under the stool before I finished wincing my way through the first sip. “Um, thanks.” I held up the shot when it arrived and Kelly tapped it with his bottle. I drank just enough for it to wet my lips and tingle against my tongue. I set the glass down with a blasé clack, hoping I looked like I did this all the time. “What else do women find so troublesome about you?” Kelly shrugged. “Just general bossy assholery.” “Ah. Well, nice that you’re self-aware,

I suppose.” “I’m real my-way-or-the-highway. Got no patience when things don’t go how I want them to.” “How so?” He leaned his elbow on the bar and looked me square in the face. “I got exes who might try to tell you I treated them like servants. They were all fond of telling me as much, anyhow. But I work hard. I’ve got needs. If they don’t get met to my satisfaction, I get grouchy.” “Charming.” “Don’t get me wrong though—I’ve never shouted at a woman during an argument. Definitely never hit one. I’m a dick, not a piece of shit.”

“Gotcha.” I took a sip of my whiskey. My ludicrous attraction cooled as quickly as it had warmed, but good that he was telling me himself, I supposed. “My sister and mom have both dated their share of your type, but none of those guys ever had the decency to own up to it.” Weird to think Kelly was one of those men who’d put my family through so much grief. Suddenly I was having a drink with the enemy . . . though it still didn’t feel that way. “You don’t seem impatient or bossy at all on the ward.” “And I’m not. But I spend forty to fifty hours a week at everybody’s beck and call. When I’m off, I want what I want,

the way I want it.” “Understandable.” If not particularly appealing to even the most middling feminist. “Sounds very old-school. Was your dad a factory guy? Twelve-hour shift, and dinner better be waiting when he gets home?” “The only place my dad ever spent twelve hours at was sitting on a stool, like we are now. Though if alcoholism was a paid gig, he’d have built himself an empire.” “Oh. Sorry.” “Don’t be. I don’t offend easily. Save your ‘sorries’ for somebody who’ll appreciate them.” So he’d grown up with a drunk for a

father and spent his days keeping order in a ward full of unpredictable, violent men. I guessed I could understand Kelly wanting a bit of control when he punched out. I decided to concede my annoyance over the wine. “How did you get into nursing?” I asked. “Well, being an orderly, I mean.” “It was real random. Or maybe not. Maybe it makes perfect sense, now that I think about it . . . By the time I was fifteen I must have been about six-two. And big. Like somebody had slipped me growth hormones at puberty. I spent so much time at this shady bar in my neighborhood, hauling my dad’s drunk ass home, they wound up giving me a

job, bouncing. Years before I could even drink, myself.” “Ah.” “When I was in my early twenties, somebody told me about a job in prison security, so I did that for a while. Long while—nine years, I think. I got along real good with the unstable inmates. Guess I got my old man to thank for all the experience dealing with irrational, belligerent assholes. Eventually somebody hooked me up with my job at Larkhaven. Pays better than being a prison guard, and it’s less depressing. Sometimes it can feel like people are just wasting away on the ward, but not the way they do in a cell block.”

“I’ll bet.” “What’d you do, before you came here? You said it’s your first clinical job.” I told him about caring for my grandma. “I lived with her for about six years, and I got my LPN certification while I was doing it.” “What’d you do before that?” “Worked a bunch of retail jobs, saving up for when I figured out what I wanted to study,” I said with a shrug. “I’m only twenty-seven.” Twenty-eight tomorrow, actually, but I decided to round down. He blinked, clearly surprised. I laughed. “Oh, great. How old do I look?” How many miles had the day’s

stress put on my formerly munchkin-like face? “I hadn’t really thought about it.” “Well, after today I feel about fifty, so no offense taken. How old are you?” “Thirty-eight.” I nodded. Ten years’ age difference wouldn’t bother me, had I been interested in Kelly. Which I didn’t want to be. I’d been heaped with at least a decade’s more adult responsibility than most of my peers. I had more to talk about with a guy Kelly’s age than some twentysomething dude. The years most people dedicate to getting wasted, I’d spent changing my once so strong and sharp and independent grandma’s

diapers, soothing her night terrors. Trying to simultaneously support my mother and distance myself from her self-manifested drama. Then my sister and her chaos, her pregnancy . . . Just thinking about it, the whiskey in my hand took on a new appeal. “You’ll do okay,” Kelly said after a long lapse. “Give it a week or two. You’ll scab over quicker than you think.” “Ew. I’m not sure I want to, when you word it like that.” And the thought scared me, the idea that I’d get numb to the ward. I’d end up all hard and detached like Jenny and the other older staffers, not jaded, but . . . yeah, all scabbed over. Skin like tree bark. I

sipped the liquor, suddenly appreciating how soft I usually felt. “I’m not sure I want to stop feeling stuff,” I told Kelly. “You still feel stuff. You just get good at choosing which provocations are worth getting upset over. And in the end, hardly any are. Your BS filters will be industrial grade. Month from now I guarantee if you get cut off in traffic, you won’t give half a shit.” I pictured the guy he’d just run off, some stranger whose only crime had been trying to order Kelly’s coworker a drink. This philosophy clearly had some macho nuances I wasn’t grasping. “Why won’t I care?” I asked.

“Because I’ll know it’d be so much worse, getting my ear bitten off by somebody in the midst of a psychotic break?” Kelly laughed and his smile caught me off guard. It changed his face, like clouds had broken and a big beam of Jesus-light had shot down from heaven to paint the world gold. Heat pooled between my legs, some latent baddecision gland kicking in, one I’d always assumed I hadn’t inherited from my mother. Shit. “Just trust me,” he said. “I know nothing I say tonight’ll make you feel anything but more freaked out, but you’ll be fine. You’ll find a balance.”

“Maybe I’ll find out I’m not cut out for this.” “Maybe. But if you had the balls to see your grandma at her worst, probably take her to the toilet and bathe her and watch the woman you knew go away, years before she actually died . . .” Get out of my head, Kelly Robak. “You could be good at this,” he said. “And it takes about three good nurses to balance out the damage a single shitty one can do, so I’m hoping you’ll stick it out.” His flattery warmed me like a blanket, draping me in the strangest sense of comfort. This gigantic, hardened man thought I had what it took to do his job.

And right then I decided, I hoped I did, too. Kelly drained his bottle. “You signed up for restraint training tomorrow morning?” I nodded. “Jenny said you teach it.” “Nah, not really. They just use me ’cause I’m huge. Prepare you for the worst.” “You’re really good at it, though, aren’t you? That’s what Dennis told me. He said they call you ‘the Disorderly.’ The best man to have around when there’s an incident.” He smiled his panty-shredding smile. “And here I thought it was because I’m a bad housekeeper.”

My ability to string words together had abandoned me the second he grinned, so I took a final sip of the whiskey before sliding the not-quite-empty glass across the wood. “Better get you back,” Kelly said, standing. Fuck me, he was tall. “Can I give you some money for the drinks?” He narrowed his eyes like I’d called his mother a rude word, and I dropped it. I slid from my stool, feeling woozier than I should from two drinks. One glass of wine, a shot and a half of whiskey, twelve hours of work, little food and even less sleep . . . crippling, ill-

advised infatuation. “Thanks for bringing me out,” I told him as he held the door. The night felt good. When we’d left work it had been warm and humid, and now in the streetlight’s glow, with a breeze cooling my skin, it felt like a new day, like I’d left Monday behind me. “No problem. If you’re feeling like you’re not cut out for this, don’t. Not yet. I’ve seen people fall to way worse pieces after their first days in Starling.” “I don’t feel nearly as awful as I had when our shift ended, anyhow.” “Nothing like a change of scenery to hit the restart button.” I watched Kelly’s triceps twitch as he

unlocked my side of his truck, thinking, yes, nothing like a change of scenery. But I hated myself, a little, for being so attracted to him. He wasn’t quite like the men who’d turned my mom and sister’s lives inside out. He was hardworking and seemed honest, and unless he made a pass when he dropped me off, his intentions were harmless enough. But he’d painted himself as a cousin of those men—aggressive and admittedly selfish, admittedly a bit of a bully. I’d always been so determined to never fall for one of those types; now it felt like my body had turned traitor. Just because your body’s interested doesn’t mean you’d ever do anything

with him. Good point, brain. Plus he was my coworker. But there was no harm if, say, I maybe hypothesized about what he’d be like in bed as I put myself to sleep, right? Though to be honest I didn’t have the first clue. The few guys I’d been with had been selected for their gentleness, all trusted friends slowly transitioned to lovers. And I’d never gotten hot over the idea of being with a hulking thug of a man, so I couldn’t even imagine what I might want to do with one. Or have done to me. If I’d even get a say, I thought, remembering the white wine. As we drove I pictured tomorrow’s restraint training, trying to imagine

Kelly’s huge arms locked around my neck or bear-hugging my middle, his deep voice at my ear, barking orders. Fucking hell.

Chapter Three

I woke on my birthday with more of a hangover than I deserved, peeling my eyes open at the sound of my alarm clock. I’d been waking to that same bleating for fifteen years, but once I shut it off, all the familiarity of the world abandoned me. Strange room, windows in the wrong places. Wrong-color paint on the walls, wrong temperature as I sat up, slipped on my flip-flops in the morning chill and dug in the open suitcase propped by the

foot of the bed. Wrong, wrong, wrong that I had to put on a robe, lug my towel and shampoo three doors down, and punch in a security code to get into the women’s communal bathroom, wronger still that someone else already had steam rising from one of the shower cubicles. As I adjusted the water and hung my robe on the hook outside the stall, I decided I’d find an apartment, a real one. Soon. They’d be cheap in Darren, even without roommates, and in a way, a twenty-minute drive would be preferable to a stroll across campus—a clear, physical delineation between work and home. Maybe I’d find a place and discover I lived near Kelly Robak,

and we could carpool. My hands paused mid-lather. Where had that stupid thought come from? Though if I did live near Kelly, I’d probably worry a lot less about the town’s least savory characters hassling me. People wouldn’t fuck with Kelly Robak’s woman— Oh God, where had that one come from? Definitely not his woman, definitely not, because for one, he would totally say something like that. Going to see my woman, tonight, he’d say. And all his meathead caveman friends would probably call me that, too. I have a name, I’d say.

Then I realized I was getting bent out of shape over the way I might be treated by a man who quite possibly had no designs on me, in a theoretical romantic relationship I didn’t even want to share with him. Clearly, I was still drunk. Only possible explanation. First thing I’d do on my day off would be to find a shiny new water bottle and make it a point to stay more hydrated. Yes, that’d solve my Kelly problems. Stay hydrated, stay sober, stay free of horny thoughts about my coworker. It wasn’t long before that resolve was tested. I saw Kelly an hour later in the hand-off meeting. He said good morning

to me, nothing in his expression or tone suggesting we’d forged some profound bond the night before. Since of course we hadn’t. He was firmly back in work mode, a big gray human wall of calm. If only parts of me didn’t have such a distracting urge to climb him. The morning went smoothly enough, and I spent the first couple of hours shadowing Jenny again. Then at ten I headed across campus to the Warbler building for restraint training. The class took place in a small gymnasium, a nice little setup with a basketball hoop, yoga balls, a weights set, sports equipment. A large senior nurse named Audra was leading the

three-session course. A stocky fortysomething, Audra proved herself surprisingly spry, kicking off the class by having a male orderly pretend to attack her, then breaking forcefully from his choke hold. I found the display more unnerving than reassuring, as all I could imagine afterward was being violently attacked from behind. “Everyone awake now?” she asked through a laugh, face pink from the performance. “Good! I’m Nurse Audra, and I’ve been at Larkhaven for sixteen years, not a one of them as a patient, if you can believe that! I’ve worked in every single building and on every

single ward, including the locked unit. Anybody here this morning from Starling?” I was alone in raising my hand. “Excellent, excellent. You’re all here for one reason—restraints. And if you came hoping this’ll be about straightjackets, well tough beans! We’re talking about the act of physically restraining a patient in order to sedate them. Lemme say first and foremost, deescalation is always preferable to a takedown—safer for us and the patients, and you can imagine it makes for a more harmonious environment. But restraints are still skills we all need for those worst-case scenarios.

“Now the key to effective restraints and breaks is all in the technique, and I’m going to show you all how even a tiny little woman like . . .” She prompted me with a nod. “Erin,” I supplied, annoyed by how many diminutives she’d employed. “How even a tiny little woman like Erin here can protect herself from attacks by a resident, even one twice her size and suffering from a psychotic episode. Of course, ideally, none of you will ever find yourselves in that position without fellow staffers on hand to come to your aid . . .” My attention wavered then, as Kelly and two other men entered from a side

room, one of them carrying an inflatable dummy, the kind you might knee in his plastic groin in a self-defense class. Kelly and the third orderly were lugging what looked like a wrestling team’s worth of blue gym mats. Then Kelly’s eyes met mine for the briefest second and I snapped my attention back to Audra. “We’ll start out gentle,” she was saying. “Let’s break into groups of four, three new recruits and one instructor apiece.” I wound up in a group with two RNs, a perky young one and middle-aged maternal one. Audra was with another group, but shouted to the instructors to

show us some “arm breaks.” Naturally, I imagined someone breaking my arm. My team’s instructor—a far warmer and more reasonably sized orderly than Kelly—had us take turns grasping his arms, then showed us in slow motion how he could swoop his hands up between our elbows to get free. We did it ten times apiece, quicker each time, then he made us put him in headlocks. It was almost fun. Though I sort of wished I got to put Kelly in a headlock. Probably be my only chance to feel like I had the better of him. After twenty minutes of drills, Audra gave a lecture about the importance of proper technique, horrifying us with

statistics about how many patients wound up with dislocations and fractures and sprains from panicky staffers not restraining them properly. “Let’s switch up those groups,” she said with a clap, “and I’ll take you through the basics of a prone restraint.” Two junior nurses and I ended up in Kelly’s group. He gave me a reassuring little nod that said, You’ll be fine, a taste of the more personal side of him from the night before. It was the last thing I needed, that wriggly feeling upsetting my middle when I was trying to learn skills for avoiding maiming people and getting maimed myself. “The goal for a restraint is always to

have three staffers on hand. One for each arm and one for the legs.” Audra and Kelly and the two other instructors walked us through a demo— Audra pretended to attack one of the orderlies, and he broke free of her grasp. Then Kelly and the other guy rushed over and eased her to the ground on her belly, one man pinning each arm and another her ankles. “As you can see,” Audra said from the floor, speaking mainly to the gym mat, “I’m completely immobilized, and no longer a danger to myself or others.” Her feet wiggled and her hands flapped, and I had to bite back a giggle. Then I glanced at Kelly’s flexed and forceful

arm and my body swapped in a few other inappropriate reactions. The southerly migration of my blood gave me a head rush and I quickly shoved the thought aside, lest I pass out and look even more incompetent than I felt. They ran through a few other demos: a restraint mid-attack, a two-man restraint, a restraint with Audra flailing like a windmill. For such a large man, Kelly had a certain grace about him. Most men his size would’ve lumbered, but his movements were measured and controlled, yet fluid. A ballet dancer he was not, but dexterous and quick. I imagined him fucking, and the grunting,

frantic caveman I might’ve previously conjured was replaced by a picture of elegant, filthy labor. Oops. Thankfully I didn’t get any more time to fantasize, as it was the new recruits’ turn to try the moves. The first few were easy, slow motion. But after a half hour, Audra had rotated to our group, and we struggled to “gently but assertively” wrestle her to the ground while avoiding her kicks and thrashes. The woman didn’t fuck around. By that time she’d worked up quite a sweat, and she stood from our latest successful attempt, red-faced. “Okay! Let’s try a few two-staff scenarios. One

on arms, one on legs. Rotate!” She bounded off to assist the next group, and Kelly strode to mine. I swallowed. “You and you,” he said, pointing to a nurse and an orderly. They both looked a bit wary, but surely they didn’t share the fear that had me so unnerved—the fear of enjoying touching this brute far too much. I watched as they ran drills with Kelly, and tried very hard not to think about getting drilled by Kelly. Then it was my turn, me and another young LPN. “Legs,” she said. We’d been taught to “call” our intended target, much like shouting “I got it!” in a baseball game to

avoid colliding with one’s teammate. It meant I was on arms. Big huge scarredup Kelly Robak arms. When the moment came to grasp them, my hands were nowhere near big enough to get a decent purchase on his obscenely thick biceps. Lordy me. He went down pretty easy the first time, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he smiled at me. With the side of his face pressed to the mat, it was tough to tell. “Enjoying yourself?” he asked, like he’d come upon me reading on a park bench. “I am. Maybe I’ll order you a white wine, while you’re down there,” I said, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

Now he was definitely smirking. “With a straw, I hope.” “A funnel.” “Touché.” Audra shouted her approval of our technique and we let Kelly go. We switched legs and arms, then it was time to rotate again. I was tiring, my back achy from all the bending, shoulders grinding in their sockets. This was a hard-ass job. A decent workout, though, if dampened by the possibility of bodily harm. “Let’s try some headlocks,” Audra said after a water break, some time later. We’d just rotated back into Kelly’s tutelage and I eyed his arm yet again,

imagining it clamped around my windpipe. “Trainees, attack your trainers, and trainers, break free in slo-mo.” I swallowed as Kelly turned to me first. With me at five-three and him at least a foot taller, it was easier said than done. I’d look less like an attacker than a scarf. “You want a stepstool?” I rolled my eyes. “I’m not that short,” I said as I circled around him. “You’re just way too tall.” I looped my arm around his neck, having to press my chest flush to his back to reach. Goddamn, he was warm. And hard. And huge.

I felt his hand on my forearm, demonstrating for the other trainees in my group. His fingertips seemed to dawdle at my wrist as he spoke, casual as a woman might caress a garment at a store, admiring the fabric. Surely I was imagining that. “Basic move,” he said, and I felt each word vibrating in his throat. “She’s using her right arm, so I’m going to use my left to get free. This isn’t the time to panic. Erin and I aren’t a great example, but usually your head’ll be pretty close to your attacker’s, and thrashing around is a great way to concuss yourself or the patient, or pull a tendon in your neck. Steady and calm’s the name of the

game.” Steady and calm. I could feel the muscles in Kelly’s broad back, feel his heat and his breathing, smell his perspiration. Steady and calm, I repeated to myself. Bet that’s not how you fuck. “Pretending she’s got a good squeeze on me,” Kelly went on, “I’m going to turn my head just slightly, to keep blood flowing through the carotid artery.” He said some other stuff, stuff I really ought to have been paying super-close attention to, but it was hard with us pressed together . . . even in the incredibly unerotic setting, with potentially lifesaving information being

imparted, even with a hangover. My body was pretty sure that its very existence balanced on its chances at rolling around with Kelly’s body in a non-training situation, and told my brain to fuck off. He got free—who knew how—and when the next person’s turn came to put Kelly in a headlock I tried to take mental notes. But his expression was nearly as distracting as his body, his mean face strained from the exercise and reminding me of how it might look, other times. The drills went on for another full, sweaty, awkward hour, then we took a five-minute break before switching to self-defense basics.

What if a patient grabbed your clothes? Your hair? Your arms, legs, throat, waist, or tried to gouge your eyes? We learned tricks for all these terrifying scenarios, then got teamed with a fellow trainee or trainer to do some improvisational drills, with Audra patrolling, correcting people’s form. To my equal pleasure and annoyance, I got paired with Kelly. If I wasn’t mistaken . . . had he picked me? We’d been standing fairly close together, but I felt pretty sure he’d chosen me. It’d be just like him to lay claims. And it’d be very unlike me to take such perverse enjoyment from it. I eyed him as we faced off. “Who’s

attacking?” “We’ll trade. You start.” “Fine.” I was tired and stinky, and so far the course had left me more overwhelmed than empowered. I circled Kelly and looped my arm around his neck. Again, I felt way more like a dangling kitten than an assailant. “You’ll never take me alive,” I told him, exhaustion making me punchy. He nearly laughed, a huff with a smile behind it, though I couldn’t see his face. “You make a lovely psychopath.” I squeezed his neck a bit harder, and he broke my hold, twisted around, and grasped each of my arms above the elbow. I was relieved to recall the

technique without even thinking, but Kelly had a real grip on me, not a loose one like we’d done in the drills at the start of class. He was holding me tight enough to hurt . . . though surely not as tight as a raging patient might. Lonnie’s face flashed across my mind, dropping my stomach to my feet but focusing my energy. I looped my arms up inside Kelly’s. It took four spirited tries to break his hold. “Not bad,” he said. I rubbed my sore forearms. “Not great. You could have head-butted me into unconsciousness ten times over, in the time that took.” “So try it again.”

And I did. Kelly made me do it a dozen times, until my shoulders burned and my face was flushed and my arms tenderized. I’d probably have bruises like his by the end of the three-day course, tattooed all black and blue. We swapped, and he stooped to curl his arm around my neck. His hold was loose enough, but his elbow was as locked and unyielding as an iron collar. I did everything I’d been taught and everything Kelly’s deep voice reiterated just behind my ear, but he was too strong. Or I was too weak. I felt dizzy from the hangover and the creeping claustrophobia, my muscles more limp with every attempt, noodles turning soft

and useless. My pushes grew frantic, and he must have sensed I was beyond trying. When he finally stepped back and let me rest, I was panting and no doubt red as a brick, my sweat stinking of whiskey and wine. He studied my face, and I didn’t think I’d ever felt so unattractive. “Well done,” he said. I glanced at the clock on the gym’s wall, finding it was only a minute until we were due to finish. I waved his compliment away, knowing I looked half-dead, and spoke through my huffing. “Oh yeah, piece of cake.” Though it never surfaced, I saw a smile lurking behind his lips.

“Great work, everyone!” Audra said with a clap. “See you back here tomorrow at ten for round two! So keep limber!” Kelly and I headed for the door together. “We’ve missed lunch,” I said as I realized it. My stomach growled, eavesdropping. “We missed lunch service. But there’ll still be something to scavenge, if you didn’t pack anything.” “I didn’t.” “Better get you introduced to the kitchen staff. Good friends to have around here.” “Oh?”

He nodded as we exited, and his eyes looked different outside. Nearly blue, like a thick, antique glass bottle. “The residents in the locked ward get so few luxuries, food’s a big deal. Sometimes having the power to score somebody an extra brownie is enough to avoid a meltdown.” “I’ll make a note.” We strolled in the warm June sunshine, its heat burning off a bit of my exhaustion and angst, if not my sweat. The drills were flipping through my mind like flash cards, and I hoped I wouldn’t have stress dreams about them all night. My legs yearned to slow down, dawdle so the walk took an hour, just me

and the spring air, no responsibilities, flanked by a hulking man capable of defending me against any number of deadly attacks. It would’ve been too strong to say I felt a bond with Kelly. My body was curious about his, but I didn’t have any urge to hold his hand as we walked, or to imagine he was my boyfriend. He’d shared too much about his romantic MO for me to waste my time mooning over him . . . but there was something there. Something not quite familiar, but comforting. I could see how he had a calming influence on the patients. If he ever got over his my-way-or-thehighway machismo, he’d probably make

one hell of a dependable husband for some tough-as-nails woman. We reached the entrance to Starling and I swiped us in. Kelly led me up a back stairwell to the third floor, and I knew we were near the kitchen from the smell. Tater tots. Kelly swung one of the double doors in. “Knock knock,” he said to someone I couldn’t see, then slipped inside, holding the door for me. It looked like a scaled-down version of my high school cafeteria. Lots of steel surfaces and steam and big freezers and plastic bins. Kelly introduced me to the man in charge, a short black guy my age named Roland. Before I knew it, we

were carrying trays to a break room I’d never been in before, just me and Kelly and a softly droning portable television propped on a pile of textbooks in the corner. Kelly opened a can of seltzer. “So. How is it, living in the transitional residence?” I swallowed a bite of turkey burger and shrugged. “It feels like a dorm. I think. I’ve never actually lived in one. Quieter, probably. But you know, communal showers, identical rooms, shared kitchen. It’s cheap. It’ll do the job until I’ve got my head wrapped around everything and know the area a bit better.”

“Before you decide whether or not to stay,” he translated, but incorrectly. I shook my head. “I’m staying, barring a seriously traumatic experience. It’s close to my sister, and it pays pretty well. I have to settle someplace, and get some clinical experience. And if I can handle a locked ward, I’ll know I’m capable of working just about anywhere.” “Why’s it so important to stay near your sister?” “I just need to. I sort of raised her, and I worry about her. She’s got a toddler and really bad taste in men. She requires a lot of maintenance, to keep from going off the rails.”

“Maybe you’d be surprised, if you left her alone to fend for herself.” I laughed. “I tried that, when I moved in with my grandma. I didn’t think I could look after her, and my sister. And occasionally my mom. So I told Amber —my sister—that I was done bailing her out all the time, and she was eighteen, and it was time for her to find her feet and all that.” “And?” I shook my head. “Within six months she’d run up eight grand on a credit card, got evicted, and turned up on my grandma’s doorstep with her rear windshield smashed out.” “Wild child?”

“By herself she’s not that bad. But she falls for the most horrible guys. I think part of her enjoys the drama, like she’s in her own reality show. But she’s got a son now, you know? You don’t get to star in your own show when there’s a kid around.” “So what, you’re just going to babysit her until your nephew’s safely off to college?” I slumped, exhausted by the thought. “I dunno. I just know it’s too soon to disentangle myself. I lost my grandma this winter and my mom’s barely in the picture, so Amber’s my only close family, really. And vice versa. I know it sounds codependent. I know it is

codependent . . .” “You’re just doing your best,” he offered. “Yeah. Yeah, I hope so.” “That’s all any of us can ever do. And a lot of us don’t even do that.” As depressing as Kelly’s wisdom was, it cheered me. I was doing my best. That was all anybody could do. “What do you think you’d be doing, if you didn’t have your sister to worry about?” “Jeez, I dunno. I wound up here, because of her moving, and I wound up in nursing because of my grandma. God, it’s so depressing to think about it that way.”

Kelly shrugged. “I wound up here because my old man was a raging drunk. We’re all just pinballs, getting bonked around wherever our upbringings kick us.” “So much for free will.” “Free will’s whatever you do when you punch out for the night.” “Then my free will’s got narcolepsy,” I said, and as if illustrating my point, a massive yawn unfurled from my lungs. “You’ll adjust. And tomorrow you get to sleep in.” I nodded. “Until ten, when I have to go back to wrestling practice.” He cracked a smile, cranking my internal temperature up a few degrees. “I

went easy on you today. Tomorrow and Thursday, I won’t fuck around.” “Oh, yay.” “You’re good, though.” “At what? Restraints?” He nodded. “A natural.” “Yeah, right. You had me in a headlock for at least three minutes and I couldn’t even budge your stupid arm. And don’t you have tomorrow off?” Another nod. “We’re on the same rotation. But I’ll be in, just for the morning. The overtime’s always appreciated. And it’s a piece of cake teaching restraints, knowing you debutantes won’t pull a pen out of someplace and stab me in the eye.”

I sipped my pop. “Only if you give me a good reason to.” “I’ll see what I can do.” “Well, I’ll look forward to that,” I said snidely, and finished my burger and downed the last of my drink. Kelly did the same, and we dropped off our trays in the kitchen and thanked Roland. “Back to the fray,” Kelly said as we signed in downstairs. He wrote spec obs Don beside his name, and I couldn’t be sure if I was disappointed or relieved that I might not see him again that afternoon. The second half of my shift proved quiet, borderline boring. Having Kelly as a distraction wouldn’t have gone

astray. As a psych professional you have to pay attention constantly, not just for signs of danger, but while taking a zillion sets of vitals, in making notes in the right files, doling out the right meds in the right dosages at the right times, making sure the right patient actually swallows them . . . Nothing dynamic, but I swear the sheer constancy with which you have to be alert is as tiring as any physical chore. By the time dinner hour was over and we met with the next shift for the hand-off meeting, I felt like I must be dreaming. I staggered down the stairwell on aching feet. I wiped my name off the duties board

and ran into Jenny while I was changing. “Got plans tonight?” she asked, dialing her combination lock. “No, none at all. Just finish unpacking and pass out.” “You’re more than welcome to come along to a little party across the road. Retirement bash for one of the veteran RNs in our geriatric ward. Free eats. You know where the transitional residence is?” “Yeah.” I stripped off my scrubs, not feeling compelled to tell her I was in fact living there for the time being. “You should come. Get off campus, enjoy a drink. I’ll introduce you around to some people from the other

departments.” I wouldn’t have minded meeting the geriatric staff. I had experience with that, after all, and wouldn’t say no if a chance to transfer out of the locked ward should present itself. “Starts at seven thirty,” Jenny said. “Bring your staff ID—they’ll be rigid, what with alcohol being served.” “Okay. Sure.” Why the hell not? It was my birthday. There’d be drinks, maybe a cake, and even if they weren’t in my honor, it’d be nice to do something special. Restraint training had been the highlight of my day, and that wouldn’t do. Exhausted or not, I deserved a bit more. I could top getting tossed around

and banged up by Kelly Robak. Then I pictured his body, and wondered if maybe I couldn’t. With twenty minutes to kill, I strolled through campus and crossed the road, headed up to my little apartment and changed into the only dress I owned. Nothing glamorous, but it gave me a bit of a figure, and that was a luxury after two days in nothing but yellow pajamas. As I clasped a pair of earrings, I hoped there’d be wine. Against my better judgment, I hoped there’d be Kelly as well. But he didn’t seem the type to carouse while still basically on the institute’s grounds, nor one to cut loose in front of colleagues and ruin his stoical

façade. Though he’d allowed me a glimpse of his after-hours self, at the bar. And surely I wasn’t so special that it’d been some one-time peek. On the first floor, a series of construction-paper signs pointed the way to the party, in the large basement rec room—the unglamorous venue surely picked for its proximity to work, and because alcohol wasn’t allowed anywhere inside Larkhaven’s gates. I didn’t recognize anyone when I arrived, but I was pleased to spot a motley selection of beer and wine lined up on a ping-pong table; crackers, cheese, veggies and dip, and an uncut cake on the other side of the net.

What I wasn’t so pleased to see was a room full of scrubs. I wasn’t the only one who’d changed, but the majority of the partygoers seemed to have come straight from a shift. Instantly I felt dumb and overdressed, some newbie weirdo in a wrap dress and heels—no matter how short they were—surrounded by sneakers and clogs. The folks who weren’t dressed for work wore jeans. “You came!” I turned to find Jenny behind me, holding a gift bag bursting with pink tissue paper. “Oh, hey.” “You look great. Trying to put the rest of us to shame?”

I tailed her across the room to a table laden with flowers and presents. I eyed them with envy. It was my birthday, after all. Standing there with no one to realize that fact, I felt lonely, deep down to my bones. But it wasn’t as though I were used to my birthday being special. My grandma hadn’t been in a state to remember it in recent years, and I considered it a banner year if my mom thought to call. Amber had offered to have me over for pizza and cupcakes, but since I got off work so late and my nephew would already be asleep, I’d asked for a rain check. I followed Jenny’s lead and poured

myself a cup of wine. She introduced me around, largely to staffers my own age. I smiled a lot and forgot everyone’s names, wondering if they’d remember mine or just think of me as That New Girl Who Didn’t Get the Dress Code Memo. Shyness had me drifting out of conversational orbits twenty minutes into the party, and I was about to up my wine dosage when someone set an empty cup beside mine. I knew it was Kelly from his oversized hand and its misleading wedding band, and my heart thumped as I tilted my face toward his. In an instant, I was drunk. “You look awful fancy.”

A blush warmed my cheeks and I tried to hide it by filling my cup. “I know.” “Special occasion?” I shrugged, looking around to indicate the party. It’s my birthday, I wanted to tell him. Make a big deal of me. “You promised me a glass of wine this morning in restraints,” he said. “True. Though I don’t see any funnels.” I filled his cup. He tapped it to mine and gave my body an open, brief up-anddown, at once businesslike and predatory. I took too big a gulp and felt my face burn brighter still. Kelly had changed, but only into jeans. “How you feeling, after this morning’s workout?”

I flexed my left shoulder and it swore in protest. “Pretty dinged up. Can’t say I’ll be sad when your days of throwing me around are over.” He faked a jab to his ego and gave me a wounded look, but there was mischief in his eyes. He hadn’t missed the double entendre I’d accidentally lobbed his way. “Be grateful there were gym mats.” “And witnesses,” I cut back, and yeah, it sounded pretty bad—like we were agreeing things would’ve evolved into something scandalous, had the setting been different. Damn it. “And Audra, barking corrections,” Kelly added. “Yeah. That’d be a mood killer.” Oh

fuck, why had I said that? His resulting smile was as dangerous as ever, a shot of pure, liquid stupid plunged straight into my bloodstream. He answered my flirtation with another assessing look. It wasn’t terribly professional, but I was grateful for that. I’d spent my first two shifts feeling like a newbie, a jailer, a waitress, and a wuss. Felt good to feel like a plain old woman, something enticing enough to bring a little heat to Kelly’s cool gaze. The wine suddenly tasted very expensive, and I decided it was everyone else’s loss, not taking the opportunity to dress up a bit, not my folly.

A small group of people came by and we made room for them to get drinks. I wandered toward the middle of the party with Kelly, praying no one could see the comical lust lines vibrating from my body toward his. He’d worked at Larkhaven for years so he knew everyone, and as long as I stuck by him, I was never at a loss for conversation. It seemed perhaps he did shed that cold façade alongside his gray uniform, and tonight he was as warm as I’d yet seen him. He introduced me and goaded our colleagues into recounting old war stories—funny ones, not scary ones. I was even invited to join Larkhaven’s softball team, though

judging by the way my coworkers put away the boxed wine, recreational drinking was the institution’s official sport. After an hour’s mingling I felt relaxed, even a little charming. I also felt dangerously attracted to the man on my left. But I wouldn’t ever act on it, so what was the harm? It’d been more than a year since I’d made out with a guy or had a date or even a crush, and I’d forgotten how fun infatuation was. Like being continuously buzzed on champagne. You just have to know when you’ve had enough. By ten I was yawning uncontrollably, and as nice as it was to feel cheerful for

the first time since arriving here, it couldn’t top the promise of bed. I got to sleep in a bit the next morning before restraints, and I could use all catch-up rest I had coming to me. “You want a refill?” Kelly asked me, nodding at my empty cup. “No, I better get to bed. It’s been a long couple days.” Walk me up, I wanted to say. Walk me to my door, and give me a look that said he wanted to kiss me, but not actually do it. Send me to bed with no thoughts of attacks or paperwork or antipsychotic dosages. But he didn’t. He drained his own cup and took mine, tossing both in a nearby garbage can. “You’re taking all the

glamour away.” He said it like I ought to feel guilty, and gave me a final assessing glance. “You’ll cope.” I smiled wearily and offered a wave before heading for the stairs. I wanted so badly to turn, to see if he was watching me go. But if he wasn’t, I’d be disappointed. And if he was, he’d know I cared. Upstairs, I changed into pajama pants and a tee shirt and checked a voicemail from my sister—no crisis brewing thank God, just “Happy Birthday” sung into the phone, with Jack shrieking gleefully in the background. I hung up, smiling. A knock at my door interrupted my search for a washcloth. Nervous, I

peered through the peephole. Kelly, of all people. Every ounce of my hard-earned selfpossession vanished in a breath. I swung the door in. “Um, hello.” He took up the entire threshold, and he was holding a vase of white lilies. Fucking hell, he was here to woo me. And I would go so, so easily. I wished I hadn’t just gone from heels and a dress to bare feet and an oversized Red Wings tee shirt. “Happy birthday.” He held out the flowers and I accepted them. “How did you know that?” “Saw it on the roster this morning—the participants list for the restraints

course.” His chameleon eyes looked blue again, the pale robin’s egg shade of my walls. “Oh. Well, thanks.” He was being so uncharacteristically sweet, I offered a dopey smile and admitted, “I wish you’d said something earlier. I was feeling sorry for myself all day, thinking no one knew.” “That’s a shame. Want me to sing to you?” This was a strange hybrid version of Kelly, a mix of the cool, civil man I passed on the ward, and the more mischievous one who’d proclaimed himself a controlling hothead in the neon intimacy of the bar. “That’s all right.” I put the flowers on

my dresser, disreputable bits of me still clinging to the hope that he was here to seduce me. Getting trounced by a gigantic orderly seemed a great way to kick off my twenty-ninth year. Except for . . . well, he was my coworker, for one. And nearly a stranger, and a bit of a chauvinist. But only a bit, my pussy pointed out. And he brought me flowers. Valid points. I cleared my throat and nodded to the vase. “They’re lovely, thanks.” “They’re secondhand. I nabbed them from the party.” Aaannnd . . . seduction ruined. “You stole someone’s going-away flowers?” “With permission. She had plenty more

where those came from.” Okay, so he hadn’t driven into town and back to get me a gift, but what in the fuck did I expect? Who did I think this guy was to me? “It’s the thought that counts,” he pointed out. “You’re right.” I wandered to my bed and took a seat, weariness redoubled. Kelly must have sensed it, as he said, “Excited to spend your first morning off practicing choke holds?” “Oh yes, thrilled. Though I’d rather do it with you than a patient.” He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. “You can come in, if you want.” I

pointed to a chair that didn’t match its desk, all the furniture secondhand, castoffs like my flowers. Like every stitch of clothing I’d owned growing up, even the shirt I wore now, inherited from some ex-boyfriend whose face I could barely conjure. Kelly’s gaze flicked around the room, but after a pause he shut the door behind him and pulled out the chair. My room was small to begin with, but stick Kelly Robak in the middle and it seemed all at once tight and hot. My womanhood suddenly felt much the same. I cleared my throat. “Seems like you’re finding your feet,” he said. I thought I could smell him,

behind the lilies, but it was probably a delusion. “I’m starting to get the routine. I know where stuff is, know some people’s names. Thanks, for letting me tail you at the party. It’s the least square-peggish I’ve felt so far. Overdressed or not.” His eyes darted around again, and not in a sexy, Which wall shall I nail her to? kind of way. “Is my room creeping you out?” “Nah, not quite. It’s just weird. It’s so much like one of the rooms from the locked ward, but a different color and without the bars, and with like, stuff on the walls. I keep thinking, ‘slashing hazard,’” he pointed to a framed

photograph that’d been there when I moved in. “Suicide risk.” He nodded to a belt of mine, draped around a bedpost, then to a bottle of perfume on my dresser. “Accelerant. Search the room for matches.” I smirked. “You haven’t clocked out yet.” “After four years, I never really do. Not ’til I’m through those gates and halfway to Darren.” What a grim thought. Happy frigging birthday. Kelly stood and strolled around my cell, taking stock of what little there was to note. He stopped before my bed, staring out my window with his hands

clasped behind his back. “Nice view,” he said, gaze on the dark woods. “Even better when the sun’s out,” I said dryly. He looked down at me and smiled— the first real smile I’d seen from him all day, even during the party. It heated me just as it had at the bar, filled me with bad ideas. “What?” He took a seat beside me, dipping the mattress. “We got a little something between us, don’t we?” Caught off guard, I deflected. “How little?” Another smile, a deeper one with a flash of teeth. “Cute. But I’m not

imagining it, am I? There’s something here,” he said, wiggling his fingers between our chests. He stared pointedly at the Red Wings logo on my shirt. “Plus you clearly dressed to seduce me.” “If you say so.” He winced like I’d just tried to knee him in the balls. “Okay, we can be like that.” Behind whatever blank expression I’d managed to slap on my face, my common sense and my libido were rolling around, pulling each other’s hair, slapping and spitting and fighting to come out on top. Or to come out underneath Kelly Robak, in the case of my libido. Luckily it ended in a draw.

“No, there might be something,” I admitted. “But not the kind of something I want to do anything about with a colleague. Not my first week at a new job.” My pussy had added the caveat, opportunist that it was. Kelly’s expression went cool, more calm acceptance than bruised ego, I hoped. He nodded. “Understood.” And with that, what could have been quite a memorable twenty-eighth birthday present rose and headed for the exit, bouncing the mattress beneath my butt. “Enjoy your flowers.” I followed, frowning. “Wait. Did you really come here thinking you’d get laid?

Off some stolen lilies and thirty seconds’ smooth-talking?” Another smile. “Haven’t known you long enough to have expectations. Maybe I’ll try back again with roses sometime. I’ll be sure to bring a receipt.” “Oh, fuck you,” I said through a laugh. The fucking nerve. But I was only halfinsulted, the rest a mixture of flattered and amused. He opened the door and I held it. With the possibility of witnesses strolling past in the hall, we both shrugged into semblances of friendly professionalism. “Happy birthday.” “Yeah, thanks.” He gripped the door frame and leaned

in real, real close, close enough to kiss. But his lips offered nothing but a smarmy-ass grin. “This is your room, so I’m letting you get your way—” “Letting me?” “Come by my place some weekend and maybe I’ll show you mine.” “Your way doesn’t sound like it takes no for an answer.” “You’re welcome to find out.” “Good night, Kelly.” He straightened. “See you beneath me on the gym floor tomorrow.” Eyes narrowed, I watched him disappear around the corner, listening until the sound of his boots clomping down the steps faded to the thrum of my

thumping pulse. I shut the door, opening and closing my fists to quell a faint shaking. He’d just said all that, hadn’t he? Not those cocky parting quips—that there was something between us. Something he wasn’t opposed to acting on. Was I opposed? Yes. Definitely. Probably. I didn’t know. I wasn’t even sure what Larkhaven’s policy was, on office romance or whatever. Ward romance. Not that Kelly Robak seemed the type to let institutional mandates dictate whom he may or may not deign to make his conquest. And he so was the conquesty sort.

That settled it—I would not be acting on anything with Kelly. No contact beyond the bounds of restraint training. From what he’d told me at the bar and just now by the door, he probably treated women like gas stations, in and out and on his way, thanks for the lube job. I glared at the flowers he’d left behind, annoyed that he’d taken me for someone whose professional dignity could be bought for a secondhand bouquet. “Nice try, Robak,” I told the flowers. I went down the hall to scrub my face and brush my teeth, deciding it had been one of my lousier birthdays. And if I went to sleep imagining Kelly restraining me with his shirt off, it was

entirely by accident.

Chapter Four

I slept. Didn’t feel like it, but I must have, since I’d shut my eyes and when I opened them again it was light outside my window. Every joint creaked as I left my warm bed, and when I stripped for my shower I discovered a garden of ugly blossoms smudged all over my arms, a bruise for every color of the rainbow. I covered them with a long-sleeved shirt and hiked yoga pants up my achy legs, chugged cold coffee left behind in the machine in the common kitchen, and

headed out to earn myself some fresh war wounds. I didn’t see Kelly when I entered the gym, and prayed maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t show. I needed a day with no booze, no Kelly, no intoxication of any kind. Clarity. “Good morning, Erin!” Audra must have been the only senior staffer who hadn’t gotten plastered at the party, as she seemed her usual boisterous self, her booming greeting ricocheting around my skull like a dodge ball. “Morning.” “You’re early. Want to help me out and spread these mats?” “Sure.” The mere effort of dragging the

first one from a pile by the wall had me sweating and flushed. The other attendees arrived shortly, and I straightened from squaring up the final mat just as Kelly appeared, blocking all the sunlight coming in from the hall with his big, ridiculous body. Don’t even look at him, I told myself. Not his face or his snarky-ass smile or those stupid arms. Of course that was a promise that couldn’t be kept. Within a half hour we were paired up, and I acknowledged him with a weary wave. “Morning,” he said, oh-so casual. “Yeah, morning.” “Sleep well?”

“Very well. And all by myself, just how I like.” He nearly grinned. I could see his lips straining to hold it in. Audra told everyone to improvise techniques for single-man restraints, stalling would-be attackers as best we could while we waited for theoretical backup. After a sloppy, slow-motion struggle, I wound up straddling Kelly’s ribs, pushing down on his arms with all my might. He smiled up at me. “You’ve done this before.” “Oh sure,” I panted. “All the time.” “Not last night.” I shot him a withering look. “I reserve my man-pinning skills for deserving

parties. Not just whoever turns up with some old lady’s stolen lilies.” “Ooh, you go right for the groin, don’t you?” “In your dreams.” My wrist hurt and I shifted my weight. Kelly took the opportunity to grab my arms and flip us over, him suddenly pinning me, though surely not in the way he’d prefer. I tried using the arm-holdescape trick, but it was useless in this position. In an instant I felt angry and helpless, my face burning, sinuses welling. Kelly must have seen the tears glossing my eyes. He let me go and I sat up, rubbing my arms where he’d grasped

them. I eyed Kelly’s biceps, at the unmistakable finger marks there and a faint, shiny scar. Would my arms look like his after a few years here? I didn’t know how I’d ever make it that long. Not as a nurse. Maybe as a patient, if I kept up this exhausting pace and gave myself a nervous breakdown. I felt real tears brewing and stood, dusting myself off and praying Kelly hadn’t noticed. He was the last person I needed catching me crying, twice in my first week. “That’s why prone’s always better than face-up,” he said mildly, getting to his feet. “Clearly.” “You okay?”

“I’m fine.” He leaned close, poised to impart some wisdom. “I’m fine,” I repeated, stepping back when he went to touch my shoulder. Just a minute ago we’d been borderline flirting, now I was a panicky mess again. Big men made me feel weak and unsure, and with Kelly the sensation seemed to fluctuate wildly between distress and . . . well, some kind of perverse attraction. The man gave me mood swings. Clinical strength. Audra began explaining the next drill, the perfect excuse to ignore him. “Rotate!” Audra called, and I made my escape.

*** To his credit, Kelly behaved after that. Leave it to female tears to accomplish what a perfectly articulate rebuffing hadn’t. The next day at training he didn’t toss a single provocative murmur my way, not even when he had me on my knees in a headlock. I spent the afternoon at my sister’s, playing on the floor with Jack, enjoying more than my share of belated birthday cupcakes, and hearing all about how Amber’s ex was late with his child support payment and apparently “banging some total skank from the lake who must be, like, seventeen.” That’s what you got, chasing after

meatheads with big arms. I pictured Kelly’s big arms, and told myself I was completely over the temporary insanity known as lust. If Kelly had been suffering from a similar lapse in good judgment, it seemed he was over it as well. We were both back at work on Friday, and though he didn’t ignore me, if felt like we’d never met before. Certainly not like we’d ever flirted, or like he’d ever shown up at my apartment, hoping to get laid. The infatuation had been fun while it lasted, but this was better. Wiser. Safer. In the late afternoon, Don had some kind of incident, Jenny told me, and I

didn’t see Kelly for the rest of our shift. By the time I was signing out, I’d started to wonder if maybe I’d dreamed all that sexual tension. Dreamed that he’d smiled at me at the bar, sat on my bed and informed me there was something brewing between us, and that I’d once been fool enough to agree with him. Whether it was a dream or not, I was awake now. Wide fucking awake, and steering way clear of Kelly lest I ever lose my mind again. My sister and mom were welcome to his type, and all the pleasurable mistakes those men offered. As for me, no thank you. All set. If you want me, I’ll be at the coffee shop, looking for a nice boy of manageable

proportions with no scars and a basic grasp of feminism. And if you’d asked me at eight o’clock that evening if I still had the hots for Kelly Robak, I’d have told you with perfect conviction that no, I did not. I was rereading a book from one of my certification courses, cramming for an imaginary quiz on the various disorders of Starling’s patients. My patients. I wasn’t learning anything new, but going through the motions of preparation soothed me. Kelly was the furthest thing from my mind, until a curt knock jerked my head up from the page. I yanked on a cardigan over my tee to hide the fact that I wasn’t wearing a bra.

I opened the door, and there he was. All tall and huge and with a dark, fresh gash on one temple. “Hi,” I said. “Hey.” How regular a thing was this going to be, his turning up at my door unannounced? I probably needed to invest in a less-dumpy sleep wardrobe. I stepped aside and he stalked past me, moving in a way that told me his brain was still firmly clocked in. “You okay? What happened?” “Don,” he said. “Jenny said there was an incident.” I stepped closer, examining his cut and counting six stitches. “He attacked you,

huh?” He nodded. “Got ahold of a letter opener from someplace.” I shut the door behind him. “Shit.” Don was his favorite patient; everyone knew that. But why was Kelly here? “Is he stable now?” “They tranqed him—asleep before I even got sewn up.” I glanced again at his wound, black with blood. “Jesus. Thank goodness he didn’t get you in the eye.” What can I do for you? I wanted to ask, but it felt like I already knew the answer, and the answer was, he didn’t know any better than I did why he was here. We got a little something between us,

don’t we? The words trickled cool foreboding down my back, chased by a dangerous warmth. All that lust I thought I’d gotten over . . . It’d gone dormant, that was all. Now it was wide-awake, hungrier than ever. I asked a different question. “Would you like to go out for a beer?” It was what he’d done for me when I’d been upset, and it wasn’t terribly late. We needed to go somewhere—anyplace that wasn’t my bedroom. “Nah.” “You look like you could use a drink. I wish I had something exciting to offer,” I said, and he took a step closer. “But I’ve only got iced-tea mix . . .” I trailed off,

took a step back as he took another forward. My gaze dropped from his eyes to his mouth. His big, warm hand touched my side beneath my cardigan, and I made a soft noise, the sound of sense being knocked from my skull, a tiny ooah. As we took another step together, his palm slid around my ribs to my back, fingers strong and bossy, just as I’d known they’d feel. Push him away, my brain coached. Then, Oh shit, my breath must be awful. My libido elbowed it aside, reaching for the wheel. I mumbled his name, having no clue if it was the sound of a protest or a swoon.

Like a nineteen-sixties secretary fielding a pass from her boss, fingering her pearls, breathless. Mr. Robak, we really mustn’t. The back of my knee hit the mattress, but his hold kept me from falling. He put his other hand to my arm, that intense gaze watching as he pushed the sweater from my shoulder. My heart stopped. He’d peel me like a banana if I let him. I couldn’t remember a man ever looking at me like that, like there was a Very Important Message printed on the bare skin under my clothes, and that reading it was a matter of life and death. Then Kelly’s gaze hopped to my face and I got frozen in

those cold eyes. He touched my collarbone, my throat, my cheek and ear; then he cupped the back of my head, fingers tangling in my hair. He’s going to kiss you. Better decide if you want that or not. I’d pretty much told him after the party that I didn’t want it—or didn’t want to act on it—and the fact that he was here, coming on to me this hard, should have been enough to piss me off. But my sex drive had clubbed my better judgment unconscious and locked it in a trunk, and all that came back was, Jesus, he’s got big hands, coupled with an irrational urge to suck on his fingers. His pale irises had grown as dark as

his intentions, lids heavy. I felt my lips part in invitation, but the look he gave wasn’t one that sought permission. More a warning than a request, and I remembered again what he’d told me, about how controlling he was. I want what I want, the way I want it, my memory echoed, and my brain translated. I fuck who I want, where and when and exactly how I want to. As he lowered his mouth to mine, gravity dissolved. My heart dropped to my feet and the room seemed to float, then the only force of nature left to obey was Kelly’s lips. A soft kiss for only a moment, firmer as his grip in my hair tightened.

I shivered, wondering if this was how my sister had felt, all those times she kissed one of her terrible boyfriends, made one of her awful mistakes. If her mistakes felt half as good as Kelly’s mouth, I forgave her. Soft lips making callous suggestions. Three orderlies couldn’t have held me back. He released my head, pulled at my hips with both hands, drawing me close so our thighs touched. I had to crane my neck to keep kissing him, and it made me feel small. It made him seem huge. His tongue was firm, slick, his fingers rough and restless. My pussy tightened, hot with impatience, squeezing every last scrap of rational thought from my head. I

held his biceps, grabbed on to that thick, locked muscle like my life depended on it. I was tilting, somehow, my weight in his arms. My head was on the pillow, back on the covers, Kelly’s thigh between mine, and his mouth plundering. I held his face, stroked his neck as we kissed—as he kissed me, more accurately. The bristle of his buzzed hair was soft, interrupted here and there by smooth furrows of scar tissue. I wanted to memorize every cut and bruise and hard swell of his body, to possess that knowledge with the accuracy of a map and pore over it in my memory on lonely nights.

His other knee moved, joining its twin between my legs. I should have been offended, but all I wanted was for him to lower his body and let me feel what I might have stirred between his thighs. Or what taking advantage of me might have stirred—that was how it felt, everything smacking more of coercion than seduction. It felt like something I’d lament come morning, an impulsively downed shot that offered reckless exhilaration chased by hours of regret. It stirred the curiosity gnawing at me. I stroked his shoulders, the muscle pinched to hard crests from how he was braced above me. My touch was telling him I was okay with this. My

body was telling us both that, a million invisible hands reaching for him, wanting him, welcoming him. Instincts warred in my gut, the urge to fuck trading parries with the urge to protect my heart. No, not my heart. No. My pride, only. I was in danger of getting my ego bruised, not my heart broken. My pride wasn’t such a guarded commodity, and the chance to explore this man’s body was a tempting trade. My pride had been fine for ages, but I hadn’t felt desire like this in years—I’d thought my capacity for it had faded with the rest of puberty’s insanity. Kelly’s touch made me feel young and dumb again, excited and awake. Wanted, no

matter how fleeting or selfish his needs might prove. He kissed me slower, deeper, filthy as fucking, and lowered his hips to mine. Unbidden, my hand tugged at his shirt. He let me peel it up and over his head, then stripped my sweater away, tossing it to the floor. Dark sounds rumbled from his throat as he claimed my mouth, moans and grunts brewing. My fingers curled against his bare back. He’ll fuck like an animal. I’d never been with a guy who was like that. I’d always picked safe guys, generous but civilized in bed. And I’d always looked forward to their final sprints toward release, for those frantic, impolite

moments of driving flesh and fevered groans. Maybe he wouldn’t be generous, but I bet fucking Kelly would be nothing but frantic, driving flesh and beastly sounds. Maybe he’d give me memories worth pleasuring myself to for the next six months. Or maybe not. I freed my mouth and gulped a breath. Kelly went still above me, waiting. All I managed was a croaky, “Well.” “Well.” I found the wherewithal to inch myself back, pushing up on my elbows. “Where are my roses?” I hadn’t realized I needed it so badly, but when he smiled, my heart unraveled. He crawled a bit closer, and spoke

against my lips. “Brought you something better, if you want it.” “You really are shameless.” “You want this, same as me.” “Want what?” Kelly left me to stand beside the bed. Laces were tugged loose, shoes and socks kicked aside before I could realize what was happening. A freed button, a lowered zipper, and he pushed his jeans to the floor. As I sat up I stole only a glance, just enough to know his boxer briefs were black and his cock wanted out. He looked big and hard and obscene, and getting caught staring would’ve felt incriminating. I studied his bare chest instead, his chiseled belly. I

memorized the shapes of his shoulders and hips, drank in the finest, most masculine body that’d ever been offered to me. I took a crisp mental snapshot of the very big mistake I was about to make, and swallowed. He stepped out of his pants, and in seconds his weight was bucking the bed once more, his bossy hands urging me to lie back. He’ll take a mile, some goody-goody in my head warned. Give this man an inch and in a blink he’d be halfway across the county and already forgetting me, just some newbie nurse he vaguely remembered nailing during her first week on the job.

But he felt too good. Sinful, the way his warm palms stroked my shoulders, the way he wedged his knees between my thighs and loomed over me. His body was tense in the glow of my reading lamp, at once heavy and lean like some rare predator, every inch of skin and tendon and muscle seeming to thrum with life and impulses. Reflexes. He braced one hand at my side, and trailed the knuckles of the other down my arm, up my ribs and along the edge of my breast. I held my breath, flesh tightening under his caress. He traced the curve with his thumb then closed me in his heat, squeezing softly. His gaze jumped to my face and snatched the air

from my lungs. Tell me I’m beautiful. Kelly’s hand slipped from my breast and he leaned in close. “Turn over.” The words sounded ominous in his deep, dark voice, but I did as he said. A strong hand settled me against him on our sides, his chest melting my back muscles like butter. I felt his cock just below my butt, hard and hot through his underwear and my pajamas. He stroked my thigh, kneaded it, then coaxed it up. His mouth brushed the back of my neck; soft, slow kisses fogging my brain so thoroughly I didn’t protest as his hand crept closer, closer. His palm slid over my mound, cupping me, the other hand

tucked beneath my ribs. Something in his touch told me to trust him, so I let him hold me, feeling warm and fragile and protected, a captured bird. He told me things without uttering a syllable. The kisses behind my ear said, You’ll give me anything I want tonight. The palm heating my sex added, And anything you don’t offer, I’ll take. Promises, not warnings. I’d always been a girl whose spine stiffened the second she felt a man trying to sweet-talk or pressure her, but not with Kelly. Had to be the voice, or maybe the hard length of him pressed to my ass. One dose of Kelly and I went docile, welcoming the surrender.

He plucked at my hem, and without thought, I helped him take my shirt off. There was cool air on my bare skin, then the hot whisper of Kelly’s lips across my shoulder. I shut my eyes as he freed the bow of my pajamas, slackened the waistband with a tug. You hadn’t even kissed him twenty minutes ago, and now you’re going to let him touch you? Down there? Fucking right. He slid his hand inside, the tips of his fingers tracing me through my underwear. I reeled. His hips shifted, cock pressing harder at the juncture between my thighs. What if he wants actual sex?

That question grounded me. Surely he did want actual sex, and I wasn’t on anything and I didn’t have condoms. Even if he’d come prepared, I’d have to tell him no. That was too far, and as good as these horrible mistakes felt, I’d have to find out what happened when Kelly Robak didn’t get what he wanted, how he wanted it. What if he gets mad? Better to find out now than in a few minutes, before I gave him too much implicit permission. “I can’t go all the way tonight,” I murmured. Oh Jesus, I sounded like a scared-shitless high schooler in the back of some horny upperclassman’s car.

Kelly said nothing, just kept whispering things with his hips and fingers. You’ll go where I tell you to go, they informed me. I imagined the worst, of his pressing the issue and my not telling him to stop. Us, as we were now, but my underwear gone, my body ready, Kelly pushing his shorts down and sliding inside me. The breaths heating my neck would deepen to grunts, the fidgeting of his hips speeding to thrusts. I wanted all those things as badly as I feared them. I wanted to know what he sounded like as the need mounted, what he’d say as he chased his pleasure. A man so in control, coming undone. I didn’t know which of us I distrusted

more, on this bed. He made me curious—me, the girl who’d always planted her feet firmly in place when the other kids wanted to race after trouble. I was in my sister’s shoes now. Shoes that felt like roller skates, bad ideas like magnets and me dipped in steel. I’d glide right into whatever Kelly wanted, I could feel it. And I hated myself for it. But you can’t fuck him unprotected. He’d be the one fucking, silly girl. Still. If that happened . . . it’d feel awful, come the dawn. I’d feel foolish and reckless, and any pleasure that giving in might offer, it’d sour to days or weeks of disappointment, cast a shadow

over my working relationship with this man, maybe even wreck the professional trust I’d already invested in him. “Where’d you go?” Kelly whispered. I’d turned still and stiff, I realized, brittle with regrets I hadn’t even earned yet. “I’m right here.” He kissed my ear, and when he spoke it was like he’d stepped inside my mind. “Not all of you.” “You scare me, a little.” Another soft kiss. “What about me?” Your intentions. And the way you garble my intuition. “I don’t know. You’re just more . . .” “More what?” Another kiss, another hot exhalation.

I spoke from some thoughtless, honest place. “I don’t trust myself around you. This way.” “There’s something between us,” he murmured. “We’re just doing what it’s asking.” “It feels like I’m just doing what you ask.” “And you don’t like that?” As he said it, his fingers traced my lips through my panties, cock pressing close. Heat flashed, dizzying me. I swallowed a moan, scrabbling for words. “I like it now. I’m afraid I’ll wish I hadn’t done so much in the morning. It feels good, but it won’t last.” “That’s what pleasure is.”

Indeed. That was what made much of it decadent. Every one-too-many cocktails a person downed, every cookie that wrecked a diet, every bad-idea boyfriend taken by my mother or sister . . . all just pleasures given in to, consequences be damned. But I hated consequences. I’d spent my entire life searching for calm in the fallout of other people’s shitty impulses. Push him away, my brain said. Fuck him, my body begged. All these years you’ve wasted cleaning up after other people’s parties. Quit reaching for the dustpan. Kelly slid my pajama bottoms over my hips. Thoughtlessly, I shifted to let him

pull them to my thighs, my knees, then I kicked them away myself, all those fresh chances to tell him to stop heaped on the growing pile. His hand was on my belly and slipping lower, lower. His cock was against my ass, insistent. I felt his knee nudging my legs, and I did as it said, raising the top one. He moved behind me, adjusting his erection, pressing it deeper between my thighs. My breath was shallow, cheeks fevered, lips swollen. Drunk again. Drunk on Kelly. “Jesus,” I muttered. “Got a better name you can say, if you want.” Before I could reply, his hand slipped

inside my underwear, robbing me of words. His fingers tickled my curls, warmed my skin. They glanced my clitoris and I bucked. It was too much and nowhere near enough. His breath steamed hot on my neck, and with a low, sharp moan, he stroked my clit. I gasped. “Good,” he murmured. He withdrew his hand but only to wet his fingertips at his mouth. Then they were between my legs again, hot and slick, teasing me with explicit caresses. I groaned, imagining his tongue. His cock. He was imagining the same, I knew. I could feel his hips moving, rubbing his thick length against my inner thighs with steady thrusts. I’d never wanted a man so intensely.

So simply. His flesh inside mine, two greedy bodies taking what they wanted from each other. I imagined him above me, working. That harsh face, cruel with arousal, that voice hijacked by the sounds of his nearing release. My own climax was building against his quickening touch. I fondled my breast, toying with my nipple to double the sensations. I was close, so close, and Kelly could tell. His hips bumped my backside again and again, clothed cock fucking my thighs. He grunted behind my ear with each impact, and it was his voice that did me in. The orgasm swallowed me whole, drowning me in perfect, violent

heat; too much, way too much. I grabbed Kelly’s wrist, forcing his hand higher, the pleasure so intense it hurt. I heard myself panting, gulping air. I heard Kelly murmur, “Good girl,” and he kissed my jaw. I let his wrist go and the ball of his hand brushed my throbbing clit with a jolt. His fingers dipped lower, parting me like water. I blushed, shocked by how wet I was. That’s been permission enough for too many pushy men, I reminded myself. But his fingers delved deeper and a lustheavy sigh in my hair erased the worries. “That’s where I want to be,” he whispered. He stroked my clit with his

slick fingers, then slipped back inside with a moan. “You want me there, too, don’t you?” I wouldn’t lie, but I wouldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t take this chance to reassert some boundaries. “I want you,” I admitted. “But not tonight. Not that far.” “I heard you the first time.” Not a jot of irritation in his tone—just a fact. His hand left my pussy to fumble behind my butt. Suddenly I could feel him, his unmistakably bare cock between my thighs, pressed to the damp crotch of my panties. Then he was touching me again, warm fingers penetrating with slippery suggestion, erection stroking me through

the cotton. He spoke right against my neck, lips tickling my skin. “Feel that?” “Yeah.” “Feel how bad I want you?” He pressed roughly against me, a thrust that would’ve made us lovers if not for my last stitch of clothing. I answered with a little moan. “You’re so wet,” he whispered. He rubbed my clit, letting his length tease my lips with the friction of wet cotton. I felt the flex of his hips as he thrust, muscle as hard as his dick. “I can’t wait to feel you.” His body sped at the suggestion, alongside my pulse. I hadn’t had many lovers, and none had ever been able to do this—to make me this

crazed. Certainly not to make me come without instruction or assistance. But his fingers read me like Braille, and in no time at all I felt a second climax building against his touch. Fuck, I wanted him. I wanted him above me, those strong hips spreading my thighs. I wanted to see him—his face and chest and cock as he took me. But not tonight. Not tonight. “I’m gonna make you come,” he said. “Tell me.” “You are.” Oh, he was. His bossy words alone had me close. “I’m what?” “You’re going to make me come.” A smug hmmm at my ear, wet

fingertips at my clit, hungry cock begging for entrance. He pulled my panties aside. I froze. But it was his fingers that taunted my folds, not his cock. “So tempting,” he muttered. Indeed. Just one bad decision and I’d be able to feel his hard flesh inside me. “Someday you’ll give yourself to me,” he said matter-of-factly. “Let me have whatever I want, do whatever I say.” It would’ve been a pretty pompous announcement if I hadn’t suspected it was completely true. “I’ll have you pleading for my cock.” He pumped me with his fingers, hips mirroring the rhythm. “Can’t wait to hear you beg.” He let the crotch of my panties

go, slipping his fingers back down the front to rub my clit again, erection taunting my swollen lips. I imagined him rolling me onto my stomach, taking me from above and behind at once. I’d never wanted someone this way before, never wanted to be dominated. I’d always seen strong or pushy men as dangerous creatures to be kept at a distance. But with Kelly I wanted to see the beast set free to take what it wanted, exactly how it wanted it. Behind me, he changed. His thrusts were for him now, designed for his pleasure and not mine. He was that thing I coveted most during sex, a man losing control. One second’s massive lapse and

he could have me—slide his thick cock between my slick lips and prove himself a liar, and me a fool. Do it, I thought. He moaned, a long, desperate, needy sound. His fingers abandoned my sex, a gruff hand angling my hips so his dick rubbed my clit with every thrust. “Fuck.” “That’s right,” he muttered. “That’s right. Lemme feel you come.” The position triggered a stitch in my side and his fingertips dug hard into my hip, promising yet more bruises. But I felt my body obeying, the next orgasm drawing me tighter, hotter, closer and closer against his punishing cock. His chest pushed hard into my back, tilting

me so I had to brace myself on my elbow. He was half on top of me now, but fuck, he was hot. I wrenched my neck to steal a glimpse of that mean, scarred-up face, and I was done. Those irises like ice, red-black blood and white stitches, lamplight making a golden halo of his hair. I turned back and shut my eyes tight, came against his cock, trembling, shuddering, moaning. “Good, good, good,” I heard him muttering as I came down, a panting mantra set to the rhythm of his hips. “Fuck, here.” He grabbed my hand and forced it between my legs. I felt the smooth, wet crown of his cock for one

thrust, two, then he jammed his body against mine, hot come filling my cupped palm. His breaths heated my neck in tight bursts, and I heard every tiny sound of his lips and tongue as he swallowed. He pulled away. I scanned the floor, then wiped my hand on my tee shirt, sobering instantly. When I sat up I found Kelly stretched on his back, cock hidden by his underwear once more. I hadn’t even gotten a look at it. “Well,” I said. “Well.” I cleared my throat and smoothed my wild hair, and hoped I sounded casual. “Guess you do get what you want, after all. I stand corrected.”

He didn’t reply, just shut his eyes and smiled some mysterious little Kelly smile. I studied his body in the warm, low light, watched this confounding, gorgeous, frightening animal resting on my covers. “You seem like you should have a tattoo,” I told him. “A massive one.” His eyes opened. “What? And let some asshole draw on my skin, and have to live with it the rest of my life if he fucks it up?” “Just saying. It’d go with the motif.” I leaned close, skimmed my palm over his bristly hair, traced his ear, drew my thumbnail down the scar that ran the length of his throat. It felt thrilling and

dangerous, like stroking a lounging panther. “Where did you get this? On the ward?” “No, when I worked in the pen.” “Oh good. I mean, not good, but . . . You know.” Kelly yawned and shut his eyes. “Don’t you dare fall asleep on my bed. It’s barely big enough for one reasonable-sized person.” And he was on his feet a moment later, gathering his clothes, nearly making me regret the quip. I tucked my legs beneath the covers, watching. What on earth had I just done? With a coworker, aided by exactly no alcohol? But a girl doesn’t need a drink

with a body like that fogging her senses, I thought, fascinated by the flex of his shoulders as he hiked up his pants. “Find whatever you needed when you decided to turn up and bother me again?” I asked. “My needs are simple. Same as any man.” Liar. You came here because of whatever happened with Don. He’d come here for sex, but not for sex’s sake. For something else, something I’d likely never know. You’re not as simple as you wish you were, Kelly Robak. He zipped his jeans. “A man needs meat, sleep, and pussy, to keep from going insane. Not always in that order.”

My jaw dropped. I yanked the covers up to my neck and glared at him. “You spoiled my view.” I glared harder, and Kelly sighed. “Don’t give me that look, like we ever said this was anything more than exactly what it was.” “Don’t you flatter yourself into believing that’s why I’m annoyed. But you’re just going to lump me in with a steak and a nap and expect me not to be insulted?” “I don’t mind being the same to you.” He tugged his shirt down his chest, then stooped to get his socks and shoes on. “Never said women didn’t have the same kinds of needs. Color me flattered

you deemed my cock worthy of the job.” He straightened. I rolled my eyes, so hard I nearly pulled something. “Get out of my room, Kelly. I’ll see you at work.” “See you right here,” he said, tapping his temple, “when I retire all alone to my cold, empty bed in a half hour.” I gave him a mightily peeved look to remember me by. Kelly just smiled, then turned and closed the door behind him. Fuckity fuck fuck.

Chapter Five

Morning came way too soon. I overslept, having been too distracted by my colossal mistake to remember to set my alarm, but it was a blessing. I had barely any time to lament what had happened between scrambling to the shower, scrambling into my clothes, and scrambling across the road and through the grounds to Starling, in dire need of coffee. I didn’t run into Kelly until the handoff meeting. Ignoring him was a tempting

idea, but too cowardly. Ignoring what had happened was better, so I did my best to act like this was any old meeting, that he was any old coworker. Not one who’d made me come twice, then pretty much told me I’d merely been the most convenient pussy on hand to satisfy his caveman appetites. Nope, that guy across the circle was just Kelly, an orderly who happened to work on the same ward as me. The previous evening his gash had been the worst of it, but overnight a nasty greenish-purple bruise had bloomed around the cut. I was trying my level best not to study it and get caught staring, when Dr. Morris, the senior

psychiatrist on duty, gave a curt, doleful sigh, and said, “So, most of you have heard, I’m sure, that Don made a suicide attempt last night.” A few stoic nods, but I froze, only my lids able to move, blinking their surprise. Why on earth had Kelly not told me? Not the hottest foreplay ever, I grant you, but you’d think he’d have mentioned it. Jenny picked up the topic. “We don’t know how, but he got hold of a metal letter opener—” The group collectively winced and grimaced. “I know, I know. So please, be extra mindful. Guys, stay vigilant during those

room searches. Kel, you saw him this morning, right?” Kelly nodded. “He’s still groggy. Couldn’t tell you how he’s feeling.” With Kelly talking, I had a fine excuse to stare at his bruise and cut. He’d got that wrestling the next best thing to a knife out of Don’s hand. It suddenly looked so . . . obscene. “How real was it?” another orderly asked. “He was serious,” Kelly said. “He was already bleeding when I showed up —he wasn’t sitting there with the thing at his wrist, waiting for someone to walk in on his big production. He was real pissed to see me.”

My angst toward Kelly faded. He’d come to me after finding his favorite resident in the midst of a suicide attempt, after he’d gotten his temple slashed with the weapon of choice, probably already slick from another man’s blood. It sucked, feeling used. But it couldn’t have sucked half as bad as whatever Kelly had been feeling when he came to me, needing sexual medicating. I just had to make it clear I wasn’t here to be anybody’s soothing distraction. No man’s jab of temporary calm, infatuation or not. “So Don’s going to be spending his day with the docs,” Jenny said, with a nod toward Dr. Morris. “We’ll have a

couple guys on him, in shifts, but Kel, I want you to sit this one out.” If you blinked, you’d have missed Kelly’s response. A fly’s wingbeat of overt annoyance, a narrowing of his eyes and hardening of his brow, then it was gone. “Sure.” “Best we don’t chance letting him see that little souvenir he gave you. Once he’s lucid he’ll be primed to look for reasons to beat himself up over this.” “You got it.” The meeting wrapped and it was time for morning meds, residents arriving to queue beyond the large square painted on the floor before the nurses’ station window, the patients’ so-called “zone of

privacy.” My heart thumped hard when it was Lonnie’s turn to approach. He’d avoided me my second day, dodged me like I’d been the business end of a skunk. “Not the apologetic type,” Jenny had told me. But today he looked right in my eyes with his magnified ones, and I looked right back, and smiled pleasantly, finding his pill cup and sliding it over. “Good morning, Lonnie.” “Yeah, morning.” He filled a paper cone from the water cooler. “Do you have any questions about your medication?” Nothing. Jenny asked, “How we feeling today, Lonnie?”

He swallowed his pills and slid the crumpled, empty cone through the slot before shuffling off. “Not talkative, that’s for sure,” I said. “He won’t be, with you, not after what happened on Monday. Not for a while. Consider it his version of a sorry.” Deep in my scrubs’ hip pocket, I felt my phone vibrate. I told myself to ignore it, wisely wary about letting myself get distracted while meds were being distributed and logged. But between careful notes and morning greetings, a thought slipped through. What if it’s Kelly? A text or something. Saying what? “Thanks for the

pussy?” He doesn’t even have your number. He could have gotten it from someplace. Same as he found out my birthday and my room number. You shouldn’t give a shit, so you better at least act like you don’t. Let him wait. It was I who ended up waiting, though, nibbling my psychic fingernails to the quick for an hour before I got a chance to check my phone. And it wasn’t Kelly; it was Amber. Marco coming today, the text said. Don’t think it’s going to be good. Are you working? Ah, fuck. Translated by someone

who’s known Amber her entire life, that text said, Marco’s coming and I’m fucking terrified. Come fix this. I texted back a quick, When? and waited for the longest ninety seconds ever for her reply. Noon, I think. On his lunch break. Well, he had a job—that was a new development. But the fact that Amber was freaked-out now, before he’d even arrived, wasn’t good. If she wasn’t really worried, she’d welcome the drama, be more than happy for him to show up so she could make a big scene. This was bad. I had to go. No. Not in the middle of work. I

needed boundaries. But Amber needed me, and family came first. I was the only one she had. If I didn’t come running, nobody would. “Jenny?” I asked as we reorganized the meds. “Yup.” “Is there any chance I could take my lunch break off campus?” Our lunches weren’t technically off-the-clock. We took them in shifts during the patients’ lunch period, and at least a couple of nurses needed to hang near the dining area, for emergencies. She thought a moment. “That should be fine. I don’t think anyone else requested leave. Check the board, though.”

“Great. Thanks.” I bit my tongue, temped to overexplain. Like she needed to hear about my family issues, on top of the crises she was paid to give a shit about. The morning passed way too slowly. Kelly was on the ward, and if he felt adrift without Don there to keep an eye on, he didn’t let you know it. I glanced at him every now and then, but I felt hardly anything—only the faintest glimmer of lust, a shadow of regret. Worries about Amber’s bad choices eclipsed my own. So I’d fucked up and screwed around with my hyper-macho coworker. The boyfriend who’d once shaken Amber so hard she’d had to wear a neck brace for

a week was coming over, and not for the latest of a thousand drunken, weepy apologies, from the look of her text. The second the lunchtime meds were prepped and Jenny gave me the goahead, I was bolting down the halls and across campus to the apartment complex. It was twenty-five minutes’ drive to Amber’s, which meant if I sped, I had just enough time to grab her and Jack and pile them in my car and bring them back here, if things looked really bad. My tires squeaked as I peeled out of my space, taking the speed bump at the exit so fast I bit my lip open. I tasted blood all the way to Amber’s and saw red when I pulled up and spotted

Marco’s stupid, shiny, ’roided-out pickup parked next to her sun-bleached Cavalier. Three months he was behind on Jack’s child support, but his rims looked new. Probably never missed a truck payment. The fucking priorities. Parking next to him, I slammed my door so hard I almost lost my footing on Amber’s gravel drive. I heard the argument before I caught sight of either of them, and whipped the screen door open, sending it bouncing off the siding with a rattle. “Erin?” Amber called. “Yeah.” I found them in the kitchen, standing rigidly on either side of the counter, Jack hugged to Amber’s hip,

huge blue eyes full of confusion. I wanted to take him in my arms and shut those perfect little lids on all this. Amber’s eyes were just as huge. Skinny legs in a too-short jean skirt, dirty-blond hair a wet tangle, flip-flops on her feet. Still my baby sister, in so many ways. She looked pissed, but not hurt or scared. Marco looked like the douche he was, nearly tall and nearly muscular, nearly shaved head. Like you’d left Kelly out in the sun for a week to soften and grow tan. “Hey, Erin,” Marco said, gaze on my sister. “What are you doing here?” He did that thing I hate, sucking a

snorting, snotty breath through his nose, a glimmer of the fat old townie he’d one day become. “Had some business to discuss with Amber. And to see my son.” Don’t say it, I beamed to Amber. But I could see on her face, even my little instigator wasn’t calling Marco’s paternity into question, not today. Good girl. “He thinks I’m seeing some guy he knows,” Amber said. “Some guy I’ve never even met, just because his stupid drunk friend thought he saw us together at some bar.” “He wasn’t drunk. And it was you. I know that pink sweatshirt he said you

was wearing.” “He’s met me twice. How’s he supposed to fucking pick me out of a fucking lineup?” I shot Amber a look. Don’t you fucking dare turn my nephew into one of those little shits who drops F-bombs before the training wheels have even come off his bike. He was her son, though, not mine. Her little barnacle, stuck following her into murky waters, same as we were Mom’s. “You should go,” I told Marco. “Even if she was seeing someone, it’s none of your business. Your business is to pay child support and be a good role model for your son.” In my head, the studio

audience roared with laughter. “Don’t act like you get to boss me around, just ’cause you’re wearing those scrubs. You’re not a doctor and everyone fucking knows it.” “Don’t act like you get to push my sister around, just because you’re bigger than her.” “Er’n,” Jack interjected, reaching out a chubby arm and breaking my already banged-up heart. “Hi, baby.” “I ain’t touched her,” Marco said. Not today, maybe. “If you said what you needed to, just go, Marco.” He took a couple backward steps

toward the door, shouting past me. “I better not hear nothin’ about you and him.” “You better not be threatening me,” Amber shot back, ignoring my telepathic commands that she keep her mouth shut, keep him moving toward the exit. I matched Marco pace for pace, corralling him to the front of the house. “It was obviously a misunderstanding. Confront the guy about it, not the mother of your kid. Okay?” “I will,” he said, nodding. “Don’t think I won’t.” “Great. Fine.” He reached the door and shoved it open. I followed, Amber and Jack a few

paces behind me. “I have to head back, the second he’s gone,” I told her over my shoulder. “Really?” “Sorry. But yeah. It’s my first week and I can’t lose this job.” She shot me a bratty, beseeching look but I saw resignation in her eyes. She stayed on the front stoop. Jack was thrashing, wanting to follow his dad or me. Amber set him down, holding his hand tight. I walked down to the driveway a few steps behind Marco, ever the bouncer. He opened his door, leaning his meaty arm on the top of the window as he called, “Fucking pathetic, calling your

sister to back you up.” My eyes narrowed. “Pathetic that she should need to.” “Fuck you, Erin. You love this, don’t you? Playing mommy. Feeling all important. Bet you’d take the kid if you could. But he’s my son. Don’t you fucking forget that.” My temper was fraying. Amber-words were begging to be said. Mom-words, impulsive and baiting. Don’t you fucking jump to any conclusions about who his father is, you worthless sack. “Just be a good guy. Chill out and send her the money.” “I’m a good dad.” Oh yeah, father of the frigging year. I

locked my arms over my chest on the other side of his door. “Don’t let her wind you up,” I said quietly, changing my strategy. It earned me a relaxing of his bunched shoulders, a softening of his features. If I didn’t hate his guts so much, I could’ve admitted he was actually pretty handsome. “She knows just what buttons to push,” he said. “I know that.” I knew them, too, I just chose not to do the pushing. “You’re a dad now. You have to control your own buttons.” For just a second, I thought I’d calmed him down. Then his expression went

dark as a flash thunderstorm. “I’m a grown man. I don’t need no advice from you. You never gave me a chance, not since the first time I met you.” I couldn’t help it. I laughed. The smallest, meanest sound, plucked right from Amber’s mouth. “The first time I met you, you got wasted and called my little sister a bitch when she asked you to clean up a beer you spilled.” “I was drunk.” “Exactly, Marco. Exactly.” I shook my head. “Get back to work. Congratulations on landing a job.” I’d meant the last remark sincerely, but given the conversational context, I couldn’t fault him for misconstruing.

“Fuck you, Erin.” I tossed my hands up and turned away, done with him. I dug my keys from my scrubs’ pocket. “Yeah, that’s right. Play your little part. Little Miss Better Than Everyone. Like you didn’t grow up with the same slut mom your little slut sister did.” I whirled around, the world gone crimson as a stab wound. “Get the fuck out of here,” I said, so quiet and slow and deadly I gave myself chills. “Truth hurts,” Marco said, and his smug-ass grin was the final straw. When he got inside his cab and slammed the door, I spat on his windshield and gave him the finger. In the half second it took,

my brain screamed Mistake! ten thousand times over. His door flew open. “You fucking touch my truck—” Logic told me to run but my body was marching to meet his, some idiot bit of my programming thirsty for blood and shrieking Mama bear! Activate! I fisted my car key and slammed it against his gleaming hood, drew it with a squeal down the perfect, glossy red paint, and wished with every cell in my body I was rending his chest open. Then his hands were around my arms, thumbs digging into my flesh. Thoughtless, I drove my fists up between us the way I’d practiced a thousand

times in restraints. I broke his hold and thumped his chin. He grunted, and when he opened and closed his mouth his teeth were pink. He must have bitten his tongue. “You fucking psycho cunt.” “Excuse me?” Twice in one week I get cunt hurled at me? I couldn’t hit Lonnie but I could sure as fuck hit Marco. I came at him flailing, but he grabbed my arms again and shook me hard. I heard Amber yell, “Let her go!” I heard gravel grinding under our shoes, heard Jack begin to wail. “Stay on the steps!” Marco’s grip on my arm was gone. He charged me a pace and gave me a hard

shove. My feet weren’t quick enough, and I stumbled, trying to catch myself on my car. But I was too far away, and my elbow banged dully against the door; then pain exploded in my face as my temple hit the side mirror. I heard Amber yell my name. Jack’s wailing turned to shrieks. It was the latter that had pebbles beneath my palms and my arms shoving me to kneeling, my hand finding the car door as I forced my legs to work and let me stand. My face hurt, but it was dry. My elbow hurt, but the joint didn’t scream when I bent it. One of the knees of my scrubs was split and my skin felt raw, but I didn’t care. I stared at Marco, stared right in his face

with adrenaline pulsing through me like pure, molten hate. With my eyes I told him, I’m gonna fuck you up for making my family cry. But my body hurt, and my brain got its say. My brain said he’d win, if he wanted. What he wanted, apparently, was nothing more to do with any of us. “Crazy bitches.” He hawked and spat on the dirt and climbed back inside his truck, reversing out of the driveway as slow and lazy as you please. When he rolled onto the street and drove off, I realized I’d won. I was hurt and scraped up, but I’d won that fight, somehow.

Amber hurried over, holding Jack to her chest with one arm, smoothing my hair back with her free hand. “Am I bleeding?” “No. But it’s real red. Lemme get you some frozen peas or something.” “I have to get back to work. And you have to call the cops, and tell them where he lives and what happened. Tell them I’ll come and give a statement, the second I’m off work.” While the bruise is still nice and heinous, I thought grimly. “Okay.” She said it too quietly for me to trust. “Do it today, Amber. Do it right now. Give them my number, so they can call

and arrange for me to meet with them. Don’t you dare pussy out.” “Okay, okay.” I nearly believed her that time. Despite my speeding, I got back late. I hurried to the empty locker room and changed into fresh scrub bottoms and shoved the ones with the ripped, crusty knee deep underneath the wadded paper towels in the trash can. I checked my eye in the mirror over the sink, and it was pretty gross. My lid was puffy and pink and shiny, the skin under my eyebrow purple, radiating red. It was a job for an eye patch, not concealer. Sadly I had neither, so I rinsed my face and smoothed my hair, and headed for the

sign-in room, walking as tall as I could. And of course I ran into Kelly. Of course I did. He was filling a cup of coffee from a carafe and I ignored him, scouting for a dry erase marker. “Drawer by your hip,” he said. “Thanks.” I had to turn to open it, though, and he saw. “Whoa.” I looked up in time to catch his pale eyes growing wide. “What the fuck? Who did that to you?” “Not a patient.” A glare eclipsed his icy irises. “Who, then?” “None of your business.” I dug through the drawer. Highlighter, no. Sharpie, no.

He strode to the freezer and pulled out an ice pack, squishing the gel inside and wrapping it in a paper towel. “Here.” I abandoned my search, pressing the pack to my face. “Thanks.” Six more hours in my shift, and probably twenty more times I’d have to say “no comment” when someone asked how I’d managed to get a black eye during my lunch hour. I glanced at the gash on Kelly’s temple, and way too many details about what had happened after he’d turned up injured at my threshold revisited me in a breath. “So who did that?” he demanded again, locking his dumb, huge arms over his dumb chest.

“A ’93 Tempo.” “Where were you at lunch?” I sighed and leaned wearily against the counter. “Don’t tell anybody.” “I won’t.” “I got in a fight with my sister’s asshole ex-boyfriend. He shoved me and I tripped, and hit my eye on my side mirror.” His own eyes narrowed. “Where is he?” “Oh, come off it, Kelly. I don’t need some tough guy to sic on another tough guy. I’ve had enough of your type to last a lifetime.” “You call the cops?” “My sister did,” I said, praying it was

true. “Everything’s under control. Quit hassling me about it.” He stepped close and I let him take the ice pack away. He squinted at my bruise, and I studied his eyes. They were nearly a color today, a frozen lake reflecting a clear blue— “Ahhh, ow.” I fidgeted as he pressed my brow bone, the spot tender. “You break anything?” Press, press, press. “I don’t think so. But my head might explode if you keep poking me.” He let me go and gave me back the ice pack. I nearly missed his body when he stepped away. Reeling and tired, I tried a joke. “Think this’ll earn me some cred with

the residents?” He smiled. My heart suddenly felt as swollen and bruised as my face. “Want me to lie for you?” he asked. “Tell everyone you got that shiner doing something tough, on the ward?” I wandered past him and found a marker in the drawer. I wiped lunch offcampus from beside my name and wrote general in its place. “Nah. I’ll seem more badass if I leave it a mystery.” He followed me into the hall. “I will get you to tell me who this guy is.” Holding the pack in place, I shot him a one-eyed glare as the keypad beeped. I pushed in the stairwell door. “I’m a grown-ass woman.”

“And some shit who calls himself a man gave you a black eye.” I stopped short on the landing between floors. He was two steps behind me, and our faces were nearly level. “What are you gonna do if I tell you, Kelly? Hunt him down and beat the crap out of him?” “Likely.” “Which’ll solve what?” “More than some slap on the wrist from the cops, if I know the type.” “Well you don’t. You don’t know me or my sister or her problems. You don’t know anything about us, so butt out. We don’t need rescuing.” Amber did, but that was my job. Today hadn’t been my finest moment, granted, but if any dog

was going to snarl and bark and bite on her behalf, it was this bitch. Guys only ever made things worse. When we reached the third floor, Kelly said, “Lemme take you out for a drink after work.” I sighed, pausing with my keycard in hand. Did I really want to sit on a stool in some dive, with my knee touching Kelly’s, and numb myself with a drink and a big reassuring wall of muscle? Yeah, a little. But no way in hell did I think it was smart. Over my shoulder I said, “I’ve seen plenty of you already this week, off the clock.” “So see some more.” “Quit trying to save me.”

“Who said I was?” I tapped my card to the lock and pushed in the door, aiming myself down the hall to the ward. “You really wanna head to bed after the second half of your shift, look at yourself in a mirror and try to fall asleep, thinking about all this shit? Come out for a drink.” I punched the code to let us into the deserted lounge. “No.” I marched toward the rec room to find Jenny and catch up with my duties, to get lost in all the details that wouldn’t allow me to think about anything else. About Amber or Marco or Kelly Robak. “I’ll meet you at my truck at seven

twenty,” Kelly said. Just before I veered off for the nurses’ booth, I mouthed a fuck off in his direction. And damn him to hell, he smiled. “Seven twenty it is.” *** The cops from Amber’s town called me around four, and one of them came out to Larkhaven and I gave him my statement in the staff parking lot, where he took a couple of digital photos of my ripening bruise. I hoped something would come of it. Anything. But even if the system was in our favor, I didn’t trust Amber to not suddenly drop charges.

At least work was quiet. And at least I had the next day off. During Saturday shifts we didn’t have to do any inventory, which saved a ton of time. Kelly and a couple of other orderlies were escorting some of the Starling residents to the campus chapel, one of the rare opportunities the men got for a field trip. I’m sure the change of scenery motivated them far more than a chance to get good with the Lord, but then again, living in a locked ward, a few minutes’ fresh air and sunshine were probably a damn-near religious experience. And praise Jesus for an hour free of Kelly Robak. Once the last meds of the shift were

distributed and my notes logged, Jenny told me to go ahead and keep an eye on things in the rec room. The subtext being, You’re a mess. Go watch TV with the patients until hand-off. I took her up on the offer, gladly. Having sort of won that fight with Marco and squared away the stuff with the police, I was feeling strangely capable and strong and Zen, despite my exhaustion. Despite fucking up and taking Marco’s bait, channeling the emotional intelligence of a four-yearold. I plopped down in an easy chair kitty-corner from Lonnie and greeted him with a big old smile. His magnified eyes swiveled to my

bruise. “It suits you.” He was deadpan, and I chose not to read it as meaning he was pleased to think I’d been punched in the face. “I may get the other side done to match,” I told him, equally deadpan. I kept my eyes on the TV, but I was pretty sure he smiled, in my periphery. The hand-off meeting was low-key, as it’d been a relatively calm day on the ward. After my day-shift colleagues with minor incidents to relay had made their reports, there was a silence, several night-shifters staring at me expectantly. “Oh,” I said, touching my brow. “No, this was recreational.” I hadn’t meant it to be funny, but a couple people laughed,

and it actually cheered me some. I didn’t feel like getting grilled while the group was signing out, so I changed first, and fast. There were only two orderlies chatting in the coffee room when I logged out, neither of them Kelly, and neither said a thing to me aside from good night. As I pulled open the door to the lot, June had never smelled so good. Predictably, Kelly was standing beside his truck, next to the little set of brick steps I’d take up to the lawn. He opened the passenger side as I strode in his direction. He patted the top of the door frame. “Ready to go, Nurse Roughneck?”

“I told you no,” I said, plainly aiming myself toward the steps. “And I’m telling you get in.” Fuck me, the nerve. I glared at him a long time, just taking in the physically superior, bossy, heterosexual white male aged eighteen to sixty standing before me. Like this guy didn’t already get his way, every place he paused as he moved through the world. It was time to draw the line. And the line went straight up the crotch of my panties. I stopped and locked my arms over my chest, Kelly-style. “I’ve had it up to my black eye with pushy men today, Robak.

I’m going home to sleep. And I’m not answering my door, no matter how hard anybody knocks.” “Tomorrow, then.” I dropped my head back, sighing loudly into the darkening sky. “Jesus.” I looked him in the eyes. “Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Whatever will shut you up so I can go home and collapse.” “Six thirty,” he said, slamming the passenger door. “We’ll grab dinner.” “Yeah, sure. We’ll grab dinner. We’ll grab one drink, and nothing else will get grabbed for the rest of the night.” “Fine.” “Fine.” I jammed my purse over my shoulder and marched past him and up

the steps to the lawn. “See you then. Dress pretty.” “Fuck off, Kelly.”

Chapter Six

Dress pretty, Kelly’s voice echoed. Easier said than done, I thought, flipping through the hangers in my closet the following evening. He’d already seen the only dress I owned; the past few years hadn’t exactly left me with the spare time or money or energy for socializing. Plus I was strongly tempted to dress as dumpy as possible, just to show him I didn’t give a shit, that I wasn’t here to be ordered around, into a nice outfit or

indeed, his bed. But fuck it. It was Sunday, my night off. I’d survived a first week that felt like an entire month, passed a pretty lousy birthday, and been cussed out by more belligerent men than I cared to count. “What goes with a black eye?” I mumbled, perusing my choices. I settled on my nicest jeans and a dressy charcoal top. I’d bought that top when I’d sensed this guy from one of my night classes was on the verge of asking me out, excited to go on a rare first date. He never did ask. I found my scissors and clipped the price tag from the collar. I put on far more eye shadow than I normally would have, hoping to

camouflage my damage. In the end it didn’t do much aside from make it appear that I was trying—and failing— to look seductive, which was the last assumption I needed Kelly making about me. At six twenty-five I slipped into a pair of flats and locked up. Kelly was punctual, already leaning against his hood in the circular drive in front of the apartments. He’d worn jeans as well, and a fatigue-green tee shirt faded nearly to sage. For once his arms weren’t crossed like a shield, but braced behind him. He looked as relaxed as I’d ever seen him. He gave me a little nod as I trotted down the steps. There was

summer in the air, a warm breeze that reminded me of broken teenage curfews and a hundred once-favorite songs and forgotten crushes. He nodded. “Evening.” “Hey.” I stopped a few feet in front of him, glancing demonstrably around us. “Gorgeous day.” “More gorgeous still, that we don’t have to spend it in there.” He nodded across the road at the Larkhaven gates, then stood up straight and went around to open my door. “You look nice.” I glanced at my top. “I thought the gray would bring out my bruise. How’s your temple?” He pressed the white bandage. “’S

fine. Ready to go?” I nodded and slid into the passenger side. “Where are we eating?” I asked him as he started up the truck. “There’s burgers and that kind of shit at the bar, and an Italian place, and a taco place.” “Don’t tell me I actually get a say? Kelly, you spoil me. Next I’ll get to pick my own drink.” He smirked at me then pulled us away from the curb. “You’re feisty tonight.” “Funny what getting punched in the face by your own car does to you. And burgers are fine.” Burgers and dim bar lighting to hide my eye, and a place I’d

be able to call familiar after this second visit. “As you wish.” “We’re not messing around tonight,” I informed him as we reached the main road. “I never mess around. I’m all business in the sack.” “Seriously. I’m not doing a thing with you tonight. And if I change my mind— which I won’t—I’m counting on you to be gentleman enough to respect the wishes I’m laying out right now, in this truck.” “Fine. Not tonight. That leaves plenty of other nights.” I sighed, watching the woods slip past

and spotting a deer frozen amid the maples. Run if you’re smart, honey. I glanced at the hunter in the driver’s seat. Too late. We shot the shit about our days off, and Kelly told me a bit more about the city when the fields fell back and mummified factories and mills rose up from the horizon. He parked in front of Lola’s, in the very same spot as the last visit. Again, the place was bustling despite it being a school night. We took seats at the bar and Kelly leaned over the counter to grab me a menu. “Seems busy for a Sunday,” I said, scanning the fare. “Unemployment breeds boredom,

breeds alcoholism.” “That’s very cheerful, Kelly. Thank you.” The bartender came by and Kelly looked to me. “I’ll have a light beer, please.” I said it perkily, with a big smile in Kelly’s direction. When the bartender left us to pour I asked, “That wasn’t so hard, was it?” He shrugged. “I’ll pick my battles.” He said it in a cocky, lazy way that implied those battles would most definitely be waged betwixt my spread thighs. Our beers arrived, and I ordered a cheeseburger and onion rings. “So,” he said. “Who gave you that

shiner? What’s his name?” Marco lived forty miles away on the other side of Larkhaven, but I wasn’t giving Kelly a scrap to go on. “I’m not telling you. Bad enough I get dragged into my sister’s drama. I don’t need my coworkers joining the party.” He raised an eyebrow at me, irises motley neon once again. “That all I am to you? Your coworker?” “What would you prefer? Friends? Mentor and student?” “Lovers?” “More like dodged bullets.” “You can’t dodge me forever.” “Watch me try,” I told him, and sipped my beer.

Amused, he shook his head. I stared at him while he drank. He really is handsome, once you get used to the scars and catch him smiling. I really would like to sleep with him. But bossy prick or not, Kelly was good enough a guy that my head would get all murky, if we fucked. I’d get a crush on him, no matter how passionately I swore to myself I wouldn’t. And once he pounced, brought me down, sucked the marrow from my bones and licked his fingers clean, then what? A prize won, more likely than not. A box checked. And his lost interest would hurt all the more, because I’d have seen it coming a mile off. Run,

little deer. And keep on running. Our food arrived before long. My burger tasted like pure, meaty, cheesy decadence after a week’s worth of frozen dinners nuked in the crusty communal microwave. I caught Kelly eyeing me and wiped the mustard I felt at the edge of my mouth. He licked the same spot on his own lips, a subconscious-looking reflex. “Jesus, you’re sexy when you eat.” I had to stifle a laugh to keep from spitting out my food. I swallowed and took a drink of beer. “It’s a hell of a burger. It’s literally the most delicious thing I’ve eaten in months.” Kelly licked his lips again, gaze

falling to my lap for the briefest moment. The gestures murmured words his lips withheld. Bet you taste just as good. Why not come home with me and spread those pretty legs and let me find out? And for a few seconds the burger turned to cardboard, all my focus lost in imagining being devoured by Kelly’s brazen mouth. That first evening we shared a drink at this bar, I’d probably have assumed he was of a douchey persuasion that didn’t reciprocate, downtown. But that night in my bedroom had taught me Kelly would be only too happy to contradict any assumptions I was tempted to make about his sexual agenda.

“Don’t look at me like that,” I warned him, the beer making me bold. “Look at you how?” “Like I’m wearing edible underwear, and there’s a place card in my panties with your name on it.” He leaned in closer, and God help me, I could smell him. He smelled like beer and sin and rumpled sheets, like every bad decision I’d never made, with a whiskey chaser. His eyes were steady. Cold as ice, hot and dangerous as a brush fire. “What?” “Come to my place, some weekend.” His voice was low and deadly serious. “What for?”

“Sex.” I snorted. “Don’t be coy now, Kel. Spell it out for me.” “Come to my place and be mine. For a weekend.” “What? Like a carpet shampooer? You’ll have to put down a deposit.” I reached for my beer, but he took the glass and set it back down. “Jeez.” “I’m not kidding. I’m asking.” “Asking, or ordering?” “I’m inviting you. Come over. We’ll scratch whatever this itch is we’re both dealing with.” Itch scratched, curiosity satisfied, waning interest imminent the second he comes . . . and my soft female heart still

invested, no matter how much detachment I swore to myself I’d muster. Was that such a high price to pay, though—a minor broken heart? In exchange for possibly mind-blowing sex? I’d never had mind-blowing sex before. I’d had good sex, romantic and tender and occasionally pretty passionate, but I knew just from looking in his eyes that it had been the minor leagues. And I hadn’t been called off the bench in ages . . . Still. “No, thank you. We don’t even get real weekends. We both work Saturdays.” “Next time we got two days off in a row, I mean.” That would be this coming

Thursday and Friday. “And why not?” “I’m not as simple as you. I don’t want to have a one-night stand with someone I have to see twelve hours a day at work.” Stony faced, he wiggled a pair of fingers. “Two nights.” I sighed, and this time, he let me sip my beer. He leaned on the bar, arm flexed, head resting on his hand. “I know you feel this, too.” “If everyone acted on every impulse they had, we’d all be obese and syphilitic and a hundred grand in debt from the home-shopping channel.” “When’s the last time you spent a whole weekend just fucking?”

I laughed. “Never. Who does that?” “We could.” “That sounds very . . . abrasive.” “Sex doesn’t have to be some chore you do on Saturday nights after your husband rubs your feet. Come over, and let me show you a good time. Lemme have my way with you, like in your bed the other night. Was that really so bad?” My traitorous lady-parts gave an eager squeeze, and for a split second, I felt my gaze turn glassy and unfocused as I remembered the mean, rough thrust of Kelly’s thick cock between my thighs. He caught me. “See?” I wasn’t sold yet, but I was curious.

“Have your way with me, you said?” He nodded. “Just let me be my bossy, demanding self, and I swear you won’t regret a second of it.” “Bossy how, exactly?” He’d been that way when we’d messed around and I couldn’t say I hadn’t enjoyed it . . . but he meant something else, I could tell. Something more. “Like, rough me up?” “No, not really. I like it rough, but not any more than a woman wants. I just like doing what I want, when I want. Without permission, in the moment.” I frowned at “without permission” and it wasn’t lost on him. “Nothing you’re not up for, or into. I just like issuing orders and having them

followed, and taking what I want.” “How would you know I was up for it, if you just took whatever, the second you felt like it?” “By talking to you beforehand, like this. And picking a signal or a safe word, so you can pull the plug. It’s the illusion of control I want, not actually forcing anyone to do something they’re not into.” “Jesus Christ. The last thing I need is to go home with a guy who’s got safe words. Can’t sex just be simple?” “What’s not simple about a single word? Free insurance policy that’ll save you a year of therapy bills, on the off chance I take things someplace you’re

not up for. I’ll even let you pick it,” he added, bobbing his eyebrows. “I’m not interested in sex that comes with a danger of psychological trauma, thanks. I already get that thrill from the ward.” “I’m a decent guy. You said it yourself.” “I believe you’re a trustworthy enough man.” I trusted him with my safety, after all, twelve hours a day. “But I seriously don’t see what’s in it for me.” I pictured his body, sprawled across my covers. Liar. He smiled at that. “You think that when I say I like getting whatever I want, that a woman’s pleasure isn’t one of those

things?” His answer gave me pause, and Kelly’s grin deepened. That smile, rare as a rainbow. It softened his hard features and faded his scars, made my heart feel swollen in my chest. Damn him. “Didn’t I make you feel good, that night in your room?” “Yeah,” I admitted. “You did.” Twice. But I resented the hard sell, having a man trying to talk me into something as personal as sex. Kelly’s gaze shifted past my shoulder as he thought. “Think of it like this.” His eyes swiveled back to mine. “When I say I want to possess a woman for a day,

maybe a whole weekend, it’s like I’m inviting her to a dinner party. I’m making exactly the food I want, serving the drinks I like, planning everything. But she’s the guest. Just because I’m in charge doesn’t mean I won’t serve her a damn good meal.” I shook my head. “What else would you do with your time off? Babysit?” “Probably.” “Think about it. An entire two days without being asked to make a single decision.” I gave him a dry look. “Two entire days taking orders for someone else’s enjoyment.”

It was Kelly’s turn to sigh. “Okay,” he said, holding up in his hands in surrender. “I’m not going to bully you into it—” “No, I’m sure you’d save the bullying for once I was at your place, ready for my glamorous weekend as your sex slave.” “Jesus, you need to get laid.” Exasperated, I slid my nearly cleaned plate toward the taps and stood, but Kelly grabbed my wrist and tugged me back to sitting with a jolt. I shot him a glare. You did not just do that. “Listen. I like you. And I want you. I’m inviting you to come over so we can explore the thing that’s between us. I

know you feel it, same as me. I’m offering you a chance to shut your brain off for a weekend, so we can spoil each other’s bodies rotten. Let me boss you around and I promise you’ll find out I give twice as good as I get. I’m not gonna try to fuck your ass or dress you up like a hooker—” “Be still my heart. Kelly Robak, you charmer, you.” “There’s four things a real man has to be able to do for a woman.” “Exactly how many man-lists do you have?” He let my wrist go and ticked the items off on his fingers. “Fix her car. Grill her a steak. Kick the ass of any guy who

makes her cry. And fuck her so hard she wakes up half-crippled.” “Oh my God.” For a moment I just blinked at the gall of him. “You’re . . . You are ridiculous. Goodnight, Kelly.” I got up, heading for the exit. I realized my mistake a millisecond before he called me on it. “Said I can fix your car, not teleport it from two towns over.” I swiveled. “I’m sure a real man can call a woman a cab, can’t he?” Kelly stood. “This city’s got exactly one cab, and that’s its driver.” He pointed to a supremely drunk man slumped beside the video poker machine.

I sighed. “Fine. Take me home, then.” “As you command.” I exited ahead of him, waiting on the sidewalk until he’d paid the tab and emerged from the bar. He rounded the truck and stood by my door, but didn’t open it. His gaze said, Come here, and for no good reason, I did. He circled me, fairly pinning my body to the passenger door with his, staring down from a mile above me. No passerby would have any doubt we were more than colleagues, but all at once, I didn’t care. I didn’t care about anything aside from his nearness and size and heat, my annoyance forgotten and excitement primed, but my face set in a

willful mask of weary apathy. “I thought about you when I got home that night,” he said, too gruff to be called a whisper, but too soft to be overheard. His breath warmed my skin and stirred my hair. “I stroked myself, tight and slow, with a palmful of lube, and thought about how good you’ll feel.” My breath froze as my heart raced. I felt something I never had before—a wateriness in my legs as all of my physical consciousness drew tight in my belly, leaving my extremities to wobble and submit. I was weak in the knees. I’d always thought that was just an expression. “I’ve put myself to sleep every night

since the first time I took you here, thinking about you. About us.” Ditto. “Come home with me,” he murmured. I felt my blasé façade falling to pieces. “No.” Gently, slowly, he took my hand and slid it between us, cupping my palm around the length of his cock, hard as sin behind his fly. A dozen people could have seen, and still I didn’t care. I kept my hand limp—not that it mattered. He was in charge. He rubbed my palm up and down, making me measure him. If any other man on earth had done this, I’d have named it sexual assault and called the cops the second I broke away. But

this was Kelly. And this was his fuckedup, patented approach to seduction. And pathetic as it was, it was totally working. “Not tonight,” I amended. “Soon.” “I don’t know.” His hand went still, clamping mine tight to his erection. “You want this, same as me. You feel all this.” All this, meaning his cock? No. All this as in, this force between our bodies, lust like ropes hugging us tighter, tighter the longer I resisted him. “So what if I do?” “What’s the harm in us hooking up? We’re both single adults. Why waste

this?” Why waste this? Fuck. It was a bull’s-eye shot, an arrow sticking dead center, thrumming from the impact. It was an ace tossed out to trump my entire hand—my good sense and self-respect and professional standards all bested by three little syllables. All I could manage to say was, “Not tonight.” Kelly stepped back and guided me to the side with a big, warm palm on my waist, then unlocked and opened my door without ever taking his gaze off my face. I held his eye contact the entire time, though I doubt I took a single

breath. I got settled, relieved to be off my shaky legs. Kelly slammed the door, then stooped, making a cranking motion. I unrolled my window. He leaned his arms along the door, and pushed the lock down with a click. “Not tonight,” he said. “But real soon, sweetheart.”

Chapter Seven

My schedule the following week was only thirty-six hours—Tuesday, Wednesday, and Saturday. Unbelievably luxurious after my initial week, fortyeight hours in Starling plus another six completing restraint training on my socalled days off. I dodged off-the-clock Kelly pretty effectively through our next two shifts. We saw each other in the hand-off meetings and around the ward, of course, but I ducked him during breaks and at

Tuesday sign-out, dawdling in the nurses’ station with my paperwork until I knew he’d have left for the day. Work itself was manageable. I played checkers with Lonnie no less than five times in those two shifts, and lost every game. Not on purpose, either. It was as if those thick lenses let him peer inside my brain and anticipate my every move. And the more he proved himself superior to me, the more tolerable I became. He even sat next to me at lunch on Wednesday, when he could easily have taken another seat. At some point I’d made an interested noise at his mention of being a Vietnam vet and self-proclaimed historian of the

war, and for better or worse, he’d started treating me like his one-woman lecture hall. It beat being a target for sexually charged pizza crusts, at any rate. And if the stories he told were true, it was actually proving a fairly interesting course. I took to calling him “Professor,” which seemed to please him monumentally, and he took to calling me “kid.” I’d have preferred “Ms. Coffey,” but it still beat “bitch agent.” Progress. I couldn’t be sure what was happening with Amber and Marco. She didn’t have a restraining order, but I didn’t know if that was due to a paperwork delay or her pussying out with pressing charges. But

he hadn’t bothered her since the afternoon I’d earned my formerly black —now yellow—eye, and she told me he’d dropped off a check. Whether that was true or not . . . The uncertainty gave me a headache, so I decided to not think too hard about it. “Bullies tend to prey on weak people, people they perceive as worthless,” Dennis told me on Wednesday. We happened to be taking our mid-afternoon breaks at the same time, in the S3 lounge. I’d spilled the general details of what had happened at Amber’s when he asked about my eye, doing my best to make it sound like an isolated incident, not a drama that would threaten my

reliability here at Larkhaven. “Now, if some passionate party should happen to intervene,” Dennis said, nodding to mean me, “and demonstrate in no uncertain terms that the victim is indeed worthy, worthy of defending . . .” “Yeah, I guess. I mean, I could never scare him off, physically. He’s huge, and strong. He must weigh as much as two of me.” “But by proving that you’re willing to fight that losing battle over your sister’s honor and well-being, in turn you imbue her with an added perception of worth. You’re saying she and her son are worth putting yourself in danger for. And in turn, this Marco person is more inclined

to respect her. Or at least value her.” Dennis’s amateur academic side was coming out, but I didn’t mind his turning my family nonsense into a case study. It could stand to be depersonalized. Detach, I’d been chanting in my head, whenever the memory surfaced. Detach, detach, detach. “We respect what others are willing to defend,” Dennis added, and drained his coffee cup. “We value what others value, or at least covet those things. But bullies don’t like conflict. Theirs is a cowardly facsimile of power, won only through sure bets. And they’ll always go after the low-hanging fruit.” I nodded, but my thoughts had drifted

from Marco. It was Kelly I pondered, Kelly whom I’d always seen as a bit of a bully. But he didn’t want an easy target. If he was after anything, it was a challenge. That first day I’d been at my weakest, and he hadn’t preyed on me when I was vulnerable, however possessive he’d acted at the bar. No, it was my resistance that seemed to get him salivating, like he wanted to pry me open after a good long chase. No low-hanging fruit for Kelly Robak. More a tough nut to crack, the meat surely all the more rich for the struggle. I really needed to quit thinking of him as a predatory animal. But it was

difficult not to, when all he did was prowl and pounce and leave me writhing in poorly veiled heat. His invitation weighed heavily. It weighed so heavily, in fact, that it often sank from my head straight through my chest and belly, settling like a restless, muscular presence between my thighs. I’d catch sight of his bare arm across the rec room, and my pussy would clench as though I were lounging in bed, nothing to occupy my brain but idle sexual fantasies. But this was during work. When I needed to be focused on dosages and staying alert for signs of trouble. One foolish glance at the cotton stretched taut between Kelly’s flexing

shoulder blades, and I’d have to start my pill count all over again. It made me wish the nurses’ booth had blinds. But even then, the sound of his voice held the same power. He might say to a resident, “What channel you want?” but my memory echoed words from that night in my bed. That’s where I want to be, it whispered, invisible fingertips drawing a tingling line along the seam of my sex. Can’t wait to hear you beg. I wanted to sleep with him. Badly. Worse than I’d ever wanted anyone. And the longer I resisted the idea, the weaker my argument grew. I’ll have feelings for him, and it’ll sting when he loses interest. But it wasn’t like I was in love

with him, or that I’d have a mental break and wind up stalking him, yowling naked on his front steps demanding he give me a second shot. My disappointment, should it come, would be private. And what was the threat of a few days’ sheepish disappointment, compared to an entire weekend of theoretical pleasure? Who does that? I’d asked him. Who fucked all weekend? I could. I really, really could. All I had to do was say yes. Say yes, and spend two debauched days doing the same—saying yes to his every command. Where in the tenets of feminism did it say it was liberating to

stubbornly deny yourself pleasurable sexual experiences just to spite a bossy man? No place. Feminism isn’t a zerosum game. Choosing not to sleep with Kelly, and our scoring zippo additional orgasms off each other? That was zerosum. Banging each other’s brains out for one memorable weekend? Win-win. Yet even with my surrender now a firmly adopted course of action, I still couldn’t bring myself to go after him. It didn’t feel right. After all, what kind of a chase would that be? *** Kelly finally cornered me just after

Wednesday’s hand-off meeting. The shift had ended on a sour note, when Lonnie goaded John B. into a major manic episode, so bad we had to settle him with lorazepam and usher him off to meet with one of the docs. I’d grown nearly fond of Lonnie the last couple of days, and now all I could do was shake my head, a matronly gesture I realized mid-lament that I’d picked up from Jenny. Jeez, that hadn’t taken long. Might as well cave and order my beige orthopedic hoof-shoes from the medical supply company. The transformation had begun. When the meeting wrapped and people started filing down the stairs, Kelly

clasped my wrist discreetly and muttered, “Talk to me after you sign out.” The hairs rose along the back of my neck, signaling danger, but I’d be a liar if I said I wasn’t just a little bit pleased. Just a gigantic bit turned-on. He released my hand and we headed slowly for the door. “What about?” “We both got two days off.” I tapped my keycard to the panel. “That we do.” “What’re you doing, tomorrow and Friday?” I could’ve lied. Could’ve told him I’d promised to watch Jack, put off my inevitable surrender another week or more. But the end of that shift had

sucked. I was exhausted and frustrated, and weirdly, turning myself over to Kelly sounded heavenly. No spa day, to be sure, but get me out of these scrubs. Get the insurance codes out of my skull and lock me in the custody of a man so solid and alert that I could quit jerking my head at every sudden noise, quit counting the paces and seconds it’d take to prep a syringe and jab a raging patient. Keep me away from Amber’s problems before I caved yet again, deciding it was my job to tackle them. Sorry, imagined telling her. Can’t fix your life for you this week. Promised I’d fuck this guy from work. “I’m not doing a thing,” I told Kelly.

He paused before the keypad at the bottom of the steps, just the two of us in the stairwell. “Come over.” “Okay.” I had to laugh at his reaction, such obvious surprise. “Were you anticipating more of a struggle?” “Yeah.” “Was that no fun for you, my giving in so easily?” “I’ll show you what fun is for me,” he said, looking me up and down. “Tomorrow, after lunch. Two o’clock. I’ll pick you up.” “No, you won’t. I’ll drive myself.” No way I was stranding myself at Kelly’s for an entire weekend. He could talk me

into bed against my better judgment. Surely he could talk his way out of giving me a lift home just as easily, prolonging my shift as his sex slave. I needed some kind of escape hatch. Some semblance of free will. We went back to pretending to just be coworkers, waiting until everyone else from our shift signed out and exchanged good-nights. As he wiped his name from the board, Kelly muttered his address to me, then his phone number. I scribbled both on a Post-it branded with an antipsychotic drug logo, and we exited without another word. The entire walk across campus, I thought I could sense something at my

heels, stalking me. I half expected to feel Kelly’s arm lock around my waist as he toppled me to the ground like a wounded gazelle. But nothing. A quick glance at my online bank balance told me my first check had cleared. It was literally the largest chunk of money I’d ever received at one time, and it made me giggle with relief. At twenty-eight, I finally felt like an adult. With a steady job and a livable salary. I’d had a rough childhood, and grown up quicker than most. I’d earned a certificate and nursed my grandma through her final years, tackled her funeral arrangements. Those occasions

had brought relief, too—proud relief and guilty relief, respectively—but I’d not arrived at those moments feeling like I’d had much control over my journey. I’d bumbled my way across the finish lines, exhausted and reeling. I’d survived them. But looking at the number in my deposits column . . . I’d fought for this. I’d done the best job I could and been compensated fairly. This, I’d earned. To celebrate, I drove to the grocery store and bought some proper food, plus a minifridge, since we weren’t allowed to keep alcohol in the common kitchen, what with so many of the residents being in recovery. Sitting at my desk with a can of beer and a turkey sandwich, I

glanced around my little room, thinking this wouldn’t cut it for long. As I ate, I scribbled out an estimated monthly budget. That night, I spent two hours poking around the rental listings for Darren, pleased to see there were dozens of affordable one-bedroom places available. Even the two – and three-bedroom houses were semiaffordable, and I entertained a brief, masochistic fantasy about inviting Amber to live with me, us and Jack in some modest little house, an hour’s drive between us and Marco. How cozy! How cozy and completely batshitnutso! Much as I loved her, I knew what

would happen. Late-night drama, the thump of some meathead’s fist on my door waking me in a cold sweat, and Amber getting semi-intentionally fired from her job the second she had me secured as a rent-paying safety net. God bless the girl, she was a self-sabotaging wreck. I switched my search filter back to one-bedrooms only, my own selfsabotage averted. When the time came to fall asleep, my thoughts turned predictably to Kelly. Anxious thoughts and horny ones, excited ones and unnerving ones. I fell asleep after what felt like hours, candidates for my safe word flurrying

around my brain like snow-globe flakes. *** The next morning I did my laundry, dressed in a simple skirt and tee shirt and packed a second outfit in an overnight bag, along with bathroom essentials. Cute but comfortable underwear, freshly shaved armpits and legs but my downstairs left to its own devices, because I was no man’s personal porn star. I was Kelly’s sex slave but also a feminist, and the crooked line had to be drawn someplace. And that place was in the perfectly lovely, feminine, God-given soft curls between my legs, I decided.

At twenty of two I climbed into my car with the directions I’d scrawled after a Google Maps search and set out for Darren, stomach churning, palms clammy. Kelly’s street was easy enough to find, maybe a mile’s drive past the main drag, on a tired-looking residential block—a familiar sight to me, having grown up in the heart of Michigan’s industrial decline, though with fewer boarded windows than I’d been expecting. Most of the homes looked inhabited. Kelly’s house was a navy blue, onestory ranch with a tidy lawn. His truck was parked in the driveway, and as I pulled up along the cracked curb I found

Kelly himself, leaning over the peeling picket fence that abutted his property, reaching for something. I killed the engine. He craned his neck and caught my eye as I slammed my door, before going back to whatever he was doing. What he was doing, I found out as I approached, was massaging the ears of a rapturous, slavering, brown and white pit bull. “Hey, Sadie,” he was saying. “Hey, pretty girl.” “Is that your dog?” Of course it was. He was so the pit bull type. This dog would probably have a front-row seat to whatever debauchery Kelly had planned

for me, her baleful eyes shifting between us with canine judgment. But he said, “No, my neighbor’s. Well, my neighbor’s ex’s, until he took off. I feed her when my neighbor’s out of town. Take her for walks, sometimes.” With a final, spirited scratching, he stood up straight, wiping his slobbery fingers on his jeans. “So this is your place?” I pointed to the little blue house. “This is it. C’mon in and I’ll give you the tour.” He took my bag and opened the front gate of his wrought-iron fence for me. I followed him up the steps, noting the freshly painted trim around his windows

and the shiny brass numbers nailed to his door. It wasn’t a palace, but his house seemed the most cared for on the block. The only one on the mend, as opposed to slowly going to seed with the rest of the city. He led me inside and his front room matched the house’s exterior—simple and relatively tidy, with absolutely no frills. I envied his space, his cheerful bay window and the sliding glass doors looking out on his little backyard. If this were my home, I’d have replaced his beige sectional and oversized recliner with something more stylish, tossed in a few potted plants, and maybe added a nice decorative

screen to his fireplace. Jack could come visit and play for hours in the backyard, see what a lawn was supposed to look like. His kiddie pool had been ruined ten minutes after we’d inflated and filled it, shredded by a sneaky piece of broken bottle when Amber had tried to drag it into the shade. You could have refilled it twice over with Jack’s tears. “It’s nice,” I told Kelly, tailing him around a breakfast bar and into his small, open kitchen. He set my bag on the counter. “It does the job. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Beer? Wine?” Normally I’d have been a temperate

gal and proclaimed it too early to drink, but my nerves told me to make an exception. “I’ll have a beer, thanks.” Kelly’s home, Kelly’s beverage of choice. He grabbed two bottles from the fridge and shut the door with his hip, twisting off each cap and handing mine over. We clinked and drank. He showed me the would-be guest room next, which he’d turned into a minimalist home gym, with a weight bench and barbells and a treadmill. It was pretty stark, one step up from what I imagine you’d find in the shadiest corner of the penitentiary exercise yard. Which seemed fitting, considering Kelly

possessed the physique of a violent convict serving a very long sentence, meditating on visions of vengeance as he worked through his thousand daily chinups. Next he pointed out the bathroom, then we reached the end of the short tour— his bedroom. There were no surprises, not of the pink satin heart-shaped pillow variety, nor the fuck-swing and bondage props variety. Just a queen-sized bed, made up with a black-and-gray-striped comforter. No shackles or straps to speak of. I released a held breath. Wooden blinds on the windows, and simple red curtains. Hardwood floors bare save for a red throw rug that

matched the drapes, walnut dresser and side tables and a chest, and little else. I eyed the chest, wondering if it was full of winter’s wool clothes or crazy sexcessories. “It looks very normal,” I said. “The invite was strictly B.Y.O. gimp mask, if that’s what you mean.” I laughed. “I’m not much for theatrics.” “No, only directing.” “More like dictating.” “So,” I said, looking around the room. “When does my domestic slavery begin?” He raised an eyebrow at me. “Looking forward to it, then?”

“I’m here, aren’t I? I’m looking forward to finding out what I’ve gotten myself into.” Kelly led me back through the living room and out the sliding doors, and he dragged two patio chairs together on the slate tiles, facing the backyard. Struck by a thought, he gave me his beer to hold, and trotted across the grass, whistling. A flurry of barks answered him, and Kelly leaned over his neighbor’s fence a moment, then straightened with the dog hugged to his chest like a sixty-pound baby. He let her free, and grabbed an old tennis ball from a corner of the yard. He tossed it for the dog, and it was neatly returned just as Kelly took his seat and

accepted his beer. Another toss, the dog shooting off in hot pursuit, tongue fairly flapping in the wind with bliss. Clearly, this was the highlight of her life. “So,” I said. “What’s the agenda?” “We hang out. You get comfortable. We mess around a bit, then you tell me when you’re ready for the good stuff.” “The good stuff?” He smiled, whipping the ball again. His eyes looked pale green this afternoon, the color of corroded copper. “Trust me.” “I must, if I came this far.” We chatted for a little while, about what we’d done that morning, about the repairs he’d made to the house since

he’d moved in four years earlier and found the attic full of squirrels and two decades’ worth of moldy Hustler issues stacked behind the boiler. Kelly told me he wished he had a dog of his own, or could take Sadie off his neighbor’s hands, but the twelve-hour shifts would make a neglectful owner of him. As self-interested as Kelly was, I decided he’d be a stellar pet owner. Patient, protective, reliable. He’d probably make just as good a father, if he went down that road. Kids today could use more Kelly Robaks in their parental dugouts. He might not let his daughters date until they were twenty, but they sure as shit wouldn’t come

home after curfew, tattooed, carrying the baby of some burner they’d let finger them behind the gym in exchange for a cigarette. “You think you ever want kids?” I asked casually, as Sadie returned the tennis ball for the fiftieth time. “Hell if I know. Not unless I got married, and I don’t think I’m cut out for that.” “I bet you are. With the right woman. One who’d put up with your bossy ass and go in for all your old-school man-ofthe-house patriarchy bull.” He laughed. “That ain’t you, I take it.” I felt my cheeks warming. “No, that ain’t me.” What did it make me, then?

Some good-time girl, an equally antiquated notion. Still, I’d rather be Rizzo than Sandy, no question. Rizzo found love without changing a thing about herself. Sandy had to dress like a skank and get that horrible perm and take up smoking. “I’m not such a monster,” Kelly said mildly. “And I don’t want some little sunshiny housewife, vacuuming in heels, packing my lunch, starching my shirts and making cheerful small talk. Where’s the fight in that?” “Who, then?” He shrugged and took a deep drink. “I dunno. If I meet her, I’ll know.” “And you won’t take no for an answer,

until you’ve shuttled her down the aisle.” “I might never meet her, and that’s okay, too. What about you? Who’s your Mr. Right?” It occurred to me then that Kelly and I were friends. Actual friends who were genuinely interested in each other’s lives. A perfectly platonic scene . . . if not for the fact that we wanted desperately to fuck each other. “My Mr. Right . . . I only know what kinds of guys I don’t want, so far.” He raised an eyebrow. “Guys like me, you said. Your sister’s type.” “You’re not so bad. I was wrong, assuming you had anything in common

with her ex aside from totally superficial stuff.” “He’s the one who gave you that bruise?” Kelly asked, pausing with the tennis ball in his hand, Sadie antsy with mounting impatience for the next hunt. “Yeah. He’s a real shithead. You . . . You’re kind of an ass, but you know it. He’s just a big, spoiled toddler with a loud truck and a drinking problem. And absolutely no self-awareness. No respect for anyone else’s needs or feelings. I don’t think it registers, that other people even have feelings.” “Sounds like a sociopath.” “Just a dumb kid who never had to mature past the age of eight.”

Sadie whined. “Even worse. Few things out there more dangerous than a bored kid who thinks he’s a man, just ’cause he’s jacked up on testosterone. If he can’t find something to fuck, he’ll find something to fuck with.” I nodded and sipped my beer, watching as the dog finally got her wish and went rocketing off toward the far fence after the ball. “Where’s this man-child live?” he asked. I shot him a glare, not so easily tricked. “What’s his name?” “I’m not tossing out any balls for you

to chase, Kelly. Suppress your inner pit bull.” “Tell me who he is, and I promise he won’t be bothering your sister anytime soon.” I sighed. “You make it sound so simple.” “It is simple.” “This is my nephew’s dad. He’s probably going to stay in my sister’s life, whether I like it or not. And I don’t need him taking out his bruised ego on her, after your threats or beatings or whatever wear off.” “Toddlers’ll keep throwing tantrums until somebody shows them they don’t always get their way.”

I stared out over the lawn, not really feeling like talking about Amber and Marco anymore. “That’s funny.” I shot Kelly a little smile, ready for the flirtation to begin, and for him to do what he promised—take me out of my head for a couple days. “I thought you were all in favor of a guy getting his way.” “I’m in favor of me getting my way. There’s a major difference.” I shifted my chair to face Kelly more directly, pushing off my shoes so I could rest my bare feet on his knee. He set down his beer and fiddled with my toes with his damp, cold fingers. Better those than the dog-spitty ones. We stared at

each other for a long moment, the exchange as loaded as it was companionable and easy. “Am I making you dinner?” I asked, curious about exactly how allencompassing my role as his servant might be. He shook his head. “I’ll grill. You can make the salad, if you want. But what I’ve got in mind for you . . . Don’t picture dusting or dishes.” “No scrubbing your floors wearing a kerchief, then?” “Nah. Though you’ll probably spend some time on your knees.” He smirked and took a deep pull of his beer. “Charming.”

He set the bottle down and handed me the mangy ball that Sadie had deposited at his feet. I accepted it with a grossedout face, but chucked it all the same. She shot across the grass, and brought it back to me. I tossed it again, thinking that despite my being the obedient one for the next couple days, Kelly was my pit bull, poised to protect and attack, at my command. One word from me, and Marco might wake up in the hospital with far worse than a bitten tongue. One word from me, and Kelly would be officially in charge. Was the promise of wild, animalistic mating keeping him docile, or riling him up? I guessed I’d find out, whenever I

found the sac to cut his tether and sic him snarling on my body. Then those few minutes in my bed flashed across my mind, and I could just about hear his panting in my ear, hot and hungry. Not snarling. Moaning. And not attacking— consuming. “You eat lunch?” he asked, cold eyes on the sky. “Yup.” He met my gaze. “Let’s go inside, then. See if I can’t meet some of your other basic human needs.” I mustered a skeptical expression to cover up my real reaction—a rush of excitement and nerves like you feel with each ratcheting ka-chunk, ka-chunk up

the roller coaster’s highest ramp. I drained my bottle. “Whatever you say.”

Chapter Eight

Kelly deposited Sadie back on his neighbor’s side of the fence, and tossed our empties in a recycling bin next to the house. “So. How you feeling?” I turned the question over in my head, waiting until we were inside to reply. “Pretty relaxed.” “Good.” He slid the door closed. “I got you something.” I watched him stroll to the fridge then set a bottle of champagne on the breakfast bar.

“Oh, fancy.” “Seemed like an auspicious occasion.” “What? My finally giving in?” He answered with an affirmative smirk, then ripped away the foil and twisted the wire guard loose. From a cupboard he procured a pair of wine glasses, and eased the cork free with a pop. Bubbles surged and dissolved as he poured, and we clinked glasses. “To what?” I asked. “To us, fucking all weekend.” “Okay.” We sipped, and since I knew nothing about champagne, I was free to tell myself that this was good stuff. Kelly put the bottle in a big mixing bowl and

cracked two ice trays’ contents around it. He held out his hand to usher me toward the lounging area. “Feel like a movie?” he asked. “Like a porn movie?” A fresh smirk. “Like a movie. Whatever kind you want. Just something to watch while we mess around.” “How very high school,” I teased, but in truth the idea excited me. I’d come here expecting some crazy role-playing weekend, and I’d been horny enough to be down for that. But I liked this more. It’d make the transition to the harsher stuff easier, surely. “What are my choices?” While I still get any.

A nice TV was mounted above the fireplace, across from the couch, and Kelly pointed to the DVDs that lined the mantel. I set my glass on the coffee table and went to inspect the spines. He must have bought most of them in a video store closeout, judging from the rental stickers and price tags slapped all over their scraped-up cases. “You don’t want to choose?” I asked him, still perusing. “Thought it was all about your way, this visit.” “It will be. When you give me the word you’re ready.” “Fine, then.” For no reason whatsoever aside from wanting to be

decisive, I picked The Rock, featuring Sean Connery and Nicholas Cage running around Alcatraz; an action flick I could vaguely remember seeing in the dollar theater, ages ago. I handed it to Kelly and he cued it up while I made a pit stop. By the time I got back, he’d shut the front door and the blinds, and drawn a curtain across the patio doors, closing us in a facsimile of a Saturday night, despite it being three thirty on a Thursday afternoon. We sat close on the couch, Kelly lounging at an angle at one end, half facing me with his arm draped along the back. I was suddenly sixteen, in the den

with my first boyfriend, scared and hopeful that second base might be reached before the credits rolled. This was Kelly Robak, though. A mere look from him felt more obscene than second. What exactly does sixth base involve? I wondered. How sore would I be after all the extra innings he surely had planned? I felt high, just sitting near him. I scooted a little closer so our thighs touched, his huge and warm and hard against my slender one. He adjusted, too, edging nearer so his arm was resting just behind my shoulders, my body pleasantly cocooned against his side. He’d intimidated me so much that first

week. The memory had become theoretical, he felt so reassuring now. I’d found his body ridiculous before, but goddamn, it was wonderful when it was on your side. Thick arm, broad chest, strong thigh, all mine until Saturday dawned. The champagne was making me eager. I finished my glass long before Kelly did his, and he poured me a second. I set it on the table after a sip, and as I settled back against his side, my hands got ideas. Gaze on the screen—where I had absolutely no clue what was going on in the movie—I turned and rubbed Kelly’s chest. Just to feel how hard it was. He kneaded my shoulder in reply, shifted his

legs. After a minute’s idle caressing, I looked up at him, fingers dawdling along his tee shirt collar. For a long moment he just stared back, then very slowly, he leaned in and kissed me. He kept his mouth closed, and we didn’t dissolve into a melee of groping as I’d expected. Not for a lack of chemistry, either. His advances were measured. A gentle tangling of his fingers in my hair, a steady deepening of the kiss. His tongue brushed mine, drawing blood to heat my cheeks and tingle between my thighs, and I heard something explode on-screen. I felt delicate far too often lately, and

the way Kelly treated me, all gruff and pushy, made me feel like he thought I could take it. Like I was unbreakable, even if I didn’t feel that way all the time. This man on the couch, kissing me, was warm and sensual, and nearly tender. But he wasn’t the man I’d come here to fuck. I broke our mouths apart. “I think I’m ready. For you to take over, I mean.” “Gimme a safe word, just in case.” I stared blankly in the direction of the kitchen. “Spatula?” “That’ll work. And if for some reason you can’t talk—” I imagined my mouth too stuffed full of

Kelly’s cock to articulate my needs. “—just do something three times. Poke me or snap your fingers, or knock on something, or use your teeth, whatever. Three times. Real clear.” “Sure.” “You got any triggers I should know about? Any fears?” he asked. “Centipedes.” “I don’t think that’ll come up.” “That’s a relief.” “Ready?” I nodded. “Finish your champagne.” Just the way he said it, I knew it was game on. Behind narrowed lids his eyes were

ice, and they followed my every motion as I leaned forward for my glass, and emptied it in two swallows. He took it from my hand and set it roughly on the table. When his fingers returned to my hair, they clutched tighter, and his lips didn’t kiss—they claimed. He angled his face and consumed me, my pleasure spiking alongside a taste of fear. This was the man who’d half forced his way into my bed, who’d half dictated and half intuited my boundaries, and half ignored them once they were established. As we kissed his hands cradled my jaw, stroked my neck and shoulder. I could feel him examining me, like some new purchase he was

admiring, some shiny new toy. We pulled away after a few minutes, my lips already tender. “C’mere,” Kelly muttered, and leaned back into the cushions, patting his thighs to say I should sit on his lap. I felt heavy and clumsy as I took the order, worried my hair was in his face, that he wasn’t comfortable. Then he jerked my legs wider so my calves dangled beside his, tugged me closer by the waist until I felt his belt buckle, a hard bite against my spine. Cool air kissed my inner thighs, my skirt creeping up toward my hips. I swallowed, woozy, self-consciousness lost in a cloud of lust.

Beneath me he shifted, erection insistent at my butt. “Feel that?” I managed to murmur a shallow, “Yeah.” His palms slid to my breasts, cupping gruffly. My civilized host was gone, the change so stark I imagined a bunch of sheep’s clothing must be lying in a heap beside the couch. Every iteration of Kelly was gone, save for the one who’d forced my orgasms that night in my bed. The scary one. The one whose crass promises had kept me up nights and lured me here. Low, dark words warmed my cheek. “You been making me suffer for a while now.”

“Sorry,” I murmured. His mouth went to my ear, so close I felt his lips move as he whispered, “Hush. You only speak when I ask you a question.” The statement dunked me in ice water then encased me in steam—sensory whiplash. I couldn’t draw a real breath, couldn’t clear my head. His thumbs brushed the sides of my breasts, palms cupping more roughly. I felt spread open and helpless, pressed to his strong, ready body but unable to see him. “Watch the movie,” Kelly ordered. Yes. Right. The movie. I stared at the screen, taking nothing in aside from the abstract strobing of

colors, the sounds of words I couldn’t make sense of. A few layers of fabric and a belt separated me from Kelly’s cock. My sex contracted at the thought, a greedy fist begging to clasp him. I’d never wanted a man this way before. So explicitly. So viscerally. If my usual fantasies were fully scripted romantic dramas, what I wanted from Kelly was base and pornographic, the clapping of flesh against flesh; ugly, thrilling moans and grunts; cuss words. Spit and sweat and scraping nails. I wanted his hands on my hips, fingers digging too hard into my skin. Kelly’s attention left my breasts, wandering down my belly, palms gliding

up my arms and leaving my skin tight with goose bumps. “Gimme my glass.” I leaned forward to grab it from the coffee table and he took it, handing it back after a pause, a bit emptier. I replaced it and Kelly settled me against him, his touch feeling lazier than before. He rested his cheek against mine, as though we really were still watching the movie. As if this were some typical date, except he just happened to be molesting me and I wasn’t allowed to speak. He slid his hands down my thighs, chest flexing against my back, and when he drew them up, my skirt rose, dragged

to my hips. The pads of his fingers were dry and warm, hard with calluses but not rough. They traced the lightest circles over the softest skin I possessed, faint lines blazing with sensation up and down my innermost thighs. Do this forever, I wanted to beg. I shut my eyes, hypnotized by his fascinating caresses between my legs, the hardness of his cock and buckle at my lower back. Hypnotized by the way he threatened to use me, even as he spoiled me. Ugly scars, pretty eyes; the calm breakwater forcing order on the ward’s chaos. The contradiction that was Kelly. “Eyes open.”

Obediently, I pretended to watch the movie, focused on nothing but the tingling touch of his fingers; the heat of his deep, rhythmic breaths; the rise and fall of his chest against my back. He drew his lips along my jugular, moaned just below my ear. I held my breath. I felt the scrape of his teeth, the slick, firm drag of his tongue along my throat, just as the teasing of his fingers turned gruff, a whisper deepening to a growl. “I’m gonna make you so wet.” The words alone were realizing his promise. He fanned his fingers, thumbs tracing the uppermost creases of my thighs and the hems of my panties.

“I’m gonna make you want me so bad it’ll hurt,” Kelly whispered. “Make you want me so much, you’ll come the second my cock sinks inside you.” I gulped a breath, head hazy, body tight and aching. He hadn’t even glanced my clit yet and I was closing in. A hot and restless desire, an angry, neglected presence that demanded attention. I needed to fidget, but surely he’d only tell me to be still. Touch me, I wanted to say. But it’d only earn me another shushing and a longer wait. “You want me already. Don’t you?” His thumbs stroked the outer edges of my lips through my underwear, lighting up nerves I hadn’t known I had, striking me

mute. “Don’t you?” “Yeah,” I mumbled, the sound a thick, physical thing, lodged in my throat. “I know you do. But you have to be patient.” One hand snaked up my body to cup my breast, and the other spread across my mound, warming my skin and taunting my clit with its proximity. But no contact. “You’ll get my cock when I’m good and ready. And I can wait all afternoon.” Kelly half chuckled, half sighed, a distinctly sinister noise, then amended, “I can wait all weekend. And so can you, since you don’t get a say.”

With that, he took his hand from my mons and wrapped his arm around my waist, resting his cheek against mine. If not for the palm cupping my breast and the hard cock at my back, it would have been quite the sweet little scene. I stared at the TV, trying to make sense of the movie, of eerie green spheres and Sean Connery’s eyebrows. What weird fetishes was I burning onto the sex processor of my brain? Would I be haunted by the sensation of a phantom hard-on pressed along my tailbone every time I caught a glimpse of Nicholas Cage from now on? His palm moved across my breast, a slow caress that parted my lips and shut

my eyes. The touch was echoed on the other side, back and forth until my nipples were stiff and aching. He teased them with both hands, plucking, then gentle pinching between his thumbs and forefingers. With a heavy breath he lowered his mouth to my ear, not speaking, not kissing, just letting his lower lip draw a faint line from my lobe and up along the curve then back again. Bite me, I thought. Say something filthy. Threaten me. Touch my fucking clit, for the love of God. But he just kept taunting, speaking in nothing more than warm, steady exhalations. I never would have expected him to be this way. So soft, and subtle. Sensual.

Words that didn’t describe any of his earlier advances. Who are you? Why lead me here, with gruff Kelly’s crass invitations? Why not let gentle Kelly seduce me first, follow the usual order of things? So I’d know what I was signing up for, perhaps, when rough Kelly returned. Or maybe this was how a mouse felt— brought down by force, then toyed with until the time came for feasting. “Tell me what you’re thinking about.” I swallowed. “About what’ll happen. How it’ll be.” “How do you think it’ll be?” “Rough.”

A smug sound hummed in my ear, not quite a laugh. “You wet for me yet?” I nodded. “Tell me.” “Yes. I am.” I sounded terrified, my breathing shallow. “You don’t sound too sure. Maybe I better find out for myself.” His hands slipped down my belly and over my hips, kneading my thighs. It made his chest clench—hard muscles pushing into my back every time his palms stroked my knees. Oh, the fucking rhythm of it. The harsh sound of his breath punctuated each motion and all I could think about was sex. About watching Kelly’s body above mine.

Flexing chest and arms and hips, the flash of his driving cock, and those cruel, unreadable eyes. My hands twitched, dying for something to do. Some part of Kelly to touch. Knowing I might get corrected, I angled my arm to cup the back of his head. That soft hair brushed my palm, not matching any other hard part of him. “I know what you want,” he said. The next time his hands stroked up my thighs, they stayed there. His thumbs traced the inside borders of my panties, sparking bright and hot as matches. He took my ear lobe between his lips, the gesture so unexpectedly erotic, I gasped. No time to recover, he slid one big,

intrusive hand down the front of my underwear. “Oh.” His palm rested on my mound, fingers impossibly cool and dry, just barely glancing my clit and the seam of my sex. I shivered, not caring if he saw. Not even caring if it prolonged the wait—all this near touching was getting me as hot as the best head I’d ever received. I could’ve come from his voice and presence and the promises his hands were making, nothing more. “I like this,” Kelly murmured, stroking his fingertips through the hair on my mound. Then they tightened, fisting my curls, and I choked on a moan, bucking

forward. His free arm circled my waist, holding me in place as those fingers clutched and eased again and again. When I stilled, he released my middle. His grip on my hair tightened and held, ten times as arousing as it was painful. It opened me even wider, made me feel like a restrained animal. His other hand slipped beneath the crotch of my panties, and finally it came. The friction. “Oh.” The side of his thumb stroked my clit, the length of his fingers sliding along my lips. My spine curled in on itself, every muscle convulsing. “Good,” was all Kelly said, and his

voice gave him away. Scratchy and shallow. His hands were perfectly poised, but that single syllable thrummed with excitement, just like every last inch of the thick cock beating against my tailbone. Two stiff fingers slipped forward and back along my lips, forward and back. I squirmed, wanting more—more friction, more depth, more of anything that promised violation. I shut my eyes, remembering the way his erection had taunted me that night in my bed. The way his hips had felt, pushing into me, the way he’d forced my hand around his head and bathed my palm in his come. I squeezed my inner muscles, sharpening

the pleasure. “I know what you want,” Kelly told me again. His voice was deep once more, arousal sounding tamed. At long last he let my curls go, freeing two fingertips to gently pinch my clit, his other hand still tracing my lips, but deeper now. I was so wet, it was shocking. I felt shameful and proud at once, and above all, exposed. Found out. My mouth could deny my interest in Kelly all day long, but my pussy didn’t lie. He felt like more than a single person. Two hands, a hard body, a mean voice. A one-man orgy. I’d leave here limping, just as he’d promised.

He rolled my clit between his thumb and forefinger. Pleasure gathered in steady pulsations, but the contact wouldn’t get me off. It wasn’t meant to. “You thinking about my cock?” “About your hands.” “What about them?” “It feels. So fucking good.” I nearly laughed, just from how ridiculous and overwrought I sounded, and yes, from how fucking good his hands felt. “I could make you come if I wanted,” he whispered. “Just like I did in your bed.” Yes yes yes. Now now now. “But you got off easy that night. Bring your legs together.”

His hands left me, the most torturous neglect ever. I was too lust-drunk to understand his order, but then he was tugging at my panties and I caught on. I shimmied my legs close enough for him to push my underwear to my knees, then got them kicked away. Another gruff directive spread my thighs back open; so much cool air, so much shocking heat. He clasped my breast with one strong hand and the other slipped between my legs. The pad of his thumb rubbed my clit with maddening, blunt strokes, as those fingertips went right back to taunting me—promising penetration but showing no signs of delivering anytime soon.

The sweep of his fingers, the squeeze of the palm holding my breast. The stiff length of his cock digging into my spine like a hostage-taker’s gun. And his words, his fucking words. “Still only thinking about my hands?” “Your hands. And your voice. And your dick.” “What about my dick?” “About . . . About how it’ll feel.” Without warning, he pushed two fingers inside me to the middle knuckle. I clasped his wrist. “Oh.” “Shhh.” He drew them out, basting my clit in the wetness, then drove back inside. Three fingers, now? Or was I just so swollen that it felt like that many? He

kept them stiff and straight, and my mind wandered right where he surely wanted it, to the hard heat between his legs. “Now tell me what you’re thinking about.” “Your cock.” Harder and faster, his fingers plunged. Then suddenly he stopped, drew them out slowly and brought them to his mouth. He moaned as he tasted me. Tasted what he’d done to me. The next breath, he slid them back inside me, pace resumed like he’d never stopped. “Oh God.” “Say my name.” “Kelly.” “Good. You got permission to say that

anytime you like. Now tell me what you want from my cock.” “Whatever you’ll give me.” Another of those nasty chuckles hummed in my ear, and his fucking fingers slowed. “Good answer, sweetheart. You want me to tell you what I plan to give you?” “Yes.” “Doesn’t work that way.” Of course it didn’t. I want what I want, when and how I want it. I was left waiting for the whims of Kelly’s cock to assert themselves. Aching, I lost myself in the steady, explicit violation of his fingers, imagining watching his length sink inside

me. Imagining how he’d be, when he finally lost control. I knew how he’d sound—I’d recorded every word and grunt and breath from that night in my bed and replayed it when I got myself off, a dozen times at least. But what he might look like, I could only guess. Mean, surely. Mean, but helpless. Kelly Robak, helpless from what I could make him feel. The notion was as hot as his pounding fingers. I shifted, needing something, anything, just the flex of my own hips to spur the desire. Kelly seemed to mistake the gesture for restlessness. The spread fingers cupping my breast crept up my neck, slid into my hair and tightened.

You’re not going anywhere, his fist told me. You stay right here and you come when I make you come. It was the singularly most erotic touch I’d ever felt—the coldest, hottest, cruelest sensation. A snatch of memory visited me, of my pitching a fit when an old boyfriend had grasped my hair when I’d been giving him head. It had hurt, and worse, it’d made me feel like he’d written me into some porn scene. I’d signed up to be with a nice guy, not some porno-jack-off hair-grabber, and he’d violated my expectations. How dare he not conform to the script I’d composed when I cast him as my gentle lover? How dare he try

to recast me as some slap-around slut whose hair he got to grab while he fucked my mouth? The poor thing. He’d probably just thought it’d be hot, and hoped maybe I’d be into it. Instead I’d snapped and ranted at him for five minutes. Shamed him for treating me like that. I could be a real control freak, with guys. With nice guys. Funny how with Kelly, I welcomed the dirty stuff. The degrading dynamics. I guess because he came as advertised. He couldn’t violate my expectations, when violation was basically his main selling point. “I know you’re getting close,” Kelly

said. I had been. I’d distracted myself with that memory, hoping to draw things out, but I was creeping closer and closer with every push of his fingers. “Tell me.” “I’m getting close.” “You’ll come when I let you. When I tell you. Got that?” Oh fuck. “Yes,” I said, uncertain I was physically capable of keeping that promise. If I failed, would I get punished? Did I want to get punished? With no other man on earth would I want to be laid across a lap and spanked, but with Kelly . . . Shit, I had no fucking clue.

“Stand up.” I obeyed on boneless legs. Kelly stood as well, yanking off his shirt, unbuckling and stripping his belt with a rough, practiced motion, opening his fly and shoving his jeans down his legs. I got the same non-view of his cock as I had before, obscenely stiff, straining against black cotton. I fidgeted with my waistband, wondering if I was supposed to be stripping, too. His eyes didn’t miss my silent inquiry. “Keep it on. I like skirts.” He sat again and patted his lap. My legs were wobbly as I returned to my position, straddling his thighs. He tugged

me tight to his chest, erection hard against my ass and feeling a hundred times dirtier with his jeans gone. Cocks had always been an incidental bonus to me, something I only cared about in proportion to how much I liked the guy it was attached to. Silly when flaccid, exciting or scary or off-putting when hard. It was a man’s words or expression or caresses that dominated my masturbatory fantasies—a specific man at that, be he a crush or a celebrity or a character from a movie. I never simply fixated on a dick. They were strictly secondary to the man himself. Right now, though, the world spun on Kelly’s cock. The sun rose and set

around it, and I wanted it like I’d never known I could want anything. Just to see it, to feel its weight against my palm, taste and smell the skin, to discover what it needed from me and do exactly that. Heat, I thought. This is what being in heat feels like. A need so primal and crazy-making, it leaves a bitch howling. “Sit up. Scoot forward a sec.” I did as I was told and Kelly fumbled behind my butt, adjusted the way he sat. When his hand guided me back, the other circled my waist and slipped between my thighs, and he lined his bare cock up along my wet lips. I sucked a breath, suddenly back in my bed with him,

taunted by the darkest part of him, the one I seemed doomed never to set eyes on. Only now it was a hundred times hotter, and dirtier, and more dangerous. Hands clamped my hips, pitching me forward an inch or two, easing me back. I took their directives, bracing my hands on Kelly’s knees. Forward and back, over and over, his naked cock and my naked cunt rubbing in slick strokes. I moaned, arms shaking. He shushed me. “You come when I let you come,” he told me again. My body gave a pleasurable, hungry squeeze at his words, the very last scraps of my stubborn feminism

abandoned. “You do whatever I say.” He freed a hand, put it to my ribs and gruffly arched my back against his chest. Took my earlobe between his lips, nuzzled my cheek with his nose. “You come when I say, suck my cock when I say, spread your legs the second I tell you to. Got it?” I managed to huff an, “Okay,” between stilted breaths. “You’ll get it, though. Don’t worry.” He grasped my shoulder and waist, making me arch deeper, my sex pressing against the length of his erection. He guided me to move, short motions of my hips keeping his flesh gliding along

mine. “Fuck.” I said it without meaning to, almost a plea. A shhhh warmed the skin behind my ear. “You’ll get it,” he echoed. “But only if you behave, and keep that pretty mouth shut unless I’m asking you a question.” I held my tongue, bit my lip. My pussy actually, truly hurt; I was so close. Don’t come. Don’t come. I tried to watch the movie, but my eyes closed, awareness solely on the slippery strokes of his cock. I could angle my hips, maybe feel him push inside me. Feel his hands on my waist, feel his body thumping into mine as he took over the thrusting. I wanted to be held in place

and fucked, just fucked. The thought made me dizzy. The thought edged me closer. And if I lost it, surely I’d have to wait even longer. Don’t come, don’t come, don’t come! A loud moan built of frustration and pain and pleasure erupted from my throat. Kelly froze, then his hold on me loosened. So, so lightly, his fingertips played up and down the length of my arm. “You remember what I told you? About being quiet?” I nodded wildly, crazed from the heat and sound and need stuffed inside me. “If you can’t keep quiet,” he said,

“we’ll just have to find that mouth something useful to do.”

Chapter Nine

“Get up.” Another hot jolt, chased by a shiver of fear. I fumbled from Kelly’s lap, his wet cock sliding between my cheeks and embarrassing me. When I made it to my feet and turned, he was up and shedding his shorts, and finally I got to see him. All of him. His cock looked just as it felt: big and thick and intimidating, heavy with need, a force not to be defied.

“On your knees.” I did as I was told. The carpet was soft, as soft as the eyes staring down at me were hard. “Get your shirt off.” I peeled it away, put my fingers to the clasp of my bra. He nodded and I ditched that, too. I touched my waistband, but— “Leave the skirt.” He stood before me, cock hovering between us accusingly. He fisted the root. I wanted a photo of that very sight, the only pornography I’d need for the rest of my life. I’d never done quite this—never gone down on a guy while he was standing.

Felt like a new act entirely. All the power belonged to Kelly with his looming body, his ready cock, bossy hands, and whatever commands might fall next from his lips, dropping down, down, down from so high above me. “You ready for a feast, sweetheart?” He gave himself a long, tight pull, not waiting for an answer. “You gonna suck my cock? Show me whether or not you deserve to come on this later?” More strokes, quicker but still perfectly controlled. Already a drop glistened at his tip, growing fatter until it slipped down the cleft of his head. I could feel my own desire priming, mimicking his.

“Open your mouth, girl.” I swallowed, then obeyed, shutting my eyes to temper the intensity of the moment. His finger or thumb traced my lower lip, followed by the unmistakable smooth skin of his crown. Just the smell of him made my thighs tremble, and the flavor of his sex matched it—earthy and dark. My flavor, too. The arousal I’d basted him in. “Wider.” I obeyed, and his first inch slipped between my lips. “Taste yourself.” That most unexpected of erotic touches again, as he slid his fingers into my hair and made a fist. As welcome now as it had been rejected

with that old boyfriend. Kelly’s hips flexed, giving me more. Already my jaw ached, but it was just gas on the blaze, a spice that brought out the nuances of what he was serving me. “Suck.” I wrapped his base in my hand, held his hip with the other. I wanted to run them over his hard stomach, his thighs and his ass, the swell of muscle cresting from his ribs to his hip bones, everywhere. But I was the sex object, not him. “Suck. Me.” The fist in my hair tightened, forcing my mouth farther down his cock. I shut my eyes and closed my lips

around him. Fucking big. Fucking hard, and with my mouth full, I had no choice but to breathe him in—that potent, distinctly male smell with its millions of iterations, that scent that can kill an attraction dead or make you an addict for life. And I was hooked on Kelly, instantly. His smell was as right as his voice, as hot as his body. It hit me like a shot of liquor, and all I wanted was to get wasted. He tasted like skin and salt and sex, sex, sex. Just right. I’d never felt this with a man, this blind, shameless need to simply have him inside me, in any way I could get him. To submit to his maleness, do his bidding, invite him to shed all

civility and just be. Just be a man, in all his base, greedy, selfish glory, and let me wallow in it. I strained to take in the body above me, that face and those eyes. Tense muscle, flushed skin, that hard expression with those beautiful clear irises. “More.” His voice made me shiver and the hand holding his hip twitched. I took everything I could, slowly, to keep from gagging. “Yeah. Nice and deep . . .” He gathered my hair in both hands, nearly tender. “I should come right now. Make you drink me down, send you to bed

hungry for trying my patience.” He stroked my cheek roughly with his thumb and the caress echoed through me, potent as fingertips on my clit. With his hips, he showed me the rhythm he craved. He went deeper than I wanted, triggering shallow gags and making my sinuses sting. His smell seemed sharper, the deed darker, and when the reflex tears began brewing, it became tougher to breathe. But wasn’t that just so right? “Oh.” His hips bucked faintly with the moan. “I’ve got so much for you. So much. I wanna see it slip down your pretty chin when I fill that mouth up.” His words made me reel, made my

legs shake like some cliché. Do it, I begged him in my mind. Exactly what you said, you filthy fucker. “But not yet,” he whispered, shooting down the prayer I’d beamed. “Not yet.” And he eased my mouth from his cock with that nasty hand in my hair. Even as the air quenched me, I wanted him back inside, like my sanity depended on it. “Stroke me. I wanna see my cock in your hand.” I wrapped my fingers around him, squeezing gently. Uncertain what else he might like, I kept my other hand on his thigh. After half a minute, he took over. “Like this.” He fisted himself, demonstrating

long, tight, downward strokes, rougher than I’d dared. The other hand went to his balls, cupping first, then giving slow pulls. The latter he kept up, releasing his erection. “Try again.” I gripped his cock, mimicking what he’d shown me. On a whim, I added a second fist, stroking him from the base to the head, hand over hand over hand. His own hand froze in tandem with a grunt, telling me he approved. “Better,” he muttered, and let his balls go, gathering up my hair once more. “Now suck.” The salty tang of his excitement was strong with the first pass of my lips,

fading as I found my pace. “Yeah. You’re good. But I’ll make you even better. Keep going. Earn the fucking I’m gonna give you tonight.” I swallowed him deeper, back to the edge of choking, though it wasn’t as bad this time. I found a smoother way to take him, an angle that was easier on my gag reflex. “Look at me.” I did my best, straining to meet his eyes. So, so gently, he ran his knuckles over my cheek. “That’s good.” And then the fist holding my hair pulled me back, his cock slipping free and leaving me all at once disappointed

and hungry and empty. Angry. “I think it’s almost time,” Kelly said. “Don’t you?” Without thought, I replied, “Whatever you say.” He smirked at that, eyes narrowing. Then he left me kneeling there, striding out of the room, past the kitchen and down the hall. When he reappeared, he was sliding a condom down his cock, and my heart was racing in an instant. He tossed the wrapper on the counter, eyes locking with mine as he closed in. Fear chilled my skin and arousal heated my cunt, and I awaited his next order. “All fours.” The carpet had already begun to chafe

my knees, but I dropped obediently to my palms. Kelly circled me, then stopped. No sound or movement for a long, long moment. I could feel his gaze on me, explicit as stroking fingers. After an eternity, he knelt behind me. My skirt was flipped up over my back and those big hands held my waist, sliding down and along the outsides of my thighs then up the insides. One hand cupped my hip. He flattened the other palm, drawing the edges of his thumb and forefinger along my folds, making me yelp. “Shhh.” I shut my mouth, harsh breaths wheezing from my nose. It felt so good.

So fucking good. Then the pleasure sharpened, deepened, darkened as Kelly’s hand was gone, replaced with the hot, latex-smooth length of his erection. “You made me wait so long,” he whispered, cock sliding forward and back along my lips, pelvis bumping my ass to punctuate each pump of his hips. “Now I get to take my time. Make you wait until I say you can come.” I moaned from the friction and his voice, then froze as he angled himself, pushing inside. We gasped together, mine a noise of surprise, his smug and hungry. He met resistance after a couple of inches, the reality of his size hitting

home with a pang. A groan slipped from my throat, immediately shushed. Two hands grasped my sides. His hips adjusted. He slid out slowly, nearly leaving me empty, then slipped back inside, a little deeper than before. More than any sexual experience I’d had, this felt like a physical violation. Flesh rending flesh. An act of near violence. Jesus, it felt incredible. “You feel that?” Another inch drove inside. “Feel that cock? Feel what you do to me?” “Yes.” “Feel how fucking hard you make me?” I nodded, throat too tight to speak. He

eased out then pushed deeper, deeper. His body felt strong and big behind me, a force I’d be hopeless to resist. I was a little bird in his huge paws, a goner. Devour me. “You’re so warm,” he said, cock sliding out, excruciatingly slowly. He made me feel every inch, the sensation so intense I forgot to breathe. A head rush made me hazy, and I forced myself to inhale, exhale, to recall any needs my body had aside from submitting to Kelly’s pleasure. “And so bad for making me wait.” A slap landed on my thigh, not quite a spank but unmistakably a punishment. I jolted from my trance. Another slow

pump, another slap. It stung, hot on the heels of the first. I braced myself for a third, but he rubbed the spot instead, then clamped his hands tight to my waist, hips picking up speed. “Yeah.” He sucked in a seething breath, let it out with a shudder. I craned my neck to see his face. My stoic, composed guardian-orderly was gone. His mean eyes were at halfmast, cheeks and lips flushed, mouth slack. It heated me in a way the physical sensations couldn’t, tightening my body around his. Dangerous reactions, when I knew full well I wasn’t allowed to come. “You like to watch?” Not waiting for

an answer, he upped the showmanship— his thrusts slowed and deepened, the roll of his hips exaggerated, the clenched muscles of his chest startling. The rhythmic flex of his abdomen insane. A thousand bucks—I’d have happily paid it for a view of his ass. “I’ll give you a real good look.” And all at once he pulled out, slapped my hip, and said, “Turn over.” I flipped gracelessly onto my back, Kelly knocking my knees wide, grabbing my waist and jerking me hard so my pussy was pressed to the underside of his erection. Carpet burn stung my shoulder blades, but I couldn’t care. Not when he was holding his cock, angling

it, sinking back inside me, deep. I moaned. “Shhh. Keep that pretty mouth shut and watch.” He clasped the meat of my upper thighs, holding me in place as he began to thrust. A deep, shuddering noise rumbled from him and he paused to adjust his angle, eyes shut, luxuriating. “Fuck, you feel good, girl.” Don’t concentrate on the sensations. If you do, you’ll come. Then there’ll be trouble. Real trouble, no cheesy callme-Daddy play spanking, not from Kelly fucking Robak. I let the sight mesmerize me, drawing a needed veil between my body and brain. His pace was slow and steady, thrusts

assertive, their impact jolting through me. How was this real? How was I having sex with this man? The dark hair between his legs kissed my lighter curls each time he pushed deep, chased by a view of his thick shaft, shining from me. More hair trickled from his chest down the gulley between his abdominal muscles, a faint trail. I imagined stroking it while he slept, finding out if it was as soft as it looked, as soft as on his forearms. My gaze darted to his face, and the stubble peppering his jaw— rough as sandpaper, my chin could attest. I wanted to crawl over his sleeping body and study him from close-up; record

every line beside his eyes, every pore, every lash and freckle, the tiniest veins in his lids. The two little glistening pink notches at the inside corners of his eyes, too vulnerable a scrap of flesh for a man like this to even possess, and yet he did. And maybe he’d even shed tears from there, in some previous life. I studied every miniscule scrap of proof that he was human and committed it to memory. What was before me now, this couldn’t be real. Not the way his hips and stomach flexed and clenched, not that tendon standing taut along his neck. Not that look on his face, a mix of stern and desperate that made me feel at once scared and invincible. This wasn’t any

Kelly I knew, not even one I’d met in my fantasies. “You like watching me fuck?” His voice, though—that was unmistakable. This was real. “Yeah? Tell me.” “Yes.” He smacked my hip. “Tell me.” “I like watching you fuck.” “Good. Eyes on my cock.” I dropped my gaze where he wanted it. Where I didn’t want it, frankly. Because already, my resolve was destroyed, every slick push of his flesh honing my arousal sharper, hotter, meaner. I wasn’t allowed to come yet, but if I kept watching, I would. I didn’t need anything more—not a thumb on my clit, not one

more filthy syllable in that deep, dark voice. Just this view, and I’d be done for. His lips were parted, lids heavy. This moment might not be about him and me, about two bodies unified in pleasure or anything profound, but goddamn he looked good. Looked exactly as he felt —strong and big and one hundred percent in control. And I felt exactly as he surely saw me, a hungry vessel, eager to please, at the mercy of his cock. Another smack on my hip scared the pleasure away for a breath. “Eyes on my cock,” he repeated, and I obeyed. Those big hands kneaded my thighs as

his hips sped. Hotter than the friction and impact and view were his sounds. Breaths coming faster, tiny grunts on the odd thrust. He released one of my legs, his palm spreading tingling heat over my skin as he stroked my hip, my side beneath the drape of my skirt, my belly. It settled on my mound, and with a sensation like whip striking, his thumb found my clit. I half sat up, sucking in a silent gasp. Kelly smirked, that elusive smile filling me with a different pleasure, one that tumbled around warmly between my ribs. Another stroke, and the affection was gone like smoke. He drew his length out, dipping two fingers inside me and

slicking the wetness over my clit. My legs jerked and I groaned. “Hush.” He rubbed me, slow and unmistakably patronizing. His erection beat hot against my inner thigh. “You miss my cock?” “Yeah.” He clasped himself, angled his dick and drew it along my lips, over my clit. I bucked, grasping his other wrist. Another sinister smile and a couple of swipes of his hard flesh, then he sank back inside. “Now don’t you mistake yourself.” His slippery fingers pinched my clit. “Oh.” “Shhh.” He circled the spot. “This

isn’t permission. You don’t come ’til I tell you to. And I’m not telling you yet.” But it was impossible. I might as well will my heart to stop beating. The entire world became his cock claiming my cunt, his fingers teasing my pleading clit, the atmosphere built from his smell and voice and the sound of his skin on mine. This was a force of nature, a physical law. I was just as he wanted me— powerless. And he looked calm now, so calm. The need mounted, a desperate ache growing harder, tauter, angrier— pounding, white-hot heat. With every glance of his fingertips, every plunge of his flesh into mine, another push toward

the ledge. No. No no no no no. But my body was begging, shrieking for relief. It had to show on my face. “Don’t you do it,” Kelly warned, cock drilling, cruel fingers stroking light as a whisper, hot as a bonfire. Daring me or forcing me. And it was his voice that did it. Five little words and I was gone. “Don’t you fucking do it.” The world shrank to a pinpoint, made of nothing but the friction between us, and Kelly’s weight, his smell, the sound of his harsh breaths and the brutal length of his cock. The pleasure burst against his fingers, spilling out warmth and pure sensation, a wave of relief dragged back

and chased by pleasure-pain. Too much, but he didn’t stop, even as I grasped his wrist, begging. I shut my eyes, ground my head into the carpet. Stop. Please. But he kept stroking with his cock and his fingers, stroked me until the pain was shed, more pleasure hiding beneath. Scary pleasure, mean and violent. My hold on his wrist faltered, trembling as he forced me toward a second orgasm, a screaming, furious thing. “Oh God.” “Shut that mouth,” Kelly said, and it was the last thing I was aware of. I came like a bolt, fast and blinding. His fingers showed mercy this time. He left me shaking against the carpet,

wrung out and twitchy. I could hear myself. Wheezing breaths, primal groans. I sounded frightened. And maybe I ought to be. As my muscles unclenched, Kelly went dead-still. Gray eyes stared down from impossible heights and he closed his hands around my hip bones. “You defy my orders, you pay the price.” His cock was gone. It was punishment in itself, leaving me deprived. “Turn over. On your elbows.” I fumbled back to all fours and lowered to my forearms, the steep position feeling unnerving and degrading. I couldn’t turn and see him,

and my butt was just . . . there. My skirt slipped farther up my waist. Every point of contact I’d had with Kelly was taken away, and whatever he had planned, I couldn’t see it or feel it. The slightest huff of an inhalation, then — SMACK. I gasped, cheek burning as though he’d pressed an iron to my ass. I couldn’t get a breath in. Nothing like before, during the sex— SMACK. The other side, just as sharp. My shoulders and arms shook and tears pooled in my eyes. Spatula. I could say it. I should say it.

I couldn’t take another— SMACK. Same as the first side, a searing sting like the fucking Devil had branded me. The other cheek tingled, pain fading. Say it. Say the stupid safe word. But I didn’t. Not that I couldn’t. I simply didn’t. Somehow, I chose not to. I wanted to feel what lay beyond the pain. The next smack brought the fire, but no fresh panic. It felt like . . . It felt like every ounce of Kelly’s brutal body, his strength, concentrated to a laser focus. A force I could never replicate. I was too small, too female, too timid— SMACK.

“Oh fuck.” “One more, for talking.” A final burning slap rang against my ass, then he began to rub. With both hands, a rough massage to start but softening steadily, until it was just the faintest graze of his palms over my fevered skin. His hands moved to my waist, grabbing my skirt’s stretchy waistband and yanking it over my hips and down my thighs. As he stood I rose to my hands, watching him. His throat and chest were flushed pink, racing breaths given away by the flex of his belly and the swell of his ribs. “Get up.”

I was barely on my feet when he hooked an arm behind my knees. My skirt slipped from my toes, fluttering to the floor. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been carried, but he did so as easily as he might a child, around the corner and down the hall, into his room. He laid me across the bed and flipped the blinds closed. I propped myself up on my elbows, and for half a minute or more he stood at the bedside, studying me with darting eyes. His covers felt cold under my burning butt and rasped shoulders, but that stare didn’t promise any respite. Neither did his cock, looking as hard as it had felt, claiming my body on the floor. He

wrapped it in his fist, and my mouth dropped open. Since he’d told me what he had, outside the bar, about touching himself, thinking about me . . . I’d gotten myself off fantasizing about it, a half dozen times or more. Now here it was, live and in person. More explicit and real somehow, even with the condom veiling my view, electric with dimension and smell and the intimidation of knowing he wasn’t done with me. That I was staring at a cocked weapon, and I had bull’seyes stenciled all over my body. His pulls were slow. Pensive, as though he were perusing a menu. “You look good on that bed,” he finally

said. “Just like I imagined.” He sounded softer now. Not tender, but my misgiving ebbed as I held his gaze. He approached and my heartbeat sped, but it was excitement pulsing through my veins, not anxiety. “Open your legs.” My arousal flashed at the way he said it. Brusque and bossy, sure, but his voice was tight, giving him away. I spread. He wedged his knees beneath my thighs, driving them wider. I gasped at the contact, hard, hot muscle burning against the skin his palm had savaged. He held my waist as he guided himself back to my entrance, his cock feeling almost cool against my swollen lips.

With a long, deep push, he was all the way inside, so smooth we could have been doing this together for years. He braced his hands at my sides, and I counted the throbs of his arousal like a countdown clock, like a metronome setting the rhythm of what was still to come. “You feel me?” he asked. “Yes.” “How do I feel?” “Big. And thick. Hard.” He began to move—deliberate motions designed to corroborate what I’d said. “Biggest you’ve had?” I nodded. “Tell me.”

“You’re the biggest I’ve had.” “So big it’s like you never got fucked before now.” His tone said it wasn’t a question, so I held my tongue and got lost in the motions of his body. Everything male and strong, owning me. Scary and comforting, needy and protective, all at once. Unsure if I was allowed, I reached up slowly, and he let me stroke his arms. His skin was more tan than mine, and stained with bruises. My hands looked so small and pale, like they belonged to a delicate, make-believe creature. These are the arms that keep me safe, at work, I thought. And turn me into a victim once I’ve stepped across Kelly’s

threshold. His thrusts grew deeper, a bit faster. The flex of his hips and abdominal muscles were hypnotizing, like everything I’d ever wished pornography could be. So hot I’d give up a week’s wages for a copy of this tape. Since I couldn’t, I’d just have to record the moment. “You like to watch,” he muttered, voice heavy and thick. “You wanna watch when I come?” The second he asked, I knew my answer. “Yeah.” “Yeah, you wanna see. Wanna see what you do to me.” I nearly smirked, so surprised—what I

did to him. This man no one got the better of, ever. Who’d seduced me with a guerilla campaign and lured me to this very encounter against every scrap of my better judgment. What I’d done to him. Even flat on my back, the notion made me feel seven feet tall. “Yeah, Kelly. Let me see.” He leaned back, drawing all the shadows away and giving me the perfect view of his body. His gaze had dropped between us to the point of penetration. “You’re so fucking wet.” A flurry of hard thrusts caught me off guard, then he slowed again. “So wet. So fucking tight.” That one made me squirm, but only for

a second. I’d always shied at that term, thinking it was somehow degrading, some virginity-exalting male fixation. But fuck it, I did feel tight. From his size, and my own pleasure. I was swollen and lush, and yeah, tight. I’d had it all twisted. A tight pussy wasn’t about replicating innocence. It was about a man feeling desired. And I wouldn’t begrudge Kelly a truth as deep as that one. He let me touch him however I wanted, and I ran my palms up his stomach and chest, down his sides, and over his hips and ass. I drank it all in, knowing this could very well prove the most extraordinary sexual experience of

my life, and might be one of the few and final times I got to be with him. Or let myself be with him. “You like the way I fuck,” he growled, the tell me implicit in his eyes. “I love how you fuck.” A cruel smile, and he dropped back down, looming. I squeezed the hard swells of his shoulders then held his hips. His breathing had changed. It was short and high in his chest, speeding alongside his cock. His face looked harsh but the control was bleeding out of him, eyes unfocused. If ever I had a chance to steal a scrap of his power, this was it. “You gonna come for me, Kelly?”

He answered with a throaty, “Oh,” and I knew I had him. “Show me.” “I will. I’ll let you see. Let you see what I’ve imagined, every fucking time I’ve shot in my hand, thinking about you.” Just like that, he stole back the reins, left me wordless and hazy, all my blood throbbing around his cock and not a single thought in my skull. “I’ll show you,” he promised, and trailed off. Pleasure had the better of him. It drove his racing strokes, escaping his lips in heavy grunts. I could see it—the exact moment we reached his point of no return. Eyes

narrowed to slits, lips flushed, face mean, so mean. I grabbed his punishing hips just to feel the muscles working, and locked my gaze on his driving cock. He didn’t even make me beg. He went dead-silent, face strained through a dozen fierce, sloppy thrusts. Then all at once he jerked out, stripped the condom with a snap, and pumped himself in a rough fist. His moan was soundless, lips round. With one arm braced beside my shoulder, he pressed his crown to my belly on the first spurt, hot come lashing my skin. Again, again, until his hand slowed. A single bead of sweat slipped down his cheek and chin, hitting my collarbone like a raindrop.

Bleed on me, I thought, holding his sides, feeling his ribs swell and contract. Let me drown in your sweat and blood and come and every other filthy thing that makes you this way. I took a deep, hitching breath and stroked his sweat-damp hair, suppressing my urge to kiss him madly. Maybe he’d have welcomed it, but I didn’t like the way I felt. I wanted to kiss like this was love, like we’d just fucked to celebrate his proposing to me. I was smart enough to keep the boundary between attraction and affection delineated, and save those kisses for a man who’d recognize them for what they were.

Music drifted from the living room, rising and falling on a loop, the menu screen of the movie. When the agility returned to his limbs, Kelly moved to the edge of the mattress and procured a hand towel from the side table drawer. He tidied me with stoic sweeps, sleepiness already dulling his gaze. We settled on our sides, my back hugged tight to Kelly’s front, both of us sweaty and ripe and spent. His palm rested on my ribs, once possessive, now feeling heavy and lazy, even fond. “So,” he said at length, lips against my neck. “Yes?” “You feel exploited or spoiled?”

“A bit of both.” He made a cocky noise. “Good enough.” I reached back to pat his hair, my dangerous predator pacified for now. “You were right. There was something in it for me.” He pressed his half-stiff cock to my butt, but he was wrong. Nice as that was, Kelly had been the treat. Kelly with his callous words and voice and fists, all that mastery dressed up as sadism. He was the best lover I’d ever had. So far ahead of the competition, I couldn’t even recall their names or faces. When I’d amuse myself on quiet nights with memories of this affair, I’d think of his

cock, sure. But more than that, it’d be those bossy hands and leveling eyes. It’d be Kelly, possessing me. Using me. And yeah, spoiling me rotten. I’d slept with the enemy, and fuck . . . Who knew a chauvinist would make such an incredible lay? “You sticking around for day two?” he asked. “Do I have a choice?” “Not really. But you could probably make a run for it now, while I’m incapacitated.” I laughed. “I think I’ll stay right here.” Right here, where everything felt surprisingly simple. Where my worries faded to abstract concepts. Where our

Saturday shift felt weeks away, and life was no more complicated than the needs of our naked bodies, the world no wider than his bed. “I’m curious to see what round two will look like.” “It’ll look like whatever I want it to,” Kelly said, but a yawn sucked all the ominousness from his words. “Don’t fall asleep. You promised me dinner.” I wound up regretting the comment; a minute later Kelly dragged himself from the bed, putting an end to the cuddling I was secretly enjoying. And there he was. Kelly, just Kelly. Just a naked man rendered docile by his

release, muscles beautiful but stripped of all threats. In that instant, those onceintimidating bruises made him seem heartbreakingly fragile. I watched him pull on a fresh pair of shorts, his eyes catching mine as he straightened the waistband. “Yeah?” “Just looking at you. While you’re still tranquilized.” That earned me a grin. “How do you like your steak?” “Medium.” Kelly nodded, heavy lids blocking all the coldness from his stare. “Whatever you say.”

Chapter Ten

I woke when the first light of dawn kissed my eyelids. Was it five? Six? Later? For a second I cared, then the weight of Kelly’s arm registered, a pleasurable anchor draped over my ribs. One of my hands was limp and numb and I fidgeted as gently as I could, trying not to wake him. I thought I’d succeeded for a breath, then he let loose a low, groggy noise. I craned my neck, watching his eyes open to the narrowest slits.

“Mhh.” “Good morning, Kelly.” “Morning.” Sleep had left me fearless, and the morning chill had me craving his heat. I grasped his wrist and lay his arm along my waist, wriggling closer. In the back of my head, I knew I wouldn’t be so snuggly with Kelly, were I more awake. But just now . . . No blanket was this cozy, no comforter so warm and encapsulating. He did as I secretly wished, tugging me close. A happy noise hummed against my neck, chased by the lazy press of his lips. I luxuriated in the contact, knowing this sleepy, easy Kelly wouldn’t last.

This man was by turns cold and hot, controlled and crazed. For this brief moment he was none of those things. Just warm, just calm. Just some mysterious sliver of sedate, satisfied Kelly Robak, one I knew intuitively I was blessed to glimpse. The most elusive of species. After round one of sex, Kelly had cooked us steaks, and we ate them on his back patio with bottles of beer, sipping until the sun was sinking, shooting the shit about work. Round two had been a frenzy. No waiting, no teasing, no games. Just straight-up nasty fucking on his bed, fast and rough and utterly exhausting. After the bare minimum of tidying up, we’d

passed out, crawling under the covers at some vague hour after our sweat had cooled. I could smell the sex, there in his sheets. I could feel it between my legs and in the rawness of my hips and the carpet burn on my elbows. Against my nape, the soft press of his mouth firmed to a true kiss. I craned my neck so our lips could meet, breath be damned. A romantic start to the day, I thought, my body rousing equally from pleasure and alarm. “Morning,” he said again. “What’s for breakfast?” He laughed, the tiniest nasal huff. “What would you like?”

“Pancakes?” “I don’t think I have the ingredients for that.” “You tell me, then.” I grinned, registering my choice of words. “That’s what you like, after all. Doing the telling. I’ll answer when asked.” He smiled back. “I’m not awake enough to be a bossy dick yet. But I got eggs and bread, and bacon, I think. It’s that or cereal and milk.” “Eggs, then.” I rolled up onto my side and forearm, gazing down at that rare sight—Kelly, declawed. His mood-ring eyes were neutral gray, summer clouds that threatened no rain. “Jesus,” he muttered. “You’re sexy.”

I blushed, which probably just exacerbated whatever baby-faced breed of hotness he was finding in me. “Take a shower,” he said, tossing the covers aside. “I’ll get the coffee started.” “As you command.” He smirked at me as he stood, mischievous and approving. He’d slept in his shorts, and my attention got dragged down his chest and abs and crotch and those big thighs. The blush drained from my cheeks, seeking other parts to heat. “Get your eyes off my dick and get your butt in the shower,” he said, sleepy Kelly clearly punching out and handing

the reins to Taskmaster Robak. I did as I was told, warming to the idea of his domineering side returning. Kelly’s shower nearly flayed all my skin off, and I had to turn it way down to keep from getting bruised by the water pressure. Parts of me already felt tenderized, my labia stinging as I soaped myself, my backside sore from his slaps. Even my eyes felt overly sensitive to the bright bathroom lights. I rinsed the conditioner from my hair, then shrieked to find Kelly leaning against the wall, watching me through a gap in the curtain. “Jesus!” He didn’t apologize, just let his gaze

drop down and rise back up, looking like some hybrid of hungry and amused, but in no hurry to pounce. “How d’you like your eggs?” “However. Just not runny.” He nodded once and disappeared, drawing the curtain back in place on clacking plastic rings. Once dry, I pulled on yesterday’s skirt, clasped a bra and found a clean tee shirt from my bag. I skipped underwear, liking how it felt. Like a secret, just between me and the cool morning air, until Kelly came prowling and found me out. I dabbed concealer under my eyes, threw on some mascara and declared myself presentable.

Following the ambrosial smell of bacon, I found Kelly in the kitchen, scrambling eggs in a glass bowl. “Coffee’s ready.” I filled a mug and stood on the other side of the counter. The condom wrapper was still there, and I picked it up and studied it, smirking. He poured the eggs into a pan with a sizzle, then fetched glasses from a cupboard. “Orange juice or milk?” “Is there any champagne left? We could have mimosas.” Kelly swapped our tumblers for stemware, and grabbed the bottle from the fridge. At some point he’d corked it

with a rubber stopper, and it came out with a limp pop. I poured us each a measure and topped it off with OJ. Soon enough he set plates on the breakfast bar, heaped with scrambled eggs and bacon and toast—two Kellysized servings. Then again, I’d need my strength, if today’s sex-a-thon was going to be a repeat of yesterday’s. We pulled high stools to the counter and Kelly held up his glass. I tapped it with mine, not bothering to ask what we were toasting. To more nasty sex, I thought. Fucking cheers to that. I sipped my mimosa. “There’s something awfully satisfying about a cocktail that’s socially acceptable

before noon. Makes me feel like I’m getting away with something.” “You’ll love Larkhaven then, if you stick around long enough to attend any inter-ward meetings. Anytime there’s an off-campus powwow to discuss some policy change, people come in totally hungover the next morning.” “I noticed everyone seemed pretty thirsty at that going-away party.” He nodded. “It’d be exhausting doing any of our jobs for a regular eight-hour shift. Make it twelve? That’d make a hobbyist drinker out of anybody.” I stabbed at my eggs, thinking. “Do you ever worry about drinking? You know, because of how your dad was.”

He shook his head. “He wasn’t my biological father.” “Oh. Do you know who was?” “I think so.” “Did you ever meet him?” “Kind of.” Kelly wasn’t normally one to be cagey, and I wasn’t normally one to pry, but curiosity had me pressing. “Did you always know your stepdad wasn’t your real dad?” “No. Not ’til he got real drunk and told me, when I was about thirteen.” I waited patiently to see if he’d continue. After a few forkfuls of egg, he did. “I remember it like it was a movie I’ve

seen a hundred times. We were in the den, watching the Lions play the Vikings in Minnesota, and they lost. Bad. My dad was wasted, which is like saying the sun rose that day. I was just hitting my growth spurt and I was marinating in angry hormones all the time. I’d just realized I was too big and too quick for him to wale on, and how to detect if he was too drunk and tired to bother trying. So I’d goad him.” I grimaced. “He was complaining about one of the players, saying what a bum he was, how he’d peaked years ago. I said something like, ‘Yeah, Dad, like you’ve done anything worthwhile in your whole

miserable life.’” “Oh dear.” Kelly drained his glass. “He didn’t get angry. He got this glazed look in his eyes, and just stared at the screen a long time. Then he told me, ‘I’m not your dad, you know. Your real daddy’s some fucked-in-the-head vet your mom spread for, the summer before she met me. Now he’s in the pen, and I’m stuck with you.’ And I just went all numb and cold, because as much as I wanted to hit him, I kind of hoped it was true. I wanted to believe him. I didn’t want that sloppy, alcoholic shithead’s blood in me. I didn’t want to share anything with the guy. Not my house or my mom or my

fucking DNA.” “Did you say anything?” “No. And it never came up again. I doubt he even remembered he told me that, the next day.” “And your mom never mentioned it?” He shook his head. “So you don’t know anything about your real father?” “I know some. Enough. I dug around and found my birth certificate, but it had my stepdad’s name on it. So I went to the library and got somebody to help me search the local records, to look for the names of any guys who got incarcerated in the months before I was born. I found one guy’s name who it could have been,

and his photograph, in an old article about his arrest. James Mahoney, his name was.” “Jeez, you could’ve been Kelly Mahoney?” Cue the fiddle music. “I know. Man could shit shamrocks with a name like that. Anyhow, I thought he could’ve been my father, maybe. Tough to tell, from an old black-andwhite newspaper head shot, but the dates made sense, and he was a vet, like my stepdad had said.” “Did you ask your mom?” “Nah. She had enough crap to deal with. Let the poor woman have her secrets.” “Did you do anything?”

“Fixated on him for a while, then just kinda let it go, for a long time. ’Til I was in my mid-twenties and heard about that job in prison security.” A chill closed over me. “Where he was locked up? Or was he out already?” “He was inside. Still is. And yeah, you guessed it—same place.” “Did you see him, while you were there?” “Yeah. Every fucking day.” “So . . . did you take the job because of him being there?” Kelly sipped his coffee. “I told myself I didn’t, that it was just a job, but I’m sure it factored. I’d spent more than a decade wondering about the guy by

then.” “Did you ever ask him if he’d known your mom?” “Nah. I never said shit to him, outside of what I had to, as a guard. I didn’t treat him any nicer or any worse than any other inmate there.” “What was he like?” “Quiet. Not too much trouble. If Vietnam fucked him up, he kept his wounds way under his skin. And if he knew my mom had married a guy named Robak, he never let on. He was just this tall, quiet guy, with weird eyes. Real pale hazel, like ginger ale. Kinda like mine, kinda not. But I’m pretty sure he was the one.”

“Wow.” I realized I hadn’t touched my food in several minutes, and took a couple bites of cold toast, ruminating. “Did it change things, to meet him? Or to see him, anyhow?” “I guess. Mainly it just confused me. Now I had two men I had no clue how to feel about. One complete asshole, but who’d at least been man enough to step up and pretend he was my dad. He sucked, but he stuck around. And this other one, some war-fucked con who probably had no clue his son was standing on the other side of the bars, telling him it’s lights-out on Cell Block C.” “What did he get sent away for?”

Kelly looked down at his hands. “Doesn’t matter. Just something real bad.” Indeed, to get locked up for so long. And to make Kelly, the brashest man I’d ever met, go silent this way. I decided not to push it any further. My thoughts had drifted to Jack. Jack, with his unconfirmed lineage. Jack, with a dad who showed up when it suited him, a dad who could do something worthy of a sentence next week and not shock a soul. With a mom who loved him but couldn’t seem to get her life on track. So many strikes against him, yet he wouldn’t even realize what they were for another eight or ten years.

“What do you think it was, that kept you from screwing up?” I asked Kelly. “Both your father figures were lousy, but you ended up a pretty good guy.” “I wouldn’t say that.” “You didn’t turn into either of those men.” “No, I guess not.” “Was it your mom, who kept you on the straight and narrow?” He shook his head. “She was real weak. My dad—my stepdad—beat her down. Sometimes physically, mostly mentally. If anybody kept me straight, it was my grandfather, but I only got to see him a few times a year. And I never turned into him. He lived out in the

boonies, and as fun as it was, staying with him and fishing and hunting and all that shit, it was like visiting another universe. Trying to live his life would’ve been like a junkyard dog trying to go off and live on a farm. All happy, frolicking in the meadow with butterflies, when all I wanted was a fight.” “Huh.” He shrugged and stole a slice of my bacon. “So I dunno why am I how I am. Why I didn’t go rotten. I should’ve, probably. Any subconscious choices I made to be this way, though, I made them out of anger. And spite. Like I refused to turn into either of those guys. Just don’t

go telling yourself I’m some saint. Just a stubborn son of a bitch with real shitty role models.” “Noted.” “What about you?” he asked, forking eggs onto a slice of toast. “Who made you the way your are?” “The way I am?” “Yeah. How’d you end up like a rabid raccoon, scrapping with your sister’s loser boyfriend?” “I don’t know. I basically raised her. It must be some maternal-type instinct.” “What’s your mom like? She still around?” “She’s around, back near Dearborn. I don’t talk to her very often. She was

never built for motherhood, but she kept food in the fridge and a roof over our heads. She worked really hard. I can’t fault her for that.” “Bet you can fault her a few other things, though.” Yes, yes I could. “Doesn’t help anything, dwelling too much.” “What about your dad?” “He was never really in the picture. They reconciled when I was little, for maybe a year. Long enough for Amber to show up, then he took off again. Like a kid who begs for a pet and promises to take care of it, then changes their mind the second it stops being adorable. The whole family thing was a passing

novelty to him.” My throat felt tight and sore, talking about it, and I had to work to swallow a bite of toast. The sensation surprised me. I’d thought I was numb to that old resentment. “Where is he now?” “Last I knew, he was living in Cleveland. Some kind of menial, warehouse-type job. He was never abusive or a criminal or anything, just . . . I dunno. Irresponsible. Like it didn’t register that he had a family unless he got it in his head that he was going to suddenly turn up and be Superdad, like a TV father. He showed up on Christmas once, with bikes for both of us. Amber was about eight and

he got her a tricycle. I was thirteen and mine was pink, with streamers. He was clueless. We were just some project he’d pick up when it suited him, then he’d lose interest again.” “Ouch.” “Amber got a bike out of it, at least. A pink one with streamers.” I smiled dryly. “I’d say woe is us, but I don’t know anybody who had a great childhood.” “I’ve known a few, but they all had other problems.” “Amen.” We were quiet for a couple of minutes, finishing our breakfasts. Kelly had to help with mine, polishing off my bacon and eggs. Without a word, we carried

our plates to the sink and he rinsed them. He took my hand in his damp one and led me silently down the hall, back to his bedroom. I lay across the rumpled covers, resting my head on my hands, flexing my feet. Kelly stripped down to his shorts, then joined me with his fingers laced atop his belly. After a minute he shifted, propping himself on his elbow to stare down at me. “Yes?” He brushed stray strands of hair from my face and without a word, he moved to his knees between my legs, gently pushing my thighs open. I saw recognition in his eyes as my skirt

slipped up and my bare pussy greeted him. All the laziness left his expression, intensity hardening his features and voice. “Get me ready.” I touched his neck with one hand and clasped his already-stiffening cock in the other through his shorts. He shoved them down, clearly in no mood for waiting. He pumped his hips, fucking my hand, and with a dozen thrusts he was hard and thick, and my awareness had sunk low in my body, heat building between my thighs. He knocked my hand aside, wrestling his shorts the rest of the way off. My lips parted. His naked body was fascinating in the daylight. I memorized

it, proud to know the secrets that lay behind Kelly’s drab gray Larkhaven uniform and stony professional persona. I peeled away my shirt and got my bra off as he leaned over to grab a condom from the side table and sheathed himself. Then all at once, my impatient lover froze, cock in hand. His gaze softened, wandering up and down my body. “What?” “Nothing. Just lemme look at you a minute.” He seemed caught between two sets of emotions, hesitance playing tugof-war with his usual greediness. He looked at me like we’d never met before, like he was trying to figure out what this woman was doing on his bed.

The moment passed and his roaming gaze steeled. He braced himself on one arm and guided his crown to my lips. As he drove inside, everything was different. I wasn’t wet yet, and his cock felt pleasantly intrusive with only the condom’s lube to ease the way. I welcomed the pressure, a contrast to the accessibility I sensed, staring into his eyes. He was still taking what he wanted, but what he wanted felt more tender than yesterday, more personal. His wrists pressed tight to my ribs, arms locked, thrusts deep and slow. His eyes were steady, but softer. Sadder, or something. Something that passed for vulnerable in

Kelly’s impassive emotional repertoire. His body was as powerful as ever, looking as strong and exciting and cut as it did in my fantasies. He owned me in smooth, explicit strokes. But it was the noises he made that had me aching. The tight grunt each time his hips met mine. There was helplessness in that plaintive sound. Something that said, Let me in, a plea trying to pass for an order. I hugged my legs to his waist and welcomed him to take what he needed. He didn’t say or do anything to address my pleasure, and for some reason, it was incredibly hot. This strong, greedy man needed to come— needed me. A peevish voice said I

should feel overlooked, but all I felt was wanted. And I knew implicitly that I could touch myself if I felt like it, no permission needed, come when I was ready. But excited as I was, I simply wanted to watch him. I might never again have a chance to see him this way. Powerful and rough . . . and needy. Always a contradiction. He found the rhythm he craved, taking me with swift, rough thrusts and grunting in time. Still, he didn’t offer to get me off. He must’ve felt as I did that this was somehow about him. Maybe it was just another facet to his role for these two days, a more subtle flavor of selfish. No

games or threats, just him using my body to take what he wanted, when and how he wanted it. I stroked his soft, short hair. I rubbed the nape of his neck, his shoulders and back and arms, admiring the man who’d given me the best sex of my life. The most intense and unsustainable sex I’d likely ever have. I relished the temporariness of it. It made every stroke and thrust and kiss more forbidden and fleeting, knowing all of this would be nothing more than memories in a few hours’ time. I might never feel this again, but I could go forth knowing that once upon a time, I’d had mind-blowing, wild-animal sex with a huge, cut,

bruised-up beast of a man. I could move on, knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that I wasn’t missing out on anything. Kelly moaned. “Fuck. I’m gonna come. I’m gonna come.” I held his shoulders. “Good.” “Oh. Fuck.” The climax seemed to have crept up on him, as though he weren’t ready for the sex to be done, but helpless to stop it. His body slammed into mine for a dozen frantic strokes, then every muscle locked, cock pushed as deep as it could go. Four times he clenched, each punctuated with a groan, then I felt his weight on me as his body softened.

He shoved his arms under my back, pressing his face against my throat. He took a long, ragged inhalation and let it out in a sigh. I grazed my fingertips up and down his back, secretly savoring the moment. I assumed the sex and the early hour would leave him soft, in both cock and demeanor, but as the haze lifted, I saw mean Kelly shining in his eyes. He left the bed and stripped the condom, never dropping my gaze. I gasped as he grabbed my ankles and pulled me across the bed, until my butt was at the mattress’s edge. He dropped to his knees between my legs, pushing them wider. I propped myself up on straight arms.

Everything felt intensely real, in that instant. The morning light slipping through the blinds was warm, draping his shoulders in golden stripes, illuminating the dust motes drifting in the air. He slid his fingers over my mound and fisted the hair there, rough enough to pull a little yelp from my lungs. He held me as he might steady my head while his cock owned my mouth, the gesture echoing all that aggression while promising precisely the opposite act. With his other thumb and finger he spread my lips, and he breathed me in. “You ever been fucked by a man’s mouth?”

The way he said it, I knew he wasn’t talking about any kind of oral I’d experienced. I’d been teased and spoiled and serviced by guys’ mouths, but no, I hadn’t been fucked. “No.” “Good.” His tongue delved deep, firm and wet and filthy. My legs bucked. His stubble rasped my most tender flesh as his nose brushed my clit. Another lap, and another, savoring before he penetrated again. His thumb slid up and down my outer lips, doubling the sensations. I felt wet and vital, as ripe and slippery as a mango and decadent as a steak, and Kelly feasted. He clutched my curls tight

and I wished I could return the gesture, if his hair were longer. Instead I drew my nails along his scalp, and he replied with a soft scrape of his teeth over my clit. I moaned, as shocked as I was aroused. His fingers abandoned their teasing. He made a spearhead of them and eased it inside me, freeing his mouth. I could feel his wedding band each time it glanced my lips. “Think about my cock,” he ordered. I shut my eyes. I conjured every thick, pulsing inch he’d fed me the night before, and imagined that was what filled me now. He’d feel even better. Deeper, harsher, and his face would be

above mine, eyes staring me down. Or maybe I wouldn’t be allowed to see his face at all, just hear his primal groans and grunts behind me, as he took me on my hands and knees. He suckled my clit and suddenly I didn’t care how it happened. My very life depended on our fucking again. Soon. And hard. The position didn’t matter. All that mattered was his body pounding into mine. Rough sex, rough hands, rough voice. Rough Kelly, taking what he wanted. His fingers were making me crazy, a hot, dirty reminder of the thing that felt even better than this. “I need your cock.” His mouth left me. “Do you then?” “Please.”

And he was on his feet, grasping my ankles and hauling my legs back onto the bed. As he climbed between my knees, he was hard again, like he’d never come. A condom materialized from the bedside table, and he looked me dead in the eyes as he rolled it down his cock. He moved to my side, sitting up with his arms braced behind him. “Straddle me.” I got one leg over and he did the rest, jerking me down, entering me hard with a sharp pang. “Oh fuck.” I grabbed the headboard, rushing to keep up with the motions his hands were demanding.

“Ride me. Hard.” “Jesus, hang on.” He eased up enough for me to find my way, negotiate the angles, get a rhythm going. When his bossy pulls resumed, I welcomed them. He could tell me what he wanted, beg for it with his hands, but for once I was in control of the sex. How deep, how fast. “Yeah.” He shut his eyes, leaning back. “Fuck me.” I slowed nearly to a halt. “Say please.” His lips quirked, eyes opening. “Please.” “That’s better. And fuck you how, exactly?”

“Rough. And fast.” “We’ll see.” Those bullying hands forced my motions for a few thrusts, long enough that I couldn’t care about teasing him anymore. What he wanted felt too good. When he stopped dictating, I kept up the rhythm and intensity he’d established. “Yeah. Fuck me.” His eyes were halfclosed, lips and nose pink, expression drunken. Charged by the moment, I held his face, cupped his ears and dug my thumbs into his cheeks, drawing his lips back just enough to expose a glimmer of teeth. I raked my nails over his scalp and felt him vibrate with a deep, low moan.

“Rough?” I asked, filled with dark mischief. He nodded. “Yeah. Rough as you can handle.” And I hit him. Slapped him with an open palm right across his face and jerked his head sideways. I didn’t even know what made me do it, if it was anger or lust or blind impulse. But it felt good. He blinked for a second, gray eyes bleary. He reached behind to clasp the headboard with both hands, gripping so tight a vein stood out along his triceps. “Again. Harder.” My slap landed with a noise like a sound effect and left a pink mark rising

beside his mouth. “Good. Now fuck me.” I did. I fucked him so fast and rough it felt like we were fighting, like my hips were possessed by a demon, like my life depended on it. He kneaded my ass, spanked me, spurred my motions with harsh pulls and growled commands —faster, harder, use my fucking cock. I adjusted my thighs so my clit rubbed his base each time I eased my hips back. The fight-fucking was hot, but the contact was breathtaking. I was nearing the edge within seconds, the feedback loop of friction and conflict and the sight of Kelly’s body and face speeding to a blur as the pleasure boiled up inside me.

“Fuck, you feel good.” I started laughing before I got all the words out, drunk on the sex. Had I even ever had sex before Kelly? Like I’d thought I’d gone swimming, splashing in the bathtub, but now here I was dropped in the middle of the fucking ocean. I wrapped my arms around his neck, ignoring his hands’ orders. My clit was calling the shots, and I ground against him in tight, honed motions, doing exactly what the pleasure demanded. I cupped Kelly’s head and let him hear every ugly noise the feeling squeezed from my lungs, every whimper and moan and grunt. His fingertips whispered up and down my back, hips

tensing in time with my rhythm. “Good. Use me.” “Jesus, Kelly. Keep talking.” He put his lips to my ear. “Ride my cock. Wreck yourself. Feel how fucking hard you make me, and remember it every goddamn time we pass each other on the ward.” “Kel.” “Think about this every night before you go to sleep, and imagine me doing the same. Wishing to hell my hand felt even half as good as your cunt.” That did it. Of all the dangerous thoughts, that one tipped me—the idea that Kelly might miss me, after our sweat dried and Saturday dawned.

My body turned frantic, a writhing knot of legs and arms and fingers whose only purpose was to master Kelly. “Good. Good. Come on that cock, girl.” “Fuck.” I was dizzy from wanting. The pleasure was a hook inside me, linked to some chain winching tighter, tighter, tighter. Then— “Yes. Good.” Kelly’s voice somewhere, above me or below, inside me. I was trembling, moaning, quaking in his lap and pawing at his arms. I came like an exorcism, the harshest, most violent, barbed pleasure drawn through me and ripped back out, until I was crumpled against his chest, shaking.

He was stroking my hair, kissing my ear. If not for the thrumming pulse of his cock inside me, he’d have felt impossibly tender. “Good,” he whispered, and cupped my head. I let myself stay that way, panting, my chest slippery against his. “Whoa,” I finally mumbled. I felt a laugh I couldn’t hear and smiled, unseen. “That was fucking sexy.” “Oh my God.” I sat up straight, not caring how feral I must’ve looked. Let him see what he did to me. He smoothed my hair from my face, traced my jaw and skimmed his fingers

down my throat, collarbone, breasts, waist. “Nobody’s fucked me that good in ages.” I laughed. “I didn’t even get you off.” “You will. Unless you broke your hip or something.” I shifted in his lap. “Creaky, not broken.” “Good,” he said, expression darkening, hands beginning to tug again. “Tell me what you want.” “Just what you were doing. Just fuck me.” His gaze was nailed to the space between us, thighs tensing in time with my motions, deepening the sex. In no time at all, I could feel him losing control. It spurred my own need to be in

charge, to own his pleasure in retaliation for the way it felt he’d been owning mine since that night he’d forced my orgasms in my room. “You close, Kel?” “Fuck yes. Don’t stop.” I stopped. Kelly swore, grasped my thighs roughly to urge the motions, but I locked my muscles. “Beg me,” I said with a smile. “Fuck, please.” “Please what?” “Make me come.” He looked me dead in the eyes, and shot me a crazed, smarmy, powerless smile. Through his teeth he hissed, “Please.”

“Like this?” I asked, rocking forward and back, slower than he needed. “You fucking know how I want it.” I quit my taunting, settling him deep inside me and moving in quick strokes. He kneaded my hips. “Yeah. Like that.” Pride rippled through me. I knew how to please this hard, unreadable man. I was halfway to taming him. As I rode him I ran my nails through his hair, stroked his shoulders, watched his face turn from mean to needy to some pleasurable twin of pain. When his flushed lips parted, I knew he was losing it. “Good, Kelly.”

“Make me come. Make me come.” He begged with more than his words. He pleaded with his hips and eyes and the fingers digging into my thighs, with every twitch of every muscle in his huge body. He grabbed my ass as the climax hit, jamming our bodies together, burying his cock so deep I winced through a cramp. Three times he tensed, before his grip relaxed, traveling up my waist to stroke my back. His smile was sudden and guileless, catching me off guard. He muttered a disbelieving, “Oh, sweetheart,” then dropped his forehead to my collarbone and sighed. The affection was a pleasant surprise, and I

was glad he couldn’t see how poor a job I was doing, biting back a dopey grin. I stroked his hair, feeling how his flaring breaths slowed alongside the fingertips caressing my back. He cleared his throat and raised his head. “Damn.” “You’re welcome?” He kissed my mouth. “That was amazing.” Ever cagey, I deflected. “How very gracious of you to let me be on top.” Kelly gave me a dry look. “I’m not into weak women, you know.” He flipped us over like I weighed no more than a pillow, kneeling between my legs and stripping the condom in a practiced

motion. “No?” “Nah. Quite the opposite. I like tough girls, ones with a little crust to them.” “Oh lovely,” I said, faking annoyance. “I’m crusty now.” Kelly reached under me, urging me to arch my back. He fingered my vertebrae like piano keys. “I love how every time I push you, you go all stiff, right here. I like a girl with a rock-hard spine.” “All the more fun to dominate, I’m sure.” “Snark all you want, but it’s true.” Kelly braced himself on his elbows, leaning in to kiss my forehead. “I trust I proved a worthy challenge.”

He sat back on his heels, squeezing my calves as he gathered his thoughts. “When I was about twenty-four, I was sort of dating this stripper—” “Of course you were.” “I was bouncing weekends at this topless bar for a few months, and I knew all the girls who danced there. They came from all kinds of backgrounds— plenty of them were what you’d expect, desperate or worn out, or supporting some habit or other. But this one chick, she had a spine made of fucking iron. She didn’t take shit from anybody, and it fucking blew my mind.” I ignored the hot snake of jealousy wriggling in my gut. He was talking

about someone he’d known fifteen years ago, after all, plus I didn’t want to miss a new clue into who this man was and how he’d gotten that way, just because it made me insecure. “I mean, my mom was a complete doormat,” he said. “That was my female role model—a woman who couldn’t defend herself or her kid. I’d never met a girl as bullshit-proof as this dancer. It made me want her so bad, just knowing . . .” “Just knowing she’d put up a fight.” “Nah. Just knowing like, this chick doesn’t let any guy between her legs unless she fucking wants him there. I’d gotten so used to muscling my way

through life, it was like some revelation. The first woman where I thought, damn, I want to earn my way into a taste of that.” “This is a very romantic anecdote, Kelly.” “Shush. And I did eventually get with her. I wasn’t her boyfriend, I don’t think, but we had a thing, for a while. It just blew my mind, to be with this woman that I knew didn’t roll over for anybody. I mean, I saw this girl naked every day I was at work, but it was like the armor never came off. And I wanted to get under there, even more than I wanted to get with her.” “Did you?”

“No. I never really did, but it still completely changed how I felt about women.” “Did you try to like, rescue her from herself?” “Maybe, yeah. That was sort of the only role I knew, at the time. But this woman didn’t want or need rescuing. If any guy tried to help her, there went her entire identity, you know? If she wasn’t in control, she was nothing, in her mind.” “That sounds like someone I know.” I’d meant Kelly, but the second the words came out, I realized they could just as easily apply to me. “I swear she had fucking rebar instead

of bone marrow.” “What happened with you two?” He shrugged. “She got bored of me, I think. Or got bored of me like, worshipping her. Told me to fuck off and give her some space, so I did. Found a different job.” “Did you love her?” He shook his head, and I believed him. “I sort of loved how she was, but she never let me get that close. I dunno what she was really like, under that armor.” Have you ever been in love? I wanted to ask. “And why are you telling me about some hard-hearted stripper you banged fifteen years ago, when I was nice enough to get your rocks off, twice

in one morning?” “Twice so far,” Kelly corrected. “And just so you’ll know, I didn’t come after you because I think you’re weak, like I’m looking for some easy lay. It’s ’cause I like how you tense up, the second we start butting heads.” He smiled. “You’re all soft on the outside, barbed wire on the inside. Gets me hard, knowing you wouldn’t let just any guy take you to bed.” “And here I thought you only wanted a challenge. But maybe you just need to feel special . . .?” He smirked at me, then sat up. “That’s enough pillow talk. I need a shower.” I watched him go, a tower of lean

muscle and scar tissue camouflaging more secrets than I’d realized.

Chapter Eleven

Saturday dawned way too soon. I woke at the brush of Kelly’s fingertips through my hair, my eyes opening to find him standing beside the bed with a towel around his waist. “Nooo,” I moaned, turning over. “Time for school, kid. Get your butt in the shower.” I heard him moving and sat up so I wouldn’t miss the free show. He draped his towel over the doorknob, and I watched his back and arms flex as he

dressed in his Larkhaven gray. I bit my lip, wondering if it would turn him into work Kelly, all cool and civil and alert, or if that metamorphosis didn’t happen until he passed through the institution’s gates. Once dressed, he gathered jeans and a spare shirt to change into after our shift, then turned to me. His look said, Time’s a-wastin’. He nodded toward the door. I complied with a sigh and swung my legs to floor. I’d been so annoyed by that leave-a-woman-half-crippled comment he’d made, yet as I hobbled to the bathroom on sore hips, if anything I felt proud of my sexual war wounds. I’d never before gotten so laid I couldn’t

walk properly, and it felt smugly pleasing, like a post-workout soreness. Only times a thousand. I was dressed by a quarter past six, and we only had time for coffee and cereal. “I can’t believe you eat Cheerios,” I told Kelly as we sat at the counter. “It seems way too wholesome.” “What’d you picture?” “I dunno. Raw steaks?” “You got a lotta weird preconceptions about me.” As I ate, I wondered whose court the ball would be left in, once we climbed into our separate vehicles and headed to work.

I wanted to do this again. Intensely. But if he’d targeted me because I seemed hard to get, maybe his fun was over. I hoped not. Though after that little talk we’d had in his bed, about how he had a hard-on for scrappy women, I hadn’t caught any more glimpses of forthcoming Kelly, not the man who’d told me about his fathers over breakfast the previous morning, or begged me to make him come. We’d had sex, made lunch, had more sex, ordered Chinese food for dinner and watched The Deer Hunter, had more sex and passed out. He’d fluctuated between mean and generous and rough and desperate, but I hadn’t been privy to

another glimpse of that inner Kelly. I must have short-circuited his brain with that one orgasm, fucked the armor right off him and sent it clattering to the floor, if only for a few minutes. In any case, it seemed eagerness was the wrong card to play, if I wanted another two-day debauchery seminar in my future. I’d go back to how we’d been, me playing the nonplussed skeptic to balance Kelly’s bullish machismo. That game was fun, after all. And I didn’t feel bad playing games with him; it wasn’t as if I were trying to land him as a boyfriend. A bit of manipulation seemed fair when the prize was as simple and equitable as nasty-good sex.

It was raining when we left his place, and Kelly followed me to my car, tenting his hoodie over me in lieu of an umbrella. “Thanks,” I said, dropping into my driver’s seat. Folding his jacket under his arm, he crouched at my open door. “Have a good time?” I nodded. “Thanks for that, too.” He smiled dryly. “I’d kiss you, but you got that raccoon look back on your face.” Huh? What look? If I knew how, I’d have erased it. If I’d known I was going to get kissed good-bye, I wouldn’t have strapped on my Kelly-proof vest so soon. Damn it. But I’d committed to our

going back to how we’d been, so I ran with it. “I’ll see you at hand-off.” He stood. “Drive safe,” he said, and shut my door. My car had become moody of late, especially when it rained, but I got it running after a couple of attempts. I flipped my lights and wipers on, watching Kelly in my rearview as I pulled away from the curb. His light gray shirt was dark at the shoulders from the rain, and as he climbed into his truck I thought he was just about the most handsome man I’d ever seen. It was a sad thought. There was a chance I might never get to be with him again, but at least I’d enjoyed those couple of days.

As I drove, the melancholy I’d known I’d feel kicked in. The weather didn’t help. But this was the price I’d willingly shelled out to play tourist in Kelly’s sexuality, and having been there and done that and bought the tee shirt, I could assure myself it was worth it. But it always sucked a little when vacation came to an end. I didn’t see Kelly on the drive, nor in the lot when I arrived at work. I even dawdled a bit, hoping we might walk into the building together, but maybe he’d given me a few minutes’ head start on purpose, for discretion. The rain was heavier now, and I ran for the employee entrance, soaked by the time I reached

the awning. At least the weather made for a good excuse, should anyone spot my car and raise an eyebrow over the fact that I’d driven to work this morning, when I normally walked the five minutes from the apartments. The locker room felt weird. The clean scrubs I changed into felt weird, too. The last two days had transformed me, and why shouldn’t they have? It’d been over a year since my last boyfriend. In that time I’d forgotten how opened up it can make you feel, relating to somebody flesh to flesh that way. Kelly and I had basically spent all of Thursday and Friday in one long, carnal conversation. No wonder my body felt hoarse.

When I got into the sign-in room, I was surprised to find my name already written in the nurses’ area. In the duties slot someone had noted, Admission—see DF. That’d be Dennis. Admission. I shivered, dropping instantly into work mode. Admission meant a new resident, maybe an entrance interview. Given that three-quarters of Starling’s patients were what administration called 401s—401 being the state’s code for involuntary hospitalization—any newcomer to the ward was nearly guaranteed to be two things: dangerous enough to be forced to come here against his will, and not at all happy about that fact.

I had ten minutes before hand-off was due to start, so I went straight to Dennis’s office on the second floor, knocking on the window. He waved me in. “Erin, good morning.” “Morning.” “Have a seat.” I wheeled a chair up to his desk. “You saw my note, I take it. Ready for an adventure?” “Sure,” I lied. I didn’t feel ready at all. I felt wrung out for completely unprofessional reasons, but at least I hadn’t been warned. If I had, I’d have spent the hours leading up to this playing a theoretical movie in my mind, trying to

game the scenario. “Jenny says you’re starting to really find your way on the ward. With the residents.” “Oh.” Really finding my way? I hadn’t been sexually threatened by any new foodstuffs, but I didn’t think that counted as exemplary progress. “Well, that was nice of her. Um, thank you.” “And I remember Jenny mentioned you were considering pursuing a BSN . . . ?” I blushed, nodding. Back in school, I’d made noncommittal noises about going for my RN someday, if I enjoyed the actual day to day reality of nursing. But my advisor had insisted I ought to aim

even higher, and Jenny had echoed the sentiment. “I’m giving it some thought.” “So you’re interested in the higherlevel responsibilities of psychiatric nursing.” “I am.” I was warming to this invitation, nerves banished by the praise and a chance to prove myself. Deep down I was a terminal teacher’s pet. “We’ve got a new resident joining us this morning, a referral from the ER, previously en route to Cousins.” Cousins Correctional Facility, Dennis meant, a medium-security prison a couple of towns over. “Short-term, we hope, but that’ll be for Dr. Morris to decide.” “Do you know what he did to get

arrested?” “Dr. Morris will debrief you, before the interview.” “Oh, sure. Okay.” “You’ll only be in there to observe, get a sense of how the admission process works here. Just be quiet and take notes if you want, and you’ll probably be ignored. If your presence is upsetting to the patient, you’ll simply be asked to leave.” “Right.” “If I were you, I’d pay close attention and be prepared to give your diagnosis and treatment plan to Dr. Morris once the patient has left.” My eyes went wide. “Uh . . .”

Dennis smiled. “Don’t worry—you’ll probably get it wrong. Way wrong. But then Dr. Morris can walk you through his own interpretations of the patient’s symptoms. Give you some insight into how we come up with the pharma regimens we do, how we choose roommates, how we predict length of stay and so forth.” “Okay. That sounds very interesting.” And intimidating. What if I told Dr. Morris I thought the guy was suicidal and should be prescribed antidepressants, but it turned out he was just lethargic from a Haldol dosage or something? “Don’t worry. It’s not a test, just an

opportunity to learn. Just don’t let any of those psychiatrists talk you into abandoning nursing in favor of some fancy white coat.” Yeah, right. Me and what med school tuition? “Only if it’s a straightjacket,” I countered with that patented Starling sarcasm, and I took Dennis’s cue, getting to my feet. His outstretched hand invited me to precede him through the door. He checked his watch. “Coffee time, methinks. The admission interview’s scheduled for nine thirty, so go ahead with your usual rounds until nine, then head to Dr. Morris’s office on S1 and he’ll prep you.” We got to hand-off a minute late, but I

figured I wasn’t busted, since I was walking in with the ward supervisor. I spotted Kelly across the circle of staff, his cold eyes fixed on one of the overnight doctors, who was rattling through recent developments. Kelly’s arms were crossed over his chest as always, and I stole glances at the shapes of his shoulders and biceps, trying to square this man with the one I’d spent the past couple of days with. All this gray calm versus the frantic, flushed body that had owned mine on the floor, the couch, in his bed. That cool, unwavering expression versus the way he’d averted his eyes when he’d told me about his biological father.

He didn’t look at me once during the meeting. I hoped he wasn’t going to overcompensate for our unprofessional extracurricular activities by ignoring me from now on. Frankly, I’d been hoping we might share a subtle, knowing glance or two. Nothing seedy enough to distract me from my job, but something. What I got was a pleasant, neutral, “Good morning,” as the meeting disbanded. “Morning, Kelly.” “Enjoy your days off?” I bit back my smile. “Yes, thanks. You?” “Yup.” “Do anything special?”

“Oh, you know. Some work around the house.” Yes, indeed. Nailing, drilling, screwing. “Sounds productive,” I said, and we broke away. Kelly headed to the residents’ quarters, I for the nurses’ booth. That little exchange kept me feeling all mischievous and cheerful through morning meds, and even Lonnie couldn’t put a crimp in my mood. “Your hair looks different, kid.” “It shouldn’t. I didn’t do anything special, except get rained on.” That and having it fisted and pulled and mashed into Kelly’s pillow.

“It’s different. I liked it better before,” Lonnie announced, then downed his cup of pills like a shot of bourbon and headed for the dining room. The morning was quiet—so quiet I could hear the caffeine ticking through my veins to the exact rhythm of my anxiety. At two minutes of nine I headed down to S1 for my special assignment. Dr. Morris was the most senior psychiatrist in our building; late forties, an intimidating, decisive type, with a crisp and competent air. He would’ve been handsome, with his dignified, prematurely silver hair and pale blue eyes, except I found him impossible to relax around. I’d only interacted with

him during hand-off meetings, where he spoke quickly and clearly, and nodded with his gaze on the ground as he listened to everyone else’s reports. But Jenny respected him, and she was a tough crowd when it came to the doctors, so I suspected he knew his stuff. I knocked on the heavy oak door of his office, and it opened shortly. “Good morning, Miss Coffey.” “Good morning, Doctor.” We’d never been formally introduced, so we shook. He cut an impressive figure, tall and rigid, with authoritative, extra-white streaks at his temples. His shake was firm. “Come on in and I’ll give you the

rundown.” His office was far tidier than Dennis’s, lined with books and books and more books. He said that a psychiatric intern and I would be in on the interview. I flushed with pride to hear I was being offered the same experience as a medical student. We weren’t to say anything, except to explain who we were, if the patient demanded to know. Other than that, we’d just observe, and take our best stabs at diagnosis and suggesting treatment once the interview was over. “I know you’re only an LPN.” The way he said it, I knew Dr. Morris wasn’t trying to be a dick about it. Not like, I

know you’re only a lowly LPN with some piddly certificate from a no-name technical college. More like, I know this is the deep end and you didn’t sign up for it. Don’t panic. “But Jenny said you’re looking to continue your education, so this might be a useful peek at what goes on, behind the scenes.” “I’m sure it will be. Thanks for even inviting me, Dr. Morris.” Jenny had told me once, toss the docs’ titles at them in conversation, any chance you find. It’s courtesy, of course, but it’s also currency. They can’t get enough of that, she’d said, like we were talking about dogs and belly scratching. Think of it as an investment in your career.

Kiss a little doctoral ass, and it’ll pay off when you need an emergency consult someday. Let them think you worship that white coat. It must have been working for Jenny. She was a regular puppeteer when she wanted something for the ward and its residents. Or for her colleagues, it would seem, if my invitation to sit in today was her doing. “So.” Dr. Morris opened a folder on his desk, tapping the stack of forms with a pen. “Patient is thirty-two, long history of violence, multiple convictions. Drunk and disorderly, assault and battery, breaking and entering . . . Every unsavory ampersand combo you could

want. Latest and most credible diagnosis lands him on the psychotic end of the schizoaffective rainbow, with some major and long-lasting mixed and manic episodes. Multiple voluntary drug treatment programs—for cocaine mainly, plus alcohol, and a botanical garden’s worth of cannabis, which never plays nice on that spectrum. Oh and meth, one conviction.” I shivered at meth. The closest thing the human race currently had to a zombie plague. His gaze zigzagged down the page. “Five voluntary programs, to be precise, and exactly zero completed. Not a finisher, shall we say. History of

violence with treatment facility staff.” Dr. Morris smiled wanly at me like, Oh goody! Lucky us. “Bit of a pharma cocktail, both prescribed and recreational. Though his outbursts seem to have lessened greatly since he’s been treated as a schizoaffective case.” “That’s good.” “He was interviewed during an emergency hold following an assault, and the doc there wants him with us, instead of prison. Patient doesn’t relish either option, but who would?” A knock came at the door behind me and Dr. Morris boomed, “Come in.” I swiveled as a gangly young African American guy in a white coat entered the

room. He smiled at me and adjusted his glasses, and pulled over a second chair. “Erin Coffey, this is Darius Flowers, my talented new victim from CMED. Coffey and Flowers,” he mused. “Charming. Darius, Erin’s one of our newer LPNs, with an eye on earning her BSN. She’ll be sitting in as well.” We shook. He rewound the spiel and briefed Darius about the incoming patient. We both nodded like babies watching a yoyo, and I caught myself thinking, I could’ve been a med student. I was studious, and had managed strong grades even with all the drama I’d had going on through my certification, plus I had a

pretty high tolerance for blood. All I was lacking was the huge wad of cash, and the nuts to cut the cord with my sister. I wouldn’t hold my breath. “I think that’s enough of my yammering,” Dr. Morris announced, getting to his feet. “The admission interview will teach you more than this stack of papers ever could.” He shut the folder and we followed him out of his office, waiting as he locked it. He led the way. I hardly spent any time on S1. It was mainly the psychiatrists’ domain, and while the nurses from the locked ward were often in and out, conferring about residents, orderlies and techs and junior staff like me received

most of our information secondhand. The first floor was nicer than S3. It seemed sunnier, with oak wainscoting and hardwood floors, not the speckled linoleum we had upstairs. Our footsteps were noisy, echoing with history. Dr. Morris led us down a long hall, punctuated by doors with frosted windows, each boasting the name and credentials of one of the staff doctors. At the very end of the corridor was a windowless door with two plaques. The first read Admissions and the one below it, Vacant. Dr. Morris slid the bottom plaque from its brass runners, flipped it over, and put it back in place reading In Session. He keyed in a code and led us

inside, leaving the door swung wide. “Only S1 office without windows,” he told us, wheeling chairs over. “Normally we’re happy to give patients a view, minimize the confinement vibe, but in here we can’t afford too many distractions. Too much stimulation. No telling what shape folks are in when they get delivered.” He arranged two chairs facing another two chairs, plus one more, off toward the corner. That was my seat. Part of me was a bit hurt, shunted to the sidelines, but another part didn’t envy Darius’s proximity to a new and unpredictable patient. Who the fifth body would be, I didn’t know. A police escort or security

guard, likely. Darius and I were both nervously eyeing the room, scanning the austere wood paneling, and like me, maybe he was getting an escape route plotted, in case things got intense. Dr. Morris flipped the folder open on his crossed legs. “Don’t you two just tremble like fawns?” he teased, scanning a page. “No need to panic. The patient’s been detoxed to his previous doc’s satisfaction, and his paliperidone regimen seems to be working.” I scanned my mental flashcards for the side effects—restlessness, tremors, tics —so I wouldn’t make the mistake of blaming them on his disorder, when and

if Dr. Morris asked my opinion. Darius was surely doing the same, nodding with a blank expression as Dr. Morris outlined the patient’s meds situation. Voices came from down the hall, but I was too far from the door to see who was approaching. A woman’s voice grew louder, then a face I recognized appeared—a senior nurse who spent most of her time on S1 but made the occasional appearance during hand-off. “Ready for Mr. Paleckas?” Dr. Morris smiled graciously, all his wryness dutifully packed away. Darius’s hand was frozen above a legal pad, pen hovering at the ready. Two men entered. I barely noticed the

first one, as the second was Kelly. My nerves short-circuited, morphing from trepidation to that funny, pleasurable knot of misgiving I always got around him. I kicked it aside. Now was not the time for distraction. Kelly waited for the patient to sit, then did the same, linking his fingers atop his belt buckle and looking blasé. I just bet he’d prefer to be standing, arms folded, but I supposed it wasn’t helpful to give the patient the impression he was being held and interrogated. Kelly and I shared the briefest eye contact, and if he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him, he didn’t let me know it. The nurse briefed Dr. Morris on the

patient’s latest vitals before taking her leave. She shut the door with a heavy, telling click, and Dr. Morris leaned forward to offer his hand. “I’m Dr. Robert Morris. You must be Lee Paleckas.” Lee accepted the shake. He was medium height, wiry, and surprisingly attractive—charismatic, if not actually handsome. He looked a bit like Edward Norton, only . . . twitchier, and with an unhealthy milkiness to his complexion. A vampire Edward Norton, who could stand a few square meals. He was already dressed in Starling’s gray uniform, and it made him look undeniably like a convict. He even

seemed to be wearing invisible cuffs, his hands now dangling limply from his wrists between his spread legs. “Who’re these people?” Lee asked Dr. Morris, sounding more tired than suspicious. “This is my intern, Darius, and one of our nursing staff, Erin. I’ve asked them to sit in on this chat, but all the same confidentiality applies.” Lee sniffed and rolled his eyes, clearly annoyed to have an audience but seeming resigned to us. Resigned to this entire situation, maybe resigned to his whole damn life. I decided to channel my inner Kelly Robak and sit nice and still, blend into the furnishings until or unless my

services were needed. I’d observe with my ears and eyes and intuition, and leave the obsessive scribbling to Darius. Dr. Morris opened the interview with the basics, determining that Lee had grown up outside Louisville, Kentucky, in a broken home, had been getting into trouble since he could crawl, and had been paranoid and punchy for as long as he could remember. “I just don’t trust people.” My gaze shot reflexively to Kelly. His cold gray eyes settled on mine before I could look away. Which of us was accusing the other of distrust? “And if I asked what your diagnosis is,” Dr. Morris said to Lee, “what would

you say?” “I’m bipolar. That’s what every shrink’s said about me since I was nineteen.” “It was the hospital’s opinion that you may be what we call schizoaffective. And that’s a possibility I’d like to explore during your time here at Larkhaven.” “Ain’t those the same thing?” “Similar, but not the same.” Namely, not the same to the tune of psychosis. “You may also have a combination of the two.” “Fuckin’ great. Lucky me.” “In the last interview, you told your doctor you’ve heard voices. Is this a

new phenomenon?” He shook his head. “Nah. It’s just not something you want to advertise, you know? ’Less you’re looking to wind up in the nuthouse.” He cast his gaze around the room. “But it’s a little late for that, now ain’t it?” “What do your voices say to you, Lee?” He tensed for a moment, then slumped with a sigh, too worn down to bother resisting the conversation. “They don’t say things to me, exactly. But sometimes, if I’m talking to somebody and I don’t trust them . . . I’ll hear what they’re saying, with their mouth. Then I’ll hear like this echo of what they’re really

thinking.” “Okay.” “I mean, I’m not stupid. I know it ain’t actual mind reading. But maybe some guy at a bar’ll say, ‘Did you catch the Lions game?’ But then I’ll get this echo, with his voice saying all fucked-up shit, sex shit sometimes, stuff this stranger wants to do to me.” “That must be upsetting.” Lee leaned back in his chair and gave Dr. Morris a leveling stare, one that said, loud and clear, Is that shit the best shrink line you got for me, Doc? And in that moment, I decided I liked Lee. I hoped he’d find his time at Larkhaven useful, and that I might be able to make

his stay a little more pleasant. “And your voices never tell you to do things?” “Not really. Only if the person I’m talking to is thinking that. But nothing like you hear about, about demons and aliens. Just made-up whatcha-call-it. Telepathy.” “Have you heard people’s thoughts for a long time?” “Since I was a teenager, maybe?” That was in line with schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, for auditory hallucinations to begin manifesting in young adulthood. “Did you believe you were hearing people’s real thoughts, all this time?”

“At first, yeah. I thought I was special. Like I had a superpower. Except it scared me, since nobody was ever thinking anything nice, nothing that ever made me feel anything but sick.” As forthcoming as Lee was being, his affect was incredibly flat and dry, making it difficult to know if he was being open or just rattling off the same answers he’d given to a dozen doctors before. He also seemed tense, a bit jittery—but it felt like that was more physical than mental, a side effect of the antipsychotics. “When did you first begin to suspect the voices might be coming from your own head?”

“I guess I was maybe twenty-one. I was visiting my grandma, and we watched this old movie. Black and white. I can’t remember what it was called, but it was about this chick that like, wakes up in a mental hospital.” The Snake Pit, I thought. I’d watched it with my grandma, too, years before I wound up nursing her. “The chick heard voices. Not like the way I did, but that was the first time I kinda got what people meant when they talked about ‘hearing stuff.’ I’d heard about crazy people having that, but for some reason, I never thought I was crazy. I thought I was special. That my brain was better than everybody else’s. Until I

saw that movie. Then everything kind of went to shit, because back when I’d thought I was reading everybody’s thoughts . . . It sucked. I didn’t trust nobody, but I trusted myself. And my own brain. After I started thinking maybe I was crazy, then I didn’t trust anything. And I knew all that fucked-up shit I was hearing, that must be stuff I’d come up with. In my subconscious or whatever.” “When did you first start experimenting with drugs?” “Shit, I dunno. Fifteen? That’s when I started smoking pot, anyhow. I didn’t do nothin’ worse until I was in my twenties.” “And is that around the time the voices

started? When you started smoking pot?” “Maybe, yeah. I never really liked it much—the weed. But after I got told I was bipolar, this one doctor mentioned, just like, in passing, how some people with that got benefits from smoking.” Dr. Morris’s professional façade fell away for a moment, an exhalation of pure annoyance hissing from his nose. “I see.” “So I smoked a lot, the last ten years. It was cheaper than seeing a shrink.” “Pot has been shown to ease some symptoms of bipolar disorder. But it’s also been shown to exacerbate those on the schizoaffective spectrum. Did your trouble with the law begin during this

period?” “I was never a good kid, but it did get way worse after the pot, yeah. And the voices got louder. And nastier.” The interview went on for another hour, a conversational trip down Lee’s crime-riddled memory lane. He didn’t withhold much of anything as far as I could tell, but his flatness made it difficult to get any handle on his temperament. And temperament was telling, just as much as these illuminating anecdotes. But one thing was refreshingly clear— he was one of the most self-aware schizo patients I’d yet encountered. And that could be the difference between an

institutionalized life and a manageable one. After Dr. Morris had heard everything he cared to, he shook Lee’s hand, and opened the door, calling for the nurse. She appeared shortly, and she and Kelly escorted Lee down the hall. I’d nearly forgotten Kelly was there. He knew how to make himself inanimate when that was what a patient needed. “I look forward to talking some more this afternoon,” Dr. Morris called after them, then bade Darius and me to stand. “Let’s take this back to my office.” We followed him out the door, waiting as he slid the Vacant plaque in place. After a pit stop for coffee, we re-

adjourned to his stately quarters. “Well,” Dr. Morris said, crossing his legs and glancing between us. “What did we think of Mr. Paleckas?” Mercifully, Darius went first. He gave a long account of his observations and detailed an impressive list of treatment suggestions, many points of which I wasn’t familiar with or hadn’t thought of. Suddenly the line between LPN and third-year medical student was crystal clear, and I felt deeply lame, standing on my side of it. I hoped Dr. Morris might not bother asking my opinions. I’d lost all faith in them. He checked his watch. “I know you’ve got an appointment with Dr. Fenton,” he

said to Darius. “I won’t keep you.” “Thanks so much, Dr. Morris.” “My pleasure. Excellent work.” Darius left, and I got to my feet as well, poised to say my own thanks and escape back to S3, where I at least felt halfway qualified to exist. “Not so fast, Miss Coffey. I’m dying for your analysis as well.” He linked his fingers atop Lee’s folder. I sat heavily, weighed down by dread. My face felt warm, my hands like ice. “Well . . .” He smiled. “Just tell me what you think. Unlike poor Darius, my opinions won’t be making it back to your academic advisor.”

“Well, I kind of thought . . . I can’t tell yet. The paliperidone seems like it’s made him all flat. And tense. I’m sure the other doctor knows what they’re doing, but I kind of wish I could meet him on a lower dosage. It didn’t seem possible to get a real read on his personality, with the meds in the way.” A luxury we didn’t have, and I damn well knew it. Dr. Morris probably thought I was making up excuses to avoid offering my own treatment strategy, or that I didn’t have one. Which I didn’t. “Sorry. I’m not comfortable recommending a course of action if I don’t know what his . . . what his baseline personality is. I’m way too new at this to be able to

separate the side effects from his normal affectations.” “Can I share with you my own perceptions, Miss Coffey?” “Of course.” “Every patient who arrives here— every person you pass on the street, for that matter—is a complex recipe. Perfectly unique but mixed from a set number of ingredients.” “Okay.” “With the mentally ill, the symptoms are flavors, all mixed and mingled, shared between patients who are on a similar spectrum, but in all different measurements. Two patients might share a certain quality, say, paranoia. But one

could be schizophrenic and the other merely anxious and under-rested. A third might be intoxicated. By itself, paranoia is a single flavor, found in a dozen distinct dishes. Like pepper if you will.” “Sure.” “Lee Paleckas is paranoid. And while a meatloaf might taste of pepper, there’s more going on—salt and basil and garlic powder, any number of things. Follow?” “I think so.” Though I had no clue what it meant about my lame-ass nontreatment plan. “Whatever flavors Mr. Paleckas has going on in him aside from paranoia, I can’t tell yet. He’s too smothered in gravy, from the meds the hospital’s got

him on, and whatever extracurriculars may have tainted his earlier diagnoses.” I couldn’t help but crack a grin at this ridiculous metaphor. “So until we can scrape some of that gravy off and figure out what recipe we’re looking at, I’m in perfect agreement with you, Miss Coffey.” My brows popped up, and Dr. Morris smiled. “You looked surprised.” “I am surprised. I thought it must’ve sounded like a cop-out.” “In my not-always-popular opinion, there is far too much gravy-ladling going on with patients like Lee Paleckas.” He stood, tidying the files on his desk. “And

somewhere, a mob of psychopharmacologists is sharpening its pitchforks.” I got to my feet. “But as his new doctor, I plan to lessen Lee’s dosage and get a good look at what’s underneath the side effects, just as you suggested.” He opened the door for me and we exited his office. “Pardon me, but I have a session to head to.” “Sure. Thanks so much for letting me sit in, Dr. Morris.” We shook hands. “You LPNs are refreshing. You haven’t had your intuition crowded out by a skull full of med school texts. So, well done. If a time comes when you find yourself

in need of a letter of recommendation, don’t hesitate to knock.” I blinked, floored, and Dr. Morris started down the hall, the opposite way I’d be heading. He turned after a pace. “And Miss Coffey?” “Yes?” “With all due respect to our stellar nursing staff—give some thought to joining the dark side.” Demonstrably, he straightened the collar of his white coat. Me? A psychiatrist? That was just whacked. Dr. Morris pumped his fist in the air, cultishly chanting, “One of us. One of us,” as he turned and headed down the hall. And I thought, maybe whacked is

exactly what it takes.

Chapter Twelve

I ran into Kelly in the mid-afternoon in the S3 break room. He was eating an apple and watching a golf tournament on the tiny TV in the corner—surely someone else’s selection he was too lazy to change. He turned as I entered and offered the barest flicker of a smile. “Hey, Kelly.” “Hey, yourself.” I bought an orange pop from the machine and sat on the other side of the table. I needed the sugar, badly. The

afternoon had been a mess—nothing that required any restraining or sedation, but it seemed like everybody’s psychoses were keyed up and eager to clash. Maybe from the gloomy weather. “It’s not a full moon, is it?” I asked, pressing the cold can to my temple. “Feels like it. Everybody’s voices are screaming extra loud today.” After a few minutes of impersonal pleasantries, Kelly got up. I figured he was leaving, but he headed for the vending machine. When he sat back down, he faced me, instead of the TV. “Wasn’t expecting to find you sitting in on that admission,” he said, cracking open his cola.

“Me neither. I didn’t know I was ’til I saw it on the duties board.” “How was it for you?” “It was . . . interesting. I’ve never gotten to see that before. Plus the part afterward, listening in on a psychiatrist explaining how they come up with the treatment plan they do. It sounds naive, but I didn’t think there’d be so much guesswork. I mean, I’m sure they know their stuff, but at the end of the day, it’s just taking a best stab, or holding off until there’s a better set of clues to go by.” “Mental illness is messy. Can’t check an X-ray and pin it down like a broken bone.”

“I know. It was just interesting. Demystifying. And I like Dr. Morris now. He always seemed kind of brusque and snarky in hand-off, but he’s actually pretty cool.” Something changed in Kelly’s expression. Was I dreaming, or was that jealousy passing over his unreadable face? I had to make a decision. Stroke his ego and downplay how impressed I was by Dr. Morris, or let him suffer the knowledge that I could be wowed by more than a potent attraction and a big dick. Not much of a contest. “He’s good,” I finished casually. “I can see why he’s the head of the department.”

“He’s not perfect. No doctor is.” “I know that.” With a nasal huff, Kelly’s expression went back to its usual neutral state. “But he’s good. You’re right. He’s been real good with Don.” I softened at his concession. “So have you.” Kelly shrugged, taking a deep drink. “Dr. Morris told me I should think about psychiatry.” “Probably wise,” Kelly agreed, deadpan. “You can use all the help you can get.” I shot him a snotty look. “Ah ha ha ha. He said he’d write me a letter of recommendation. Like, if I ever applied

to premed, I think he meant.” Kelly’s gaze wandered to the window as he sipped his pop. “Did he, then.” There was something mean-spirited in his tone. At worst he was implying it was a ridiculous notion, my being a doctor. At best . . . He couldn’t actually be jealous, could he? Kelly Robak, so above everyone’s bullshit, jealous of a middle-aged doctor who’d deigned to compliment a new staffer? Would wonders never cease? Plus if that were the case, what on earth did it mean for any future sex Kelly and I had? He was a force already. Jealousy might turn him full-on, foaming rabid. “So, yeah. Though it’s not like I’ve got

a spare hundred grand lying around to go, even if I wanted to.” His gray eyes stayed pinned to the outside, lit up like icicles by the belated afternoon sun. “Do you want to?” “I dunno. It’s a pretty expensive gamble to take.” But damn if I wasn’t proud to have been told I should consider stepping up to the high-stakes table. Before now, everyone in my life had been dazzled that I’d earned any kind of useful qualification, that I’d landed a salaried job with benefits. Not because I was dumb or anything, just because that sort of achievement didn’t happen for people in my family. Amber’s graduation from beauty school

had been a major event. As far as that crowd was concerned, my scrubs practically deemed me a brain surgeon. The senior weekend nurse entered the break room then, and though we didn’t look suspicious in the least, I sat up rodstraight. “Afternoon Erin, Kelly. How’s Saturday treating the two of you?” she asked, perusing the vending machine. “Fine,” Kelly said, “except somebody must’ve spiked the water cooler with extra crazy juice.” She rolled her eyes with commiseration, not bothering to correct his casual use of crazy, as she might have if she’d had the energy. “Tell me

about it. You both off tomorrow?” We nodded. “Any good plans?” I glanced at Kelly, and he glanced at me. “Nothing I know of,” Kelly said, staring me in the eyes. A dark little part of me was pleased to say, “I’m spending the day with my sister and nephew. We’re going to a farm with a legendary hay-bale maze.” And no Marco. Though I wouldn’t mind a bit if he came along and wound up lost in the maze, never to be found again. “Oh, how old is your nephew?” “Almost three.” We went off on a tangent about what

the most adorable ages were for boys versus girls, and Kelly finished his pop and excused himself to get back to the ward. I watched him go, proud in a petty way that I was busy all day Sunday, and now he knew it. That what we’d done was fun, but I wouldn’t be spending my free time mooning in my room, wishing he’d call to validate my existence with another invitation to screw all over his house. The only trouble with this strategy, I realized, was that it sounded depressingly like some tactic you’d read in The Rules. ***

My day off passed too quickly. The farm was fun—with the exception of Jack having a meltdown when a llama spat on his new jacket—and we had an impromptu picnic dinner in Amber’s front yard. I thought about Kelly as little as I could manage, knowing if my mind started wandering, the infatuation would return in a blink, and my resolve for us to go back to simply being coworkers would be gone just as fast. Come Monday morning hand-off, it felt almost as if we’d never slept together. The sensation should have pleased me. After all, that was exactly what I wanted, in my rational brain. Why on

earth should it be disappointment filling me, right where I’d expected the relief to be? I stole glances at him, trying to remember how that cool, calm face had looked looming above mine. How that level voice had sounded. How those battered arms had held me through the night. I could recall those things, but with only dreamlike fidelity. That made me sadder than I’d ever have guessed. I saw Lee Paleckas on the ward for the first time that morning, bright and early, for breakfast meds. He wasn’t on the roster—Dr. Morris would be supervising his pharma regimen personally for the first week or two—

but I offered a smile as he eyed me through the booth’s window. I thought maybe he returned it, sort of a grudging twitch of his lip, but for all I knew, it was a side-effect tic. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I got a chance to talk to him. I was done with post-lunch meds, free to mingle with the patients during their short free period between sessions. I found Lee staring out the rec room window and walked over. “Hi, Lee.” He turned and offered a guarded assessment. “Hey.” “How are you finding everything so far?”

“It fucking sucks,” he said, with a sneer like he might hawk a loogie, but thankfully didn’t. There was more lucidity in his eyes today, and his color was better. “I hope it won’t suck for too long. You play cards at all?” “You let us play cards? Didn’t know we were allowed to do jack-shit on our own time except veg out to the fucking soaps.” He jerked his thumb at the TV. “Until somebody comes up with a way to assault themselves or someone else with a worn-out pack of Hoyles, yes, cards are allowed. You want a game? I’ve got nothing to do for the next half hour.”

“Yeah, fine. Whatever.” As we walked to the games shelf I said, “That wasn’t a challenge, incidentally. I’m not looking to be proven wrong about cards making lousy weapons.” I kept all the suspicion out of my tone, and it earned me the faintest shadow of a smile. “Poker?” he asked. “That’s the only kind of cards worth playing.” If I’d had the time, I would’ve consulted with Dr. Morris and found out if Lee had any known issues with gambling. We weren’t playing for money, but still. At the moment, though, my primary concern was getting him to engage, so I took a gamble myself.

“Sure. Five-card draw? That’s all I know.” “We got anything to bet with?” I scanned the shelf and grabbed the checkers box. “Red can be one dollar, and black can be five.” We sat at a free table and Lee shuffled while I divided the checkers between us. Kelly passed by, smooth and silent as a trolling shark. Lee dealt. “You’re a lot nicer than the other nurses.” “I’m new. Give it a week,” I said with a smile, stealing Dennis’s line. “Well, you’re still miles nicer than that Jenny bitch.” My professional coat slid over my

shoulders with ease, no reactionary bits of me tempted to take his bait and get defensive. Clearly I saved those lapses in self-control for real grade-A douchebags like Marco. “It’s not any of our jobs to be nice, sadly, not unless being nice explicitly helps your treatment.” “Can’t hurt,” Lee said, dealing the cards. “No, happily you’re right. What’s wild?” Lee snorted, shooting me this funny little coy glance with his face cast down, a taste of how charming this guy might’ve been, if his life weren’t so terribly complicated. “Wild cards are

for babies and pussies.” “Fine,” I said, arranging my hand then setting a red checker between us. “Ante.” Lee did the same. “And maybe she’s not such a bitch, that Jenny chick. I was giving her a hard time.” “She’s used to it.” “I’m not giving you a hard time, though. ’Cause you’re pretty.” I gave him a cool look. Nothing about the comment came off as skeezy, but I wouldn’t be setting any permissive precedents with patients where attractiveness was concerned. “It’s not my job to be pretty, either. If you give me any reason to suspect my appearance is

becoming a distraction to your treatment, I will arrange for our paths not to cross.” Lee laughed silently, shaking his head at his cards. “So you’re a bitch, too.” “When it suits me,” I said, and plunked two red checkers beside the antes. “When it benefits your—” “Yeah, my fucking treatment,” he finished for me, still grinning. “I got it.” After a few hands, I was up eight facsimile bucks and Lee asked, “Where’d you learn to play poker?” “One of my mom’s old boyfriends,” I said, stacking my ante on his. “One of ’em? She go through a bunch?” My stomach soured with misgiving,

but I’d see where this topic took us, since it had him communicating. “Yeah, you could say that.” After a heavy pause, Lee said, “Mine, too. New dude every fucking month, it seemed like.” “It’s not easy, is it?” “Did . . . Any of your mom’s boyfriends. Did they ever . . . you know. Try to fuck with you?” Lee murmured. I looked him dead in the eyes, to see if he was fishing for titillation. But his stare didn’t chill my blood—it broke my heart. That stare said, If they did, I understand. “No,” I told him. “They didn’t.” “That’s good,” he said, avoiding my

gaze. “Happens to lots of kids, though.” “Yeah. Yeah, I hear it does.” His hands were shaking, ever so slightly, lips pursed to a thin, bloodless line. After a few quiet hands, I took a chance. Knowing Lee might very well blow up at me for what I was about to say, I caught Kelly’s eye across the room, and raised my brows to beam him a warning, just in case. He gave a single nod. “You know,” I said quietly to Lee, “if there’s ever anything you need to get out of you, any shit that’s weighing you down, you can always talk to Dr. Morris. About any baggage you might

have, from your childhood.” I held my breath, every muscle on a hair trigger. He stared at me a few seconds. “I could talk to you instead, maybe. You’re easy to talk to.” “I’m not your doctor, though. That’s not really my place. But Dr. Morris, he’s here. And he’s heard everything under the sun, I promise.” Lee cracked a shy smile. “He’s not pretty like you.” “I’ll tell him to work on that.” With no crisis imminent, I beamed Kelly another message when Lee was busy shuffling. It’s cool. As you were. “How have your voices been?” I asked. “Since you came through the

ER?” “Jesus. I thought we were just playing cards here.” “We are. But it’s my job to be nosy. How are your voices?” “They’re fine, since the meds kicked in. And since some of my DIY prescriptions wore off.” “Good.” He was about to replace my discards, but froze with the deck between us. “How long d’you think I’m stuck here? Like, for real?” “It’s too soon to say.” He released my cards and exchanged a pair of his own. “Figures.” “But I think you’re one of the most

self-aware patients I’ve encountered, so far.” It was the truth, though I didn’t bother telling him exactly how new I was. “If we find you the right meds and you can stick to them, I think you could be headed to an outpatient program sooner than most. But those are big ifs.” “What’s self-aware mean?” “It means that at the best of times, you can see your symptoms for what they are. You seem like you’re able to step back from yourself, and examine what you’re feeling, and what your voices might be telling you.” “And that’s good, for somebody like me?” I smiled. “That’s good for anybody.

That’s the difference between someone who can turn the other cheek and walk away from a pointless fight, and one who’ll lose their shit and wind up hurting someone, or go to jail. Someone who’s circumspect, and can look at their emotions and urges with detachment, not somebody who’s a slave to their impulses.” “I think you’re giving me too much credit. I been in lots of fights. Over real stupid shit.” I exchanged three cards. “I know you were self-aware enough to seek substance abuse treatment. That means, at least sometimes, your brain knows what’s best for you, and has the strength

to shout louder than your addictions or your disorder.” “I never finished none of those programs, though.” “Lots of people don’t. Lots of people who aren’t dealing with possibly being medicated for the wrong disorder.” “That’s just an excuse.” I shrugged, laying my full house down to trump Lee’s three of a kind, and collected my winnings. “Not an excuse, just a factor.” “Like I said—too much credit.” “Until somebody gives me reason to think that encouraging you is detrimental to your treatment, you’ll just have to get used to it.”

“I’m not real used to getting the whatcha-call-it. The benefit of whatever.” “The benefit of the doubt?” “Yeah,” he said, tossing all the cards in a heap and seeming done with losing for the time being. “Well, I don’t see how anybody can be expected to get back on their feet, if people keep kicking them when they try to stand up.” “I guess. But people must fucking love kicking, considering all the boot marks I got on my ass.” “Sadly, I think you’re right. Some people do get off on kicking.” “Thanks for the game, Nurse Downer,”

Lee said, pretending—rather poorly—to find my wisdom depressing. He was welcome to the act, if it made him feel safer. “I prefer Ms. Coffey,” I said, standing when he did. “But anytime you want a game, I’m happy to whup your butt.” He responded with an eye roll and a “Whatever,” but I knew I had him. *** If part of me was secretly wishing Kelly might initiate another encounter, then I was secretly disappointed. No catching me after sign-out, no turning up at my bedroom door. No calls. No nothing by the time my next pseudo-

weekend arrived after Tuesday’s shift. Not that I had the time. I was babysitting Jack most of the day on Wednesday, and Thursday was for chores—an overdue trip to the grocery store, maybe call some apartment listings and work on moving away from campus. Though I was procrastinating that latter task. I needed to ask Kelly which neighborhoods to avoid in Darren, and I’d rather do that casually, during lunch on the ward. A phone call seemed too . . . personal. Ridiculous, when what we’d done on his couch and floor and bed had been pretty fucking personal. But calling him . . . That seemed too familiar, now that we’d sunk so

thoroughly back into professional mode. Too normal, when I didn’t want Kelly to become a normal thing. He was what he was, and what had happened had been transcendent. I’d probably even mess up and let him seduce me again, if he hadn’t lost interest. But I would not put myself in a position to start thinking about him like a potential boyfriend. What we’d had for those two days had left me pretty self-satisfied, the secret wrapped around my shoulders like an invisible mink. Add to that my progress with Lee, plus two perfectly instinctual, by-the-book emergency sedations, and I was feeling damn-near confident. Damn near like I knew who I was, and trusted

that I could survive the jungle I’d parachuted into. I got to Amber’s early on Wednesday, wanting to take her up on an offer to cut my hair before she left to go do more of the same, at work. She settled Jack on the floor with his trucks and got me ready at the kitchen table, draping a towel around my shoulders. As she finger-combed my hair, I marveled at how gentle it felt, after Kelly’s fists. The entire world seemed softer. Even the ward’s linoleum had looked cool and soothing after the burn of Kelly’s carpet. “Girl,” Amber said, scrunching my curls, “you are so overdue for this.”

“Tell me about it.” “What do you want? Anything special?” “Nah.” “Something short and trendy?” “Like our toddler hair stays styled for more than five seconds.” “True. Something more romantic? I hear hockey fans can’t resist a girl with a mullet.” I snorted. “Just whatever. Just as long as I can still put it in a ponytail.” Amber evened out the layers and did that thing with a round brush and a hairdryer I envied. Normal women don’t stand a chance when they leave a salon. “Thanks,” I called, preening before the

bathroom mirror. “Looks great.” “I gotta take off,” Amber said, leaning in the doorway. “But before I go, I gotta know. Who is he?” I whipped my head to the side. “Pardon?” She laughed. “Oh yeah, busted. You only ever say pardon when you’re being extra proper. Overcompensating.” “Why do you think I met a guy?” “Because you’re . . . I dunno. You’re all different. You’re even walking like you got laid.” Fuck a woman so hard she wakes up half-crippled. “How so?” “I don’t know,” she sighed. “All slinky.”

I brushed past her, heading down the hall. “Well, I’m not seeing anybody, so you’re hallucinating.” “Uh-huh.” I snatched her keys off the kitchen counter and tossed them at her. “Don’t make yourself late.” Amber shouldered her purse and kissed Jack good-bye. “I will find out,” she warned me with an accusing finger. “I’ll be back a little after five. Oh and don’t let him pick at that hole in the couch. I can’t keep his frigging fingers out of there.” I rolled my eyes at the soft cuss and waved good-bye. If only this Amber were here all the

time. Fun Amber, harried but generally responsible Amber. My mischievous baby sister. But the second Marco or whoever the next Marco might be rolled up in his stupid truck or SUV or on a motorcycle . . . poof. Self-destruct Amber, come on down! Though for now, things were peaceful. Jack was behaving, which meant life must have been pretty uneventful of late. When Marco was coming and going, Jack got way less of Amber’s attention, and you could tell from the way he acted out. But our day was nearly crisis free, the only incident being when a particularly large ant ran across Jack’s ankle and scared the bejesus out of him.

Kids aren’t so bad, really, I thought, kissing his hair as he sat sleeping on my lap, conked halfway through a DVD. I’d spent so long assuming I didn’t want any, having felt cheated of my childhood, raising Amber, then giving up my carefree college years to care for my grandma. I’d grown convinced I didn’t have the energy to make that serious a commitment again . . . But Jack did weird stuff to me. Made me think maybe I had more capacity to love than I’d let myself believe. Or maybe the responsibility just didn’t intimidate me so much lately, after the kind of babysitting I’d been doing at Larkhaven. Amber got home early with bags of

fast food in tow, enough for the three of us. While she gathered plates and glasses, I noticed another bag she’d left by the wall, heart sinking to discover it held a twelve-pack of beer. Marco’s beer. Like you’re even surprised? “Marco coming over?” I asked, in that incriminatingly casual tone Amber would have no trouble seeing right through. “What? No.” And I could see right through her, too. “You bought his brand,” I said, nudging the bag with my toe. “It’s my brand, too.” I shot her a look that said I wasn’t

fooled, then dropped it. It’d been a good day. A fight-free day. Far be it from me to wreck that. At six thirty I got my jacket on and kissed Jack night-night. “Thanks again for the cut,” I told Amber. “And dinner.” “Oh, shush. Thanks for giving up your day off for me.” “It was fun. Really.” “I hope it’s not my fault there’s some sad man out there someplace, all alone when—” “God, stop it. I’m not seeing anybody.” “Yuh-huh.” I backed my way out the door, eager to escape her interrogation. “I’ll see you

both soon, I’m sure.” Dropping into the driver’s seat, I felt unexpectedly energized. Maybe I’d grab groceries now, instead of the next morning. I liked being in the grocery store at night. That was when my mom had done her shopping, after dinner, and when I was little it had made me feel special, riding in the cart with us faceto-face—well, face to bosom, anyhow— and getting her all to myself for a rare half hour. I stuck the key in the ignition and turned. A-rr-rr-rr-rr-rrr. “Oh come on.” A-rr-rr-rr. Thump thump.

“No, no no no.” I stroked the wheel beseechingly, but the Tempo wasn’t soothed. The fifth time I tried to turn the engine over, something made a scary grinding noise and I yanked the key out. “Motherfuck.” I rested my head on the wheel, took a deep breath, and calmed down. For the first time in my life, I could afford whatever repairs were needed. And I wasn’t due anyplace for thirty-six hours. If this had to happen, now was the best possible time. Still, I didn’t have AAA and I doubted a garage would be able to have me running again tonight, not by the time I managed to get to one. Plus a tow would

cost me a chunk, and maybe the thing only needed something cheap. A jump, or a spark plug—I was thoroughly clueless about cars. There was an obvious answer to the problem. A big, muscly answer, about six feet and four inches’ worth of obvious. I sighed. At least we had the same schedule. Unless he was out wooing some other woman, Kelly would probably be perfectly happy to come rescue me. After all, it was number one on his tablet of man-commandments, those things guys were supposed to be able to do for their women. He’d already grilled me a steak. He’d fucked me half-crippled. Check the car thing off

the list and I was in serious danger of fulfilling his macho prophecy. The notion made me weary, but I dug in my purse for my phone and scrolled to his number. My heart migrated north, like an Adam’s apple thumping in my throat as I listened to the tone. “C’mon, Kel . . .” After three rings, “Booty call?” I had to laugh. And I had to admit to myself, I was relieved he wasn’t off boning another girl when I needed him. “I have a favor to ask. A really annoying one.” “That’s my favorite kind. Shoot.” “My car won’t start. I’m at my sister’s in North Woodley.”

I heard him grunt softly, like he was getting to his feet. “I’ll be there in an hour.” “Any chance you know anything about the engines of late-model Tempos?” “I may. And if I’m lying, I’ll bring a tow bar. Two-wheel drive?” “Yeah.” “Manual?” “Yes. And thank you.” Keys jingled in the background. “Address?” I dictated it. “On my way.” He hung up before I could say good-bye. I went back inside, finding Jack rolling his dump truck back and forth along the

sofa cushions. Amber was crouched in front of the fridge, stacking beers in the crisper. She glanced up. “Forget something?” I shed my jacket and dropped my bag on the counter. “No, my car won’t start.” “Oh damn. Need the Yellow Pages?” “No, I called a friend. He’ll be here in an hour. If he can’t fix it, he can at least tow it out of your driveway and drop me home.” “That’s an awful handy friend to have. Who is this guy?” She drew out the guy, batting her eyelashes wildly. “He’s my coworker—an orderly from my ward. We’ve hung out a few times after work.”

She shut the fridge door. “What’s an orderly, exactly?” “They do all the butch stuff. Restraining patients, lifting heavy equipment, escorting people. Just sort of be there, in case something needs doing.” “Like a bouncer?” “Pretty much.” Bouncer, orderly, prison guard. Whatever kept Kelly on top in a power struggle against dangerous men. Amber made a face. “An hour, huh?” “Yeah.” She looked to the microwave clock and nodded. “I gotta bathe Jack, but afterward you want a beer? Watch some

bad TV?” “Sure. But let me deal with bath duty. You’re still in your work clothes.” “Best sister ever,” Amber declared, and disappeared down the hall to change. I wound up opting for a pop, but it was nice, sitting on Amber’s couch with Jack in his PJs between us, making fun of the people on a reality show. Reminded me of all the nights I’d spent babysitting Amber when I was a teenager. Hell, when I was eight. It made me want to drape my arm around her shoulders or stroke her hair, but those days were long gone. She was twenty-three, not five, drinking a beer instead of Hawaiian

Punch. She was a mother herself now. A real mom. And my years spent raising her felt diluted by that distinction. I glanced up at the sound of a vehicle approaching then going silent. Amber was on her feet, jogging to the front window. “Blue truck?” “Boo truck!” Jack said, rattling his own such plastic vehicle in the air. “This is my boo truck!” “Yes it is,” I confirmed, smoothing Jack’s hair as I stood. I grabbed my keys and met Kelly as he was striding up the driveway. “Hey! Thank you.” He shrugged, eyeing my car. “What’s it doing?” “Nothing, sadly. I turned the key and it

went ruhhr, ruhhr, ruhhr, then it made a worse noise, like a grinding squeal.” “Get in and try to start it.” But before I could— “Hey,” Amber called from the steps, waving for us to come inside. Oh Lordy. Did I really want Kelly meeting her and Jack? It felt too personal. But then that thought made me feel like a guy, all leery and compartmentalizing. Kelly looked to me and I nodded, knowing it was way too rude to refuse. We headed for the house. “I’m Amber,” she said as we reached the steps. She was using a toned-down version of the annoying, helpless-little-

girl voice she employed when flirting. Find me adorable! it said, like our apple-cheeked faces didn’t scream the message loud enough. Protect me, you big, strong, capable man! “I’m Kelly. Nice to meet you.” They shook, Amber’s hand gulped by Kelly’s giant paw. “And that’s my nephew Jack,” I said, nodding across the room to where his huge eyes blinked at the stranger. Kelly waved. “Nice truck. Mine’s blue, too.” “This is my boo truck,” Jack said, then went back to playing, apparently satisfied by Kelly’s vehicular credentials.

“Awful nice of you to come out and fix my sister’s car.” Amber was doing that other thing that annoyed me, developing a mild Southern accent, the auditory equivalent of parasol twirling. Unseen, I rolled my eyes. “You thirsty?” Kelly shook his head. “Need anything?” “Nope. I’m good.” “Well alrighty,” Southern Amber said, sounding disappointed. “I’ll let you get to work, then. Come in and get cleaned up when you’re done.” Back outside, Kelly opened my hood and we dicked around for at least twenty minutes, with no luck.

“I can’t fix this. Not without getting underneath it, and a jack’s not going to cut it.” “Shit.” “But I brought a bar. I can tow you. Your hair looks nice, by the way.” I suppressed a reflexive urge to preen. “Thanks. Can you recommend a garage near work?” “Not really. But give me ’til tomorrow or Friday and I can probably fix you up.” My stomach sank. I didn’t want to be beholden to Kelly for this. Having to call him in the first place was disempowering enough. Dependent enough. “You don’t have to. Maybe there’s a

cheap place in Darren that could do it.” “Just let me,” Kelly said, leveling me with his stare. “Okay, fine. But not for free or anything.” “For the cost of parts, if you need any.” “And labor.” Kelly wiped his hands on a rag, real slow and thorough, with his eyes narrowed. “Pay me in some other way, if you want.” My inner fuse lit in an instant, and it was a short one. It always became shorter when I was near Amber. Like whatever impulsive chemicals we’d inherited from Mom surged when we got

close. It must have shown on my face, as Kelly spoke before I could berate him for basically inviting me to prostitute myself for automotive favors. “Whoa now, crazy-eyes. Chill. I’m only trying to flirt. Not subjugate some vulnerable woman who can’t pay her fucking mechanic.” It pinched the flame off, right before I exploded. My shoulders slumped and I abandoned my outrage. “I’m paying you in money.” “Fine.” “Including labor.” “I said fine.” Why was I acting like such a douche about it, when Kelly was probably just

trying to be chivalrous? Because he was behaving like a boyfriend about the situation, I realized. And I couldn’t start thinking about him that way. I couldn’t let things start feeling that way, because . . . Because why not? “Hop inside and put it in neutral. You steer and I’ll push. We gotta move you down to the road so I can get at your front bumper.” It took a while, but we managed to get the car onto the edge of the street, and Kelly backed his truck in front of it. He started pulling tools out of his bed. I watched his arms flex in the waning daylight, all covered in bruises and

scars and black grease. Did I like him, like him? Probably. Was being with him, romantically, really such a terrible idea . . . ? I didn’t have the first fucking clue. He was a good guy, but he put me on edge all the time. Made it so I couldn’t relax, always monitoring myself to make sure I was sticking to my guns, retaining my independence. But the sex was fucking insane. But, he needed way too much control, and so did I. If we wound up in a relationship, it’d be an endless power struggle. But the sex was fucking insane. I shook my head. What a dumb thing to

even be debating. For all I knew, Kelly had absolutely no interest in me, outside of some fuck-buddy arrangement. Which was possible. Probable. Did fuck buddies drive two hours roundtrip to tow their lays’ cars? Seemed a bit beyond the call of duty— Then I heard a noise that pulled me straight out of my internal argument and dropped my heart into my gut. The distant thump of car-stereo bass. And a glance confirmed my worst fears—a shiny red truck turning the corner, with Marco’s stupid meaty forearm flopped out the driver’s side window. So Kelly had grilled me a steak, laid me soundly, rescued me from my

automotive woes. That left exactly one box to check off his manly to-do list before he had the set. “Fuck me,” I whispered. Let the dogfight begin. Kelly glanced up at the noise. “Don’t talk to that guy,” I told him, and rushed up the lawn and into the house, screen door slapping at my back. “Amber!” She was untwisting one of Jack’s socks on the couch. “What?” “Marco’s here. And you better get him to turn around and leave. Kelly knows he’s the reason I showed up at work with a black eye and I doubt he’s going to be subtle about it.”

She sighed, clearly more annoyed by my barking than the situation. “Shit.” “Don’t swear.” “I asked him to come, but not this early.” I blinked at her, but could I really act so shocked? The beer had told me everything I’d needed to know. “Dear God, why?” “I dunno. He’s been sweet lately. He said he wants to reconcile.” “Honey.” I stared at her squarely. “Don’t.” “Don’t,” Jack echoed, eyes on the TV. “I don’t know what I want. But he’s so much nicer when he’s trying to win me back.”

“That’s charming. And so sustainable, when it means you have to have been fighting, first.” Amber made a puppet of her hand, miming blah blah blah blah. Through the window, I watched as Marco exited his truck across the street and slammed the door. “The fact that he thinks you’re a possession that can be won—” She swept past me with Jack in her arms. “Give it a rest, Erin. Jesus.” “Jeezes!” I brought up the rear in the confrontation parade, marching down the patchy lawn. Marco spotted us as he was striding toward the front door, and gave

a stiff wave. He could play nice all he wanted, but no way was I forgetting that the last time I saw him, we’d both driven away bleeding. He cast Kelly and the vehicular activities a glance over his shoulder, looking shifty as he faced forward. Kelly’s cold eyes went to Marco’s back, then my face. There was no question in that stare. He already knew the answer. Yup, that’s the guy. Amber was wise enough to greet Marco with her skinny arms still full of Jack, not welcoming a hug. “Hey,” he said to her, then tossed another wave in my direction. “Hey.” Amber leaned forward stiffly

so he could peck her cheek. Clearly, she liked this cold-shoulder-versus-penitentboyfriend shtick. Fucking foreplay. “How’s my boy?” Marco touched Jack’s hair, the hair I’d so lovingly shampooed, and I fought off an urge to slap his hand away. “He’s been pretty good today. Right?” Amber cooed at Jack. “You’ve been real good for your auntie Erin?” Jack excitedly began recounting the incident with the monster ant, but Marco wasn’t listening. “Cool. So . . .” He glanced behind him, to the action blocking the driveway. “My car won’t start,” I said. “Why’d you let her call a mechanic?”

Marco asked Amber. “I coulda took a look at it.” “It’s fine.” Never in a zillion years would I put myself in a position to have to say thank-you to Marco. I’d sooner paper cut my eye. Maybe the same eye I bruised, getting pushed into the car he was now so graciously offering to fix. “That’s not a mechanic,” Amber said, in a voice I didn’t trust one bit. Even in reconciliation mode, she couldn’t resist taking a shot. She was winding up, and the pitch wouldn’t be far behind. “If he ain’t a mechanic, who is he?” “That’s Kelly,” she said, way too sweetly, with her head cocked just so. I watched Marco frown, Amber’s

curve ball whizzing past his thick, predictable skull. “He’s my coworker,” I interjected. And no, Amber’s not fucking him. But I am. “Oh. Okay. You gonna invite me in or what? Work was fucking exhausting.” “You’ve got to quit using that word in front—” Marco plowed right over my nagging. “I need a fucking beer.” “Yeah, fine.” Amber sighed, and turned to lead Marco into the house. I sighed, too, silently, with relief. I wandered back down the driveway to Kelly. He’d installed a wishbone-shaped thing to his truck’s hitch, and was

crouching with a jack now, lining the prongs up with the front of my car. “You work quick. Everything—” “That’s him, huh?” Kelly didn’t look up from his chore, just hoisted my car another inch with each crank on the jack’s lever. When I didn’t answer, he jerked his chin up and stared me dead in the face. “That’s him? The one who gave you a black eye?” I shook my head. “Don’t.” “You can’t stop me.” “Kelly, please. Don’t. It’s not your business.” His eyebrow twitched, telling me he did in fact think it was his business, but then he went back to the task at hand.

I leaned against his truck. “I’m asking you as a favor, please don’t make a thing of it.” He finished with the jack and brushed past me to dump it in his bed, pulling out a mess of wires. “Why don’t you tell that guy to come outside, so I can have a word with him?” My arms locked across my chest reflexively. “I’m not doing that.” And Kelly said nothing for the next ten minutes while he ran cords between the two vehicles and tested my blinkers and brake lights. It was eating me up, not knowing what he was going to do. “We’re just about set here.” He wiped his hands on a clean rag, then tossed it in

the bed. “Lemme just take care of that other issue, then I’ll get you home.” He headed for the house. “Kelly, don’t. Seriously—don’t.” I grabbed his forearm, but he twisted loose with a practiced flick of his wrist. “Kelly. Please.” He just kept striding, pulled the door open and held it long enough for me to precede him inside. Jack was playing on the floor, and Amber and Marco were sitting on the couch with beers, watching something noisy on the television. Marco had shitty hearing from working on road crews, and I hated how he blasted everything and said, “Huh?” all the time. I hated

lots of things about him. “How’s the car coming along?” Amber asked. Marco kept his eyes on the screen. It was embarrassingly obvious how little he relished being only the second-biggest man in a given room. “Car’s just about ready,” Kelly said. “But I need a word with your man here. Outside.” Marco’s head jerked up. “Word about what?” “Word about that black eye you gave my friend the other week.” Marco got to his feet and set his beer on the coffee table with a thunk. “She —” “You raise your voice in front of that

kid and we’ll be having more than just the one word,” Kelly said, deadly calm. Foam had erupted from the beer bottle and Amber scrambled to pull picture books and magazines out of its spreading tide. Kelly had turned his back on us, heading for the door. Marco shot me a killing look. I could’ve told him I had nothing to do with this duel, but fuck him for leering at me that way. Let him think I’d sicced this bruiser on his sorry ass. He left us, exiting thirty seconds behind Kelly. “Oh shit,” Amber said softly. “Ship,” Jack agreed, and held up a toy boat to show us.

I rubbed my face and took a deep breath. Outside, Marco’s voice flared with words I couldn’t make out. “Just keep Jack inside. I’ll be back.” I pulled out my phone as I shoved through the door, ready to call the cops if it got ugly. It had already gotten ugly. The men were nearly chest-to-chest in the dusky light, Marco seething and shouting, Kelly impassive. “And exactly what fucking business is it of yours?” Marco demanded. I couldn’t make out Kelly’s reply. A deep shiver went through me as I imagined what must be happening in his head, smelling Marco’s beer breath, feeling his warm spittle. Was he back in

high school, scrapping with his drunk stepdad? “I didn’t give her no black eye. She fell. She keyed my truck and spat at me.” I caught a snatch of Kelly’s stoic reply, something about, “Self-defense? Against a hundred-pound girl?” “Who in the fuck told you this was your business?!” Holy hell. Was this my nephew’s future? Getting cussed out by his drunk father, same as Kelly had? I turned, finding Amber watching from the window, Jack in her arms. I glowered and waved at her to get the fuck away, get her son’s eyes off this train wreck. She tossed her hair and disappeared

toward the kitchen. “Just like their momma,” Marco was saying, right up in Kelly’s face. “She is a goddamn. Crazy. Psycho. Cun—” And he never got that hard T out. It was swallowed by a grunt, his arm folded up behind his back, chest slammed to the ground, then Kelly was on him, one knee on the lawn and the other jammed hard into the small of Marco’s back. The side of Marco’s face was mashed into the grass. His teeth were gritted and his eyes clamped shut, snot already slipping down his lip. I just stood there, a wide-eyed, slackjawed statue. The world went eerily still and quiet. So quiet I could make out

Marco’s whimpers and every last one of Kelly’s slow, steely words. “I ever hear about you laying a hand on either of those girls, I will break every bone in every finger you possess.” He tensed, and I could tell how hard he was driving that knee into Marco’s back by the way Kelly’s leg shook. “Fuhhhck.” “And if I ever hear a word about you laying a hand on that boy, I will put you in a wheelchair. Do you understand me, Son?” He gave Marco’s arm a twist. “Fuhhhhhh.” “What was that?” “Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.” Marco was trying to nod, rubbing his own face in the

dirt. “I thought so. And if I ever catch you coming ’round where I live, looking to continue this discussion, I will neuter you like a fucking puppy. You got that, you drunk-ass, white trash waste of come?” Another twist. “Yuh.” Kelly released Marco’s wrist. The effort of standing drove his knee into Marco’s back one more time, and the lawn muffled the resulting wail. “Let’s go,” Kelly said, without even looking in my direction. I ran inside for my stuff. When I dashed back out, Marco was just making it to his feet. We made eye contact, but

he didn’t say a word. For no reason whatsoever I said, “Bye,” and jogged down the driveway and around Kelly’s truck. He started the engine as I slammed the door, and we didn’t speak a word for the entire drive to Larkhaven.

Chapter Thirteen

Kelly pulled into the drop-off area in front of my building, too encumbered by my car to park. I��d been seething the entire ride, jacked up on anger and fear, and a sort of reckless, combustible sexual adrenaline from glimpsing that side of Kelly. But it was so un-fucking-fair that he could do that. That he could get the better of Marco, make some difference in my problems, just because he was

strong and male and pushy. Just march in against my explicit wishes and muscle through the mess I’d been living with for almost three years with his big, stupid arms. And I couldn’t do shit, because Marco couldn’t give a damn what anybody thought unless they were tougher than him. I could scream. Kelly put the truck in neutral and turned to me. I addressed the dashboard, my breath so short it hurt to talk. “How much. Do I owe you?” “I’ll tell you after I fix it.” “Fine.” I unbuckled my seatbelt. My head was shaking. I wasn’t even

telling it to. I stared Kelly straight in his pale, calm eyes, my own burning with anger. “You have some fucking nerve, butting into my family’s business.” “You asked me to come there.” “For a lift.” “And what, I’m supposed to just let it go, knowing the guy who messed you around is inside, thinking there’s no consequences? How’s that not my business?” “I told you a hundred times, I didn’t want your help with that.” He twisted in his seat and laid an arm across the back of mine. “You need my help with that.” “No, I don’t.”

“Yeah, you do. You can’t fix your issues with that shitbag, just like you can’t fix your car. But I can. So fucking let me, why don’t you? Quit thinking you have to be the strong one all the time.” “Don’t you dare analyze me.” “Quit telling yourself you don’t need anybody.” “I don’t need anybody.” People needed me. My sister, my grandma, the residents on the ward. “Yeah,” Kelly said. “You fucking do.” “You really wanna talk about people and their control issues, Kel? Because we can talk about that.” He huffed a quiet laugh from his nose, blinking up at the cab’s ceiling. I wanted

to hit him, he looked so patronizing. “Thanks for the lift,” I spat, shoving the door open. “See you at work.” “You’re wel—” I slammed the door on his reply. My hand shook so hard I could barely fish my keys from my purse. I stomped toward the entrance, punching the walkway with every step. When I got up to my room, all I wanted was a beer and an early night. But first things first, I had to make sure Amber was okay. Marco had finally gotten bested by a bigger bully than himself, and on his own playground, no less. Who knew if he’d be left humbled or livid by the turn of events.

I sat on my bed and dialed, hunched over, rubbing my forehead. Amber answered after half a ring. “Hi,” she huffed. “Hey. I just wanted to make sure everything’s cool over there after—” “Excuse me? How about an apology?” My head snapped up. “For what?” “For sending that Kelly guy after Marco, roughing him up like some thug when he didn’t do anything.” “I didn’t ask him to do that! And Marco did do something—he shoved me into a car, if you haven’t forgotten.” “Don’t you try that, talking all judgmental, like you didn’t start that fight. Like you’re not fucking a married

man. Which is so much worse than—” “What? No I’m not!” “Well you want to, I can tell.” “No, I mean he’s not married. He just wears a ring bec— It doesn’t matter why. It’s a long story.” Silence, for a blessed moment. Then, “It is so out of line, you letting him get all up in Marco’s face, when he’s been working so hard to be better for me and Jack. Like he doesn’t have enough shit he’s trying to work through. Like it’s even anybody’s business but ours.” When the two of them got fighting, it was the entire neighborhood’s business, whether anyone wanted to hear it or not. Marco broadcast himself on thumping

speakers, be it a domestic dispute or the awful, thrashy rap-rock music blaring from his truck. “I’ll have you know I didn’t let him get in Marco’s face. I begged him not to. But he knew how I got my black eye.” “You just can’t resist butting in, can you?” “I wasn’t trying— Jesus, fucking forget it. I didn’t ask him to do that. But it’s all stuff I’d have happily said to Marco, if I had a dick and weighed twenty pounds more than him and stood a chance at getting heard. And no, I can’t not butt-in. Not if it’s about you and Jack.” “Get your own life, Erin.” Mean words, but they came out lame and

petulant, and I could tell the fire had gone out of her, too. “You guys are my life. Get used to it.” Some noises in the background, Marco’s voice, unintelligible words in a bored tone, which gave me permission to relax about Amber’s safety. Hell, they were probably united against me and Kelly now, all boo-hoo bonding over the night’s drama. Amber’s muffled reply came through. “I don’t know. Check the freezer.” A pause, then, “Erin, I have to go.” “Am I still watching Jack on Monday?” An angry sigh, and she hung up on me. I tossed my phone on the bed, grabbed

a pillow and screamed into it. Better. A bit better, though I wouldn’t have minded a benzo jab. I hated these stupid, fiery Mom-feelings. How nice it’d be to just get knocked out, wake up confused but docile. A beer would have to do. I pulled a can out of my little fridge and cracked it open, found my laptop and checked the day’s news headlines, needing a diversion. After that I scrubbed my face and brushed my teeth, relieved by the routines and the normality. My surge of Mom-angst subsided as it always did—just in time for the damage to register and leave me humbled.

As the rage lifted, I had to concede my anger toward Kelly. I was pissed off at Marco for being a tyrant, and I’d transferred that hate onto Kelly, for using that same physical intimidation to accomplish what I couldn’t. It still annoyed me that he’d brazenly ignored my demands that he not get involved, but I couldn’t pretend I wasn’t happy with the results. I waited a half hour, until I’d showered and officially calmed down, and I texted him. Shouldn’t have blown up. Way more pissed at Marco than you. Still annoyed you butted in, but thanks for caring. E Five minutes later, my phone rang.

Kelly’s number. “Hello?” “I dunno how to text.” “Oh. Well, your fingers are probably too big for it, anyway. But I shouldn’t have gone all psycho on you before.” “I’m trained in dealing with psychos,” he said dryly, calling me on my faux pas. “Thanks, I guess. For what you did.” “Sorry you couldn’t have done the job yourself. The world’s shitty that way.” I sighed, the last of my anger escaping with the breath. “I hope you appreciate how much power you enjoy, just being . . . you know.” “A huge asshole.” “A built one, anyhow.”

“Not like it’s an accident. I don’t lift weights to look good, mowing the lawn with my shirt off.” “True.” A beagle could bark all it wanted, trying to sound tough. A Doberman could send a far more credible message just standing there, silent. And there I went, animalizing Kelly yet again. “I’ll let you know how I manage, fixing your car.” “Thank you, Kelly.” “Not a problem.” “Uh, good night. See you when I see you, I guess.” “Night.”

I flipped my phone closed, feeling deflated. But deflated in a good way, like I’d been pumped full of something noxious, then lanced. Now I was just limp, anger all drained away. I wasn’t too worried about Amber. This was merely the latest in twenty-plus years’ worth of fights. We’d patch it up, same as we always did. The nagging hole that had opened in my heart might not heal over quite so quickly. Like Kelly had his finger in there, wriggling it around now and then so it never quite closed up, like the tear in Amber’s couch. I didn’t want to have a crush on him, but I’d known I would, if the sex was good, if our connection

offered any hint that it might extend deeper than just the physical. Both of those things had come to pass. This attachment wasn’t a surprise, but it unnerved me all the same. I changed into my Red Wings shirt and got under the covers. The pillow I hugged as I fell asleep was cool and squishy and comforting, but it wasn’t what I wanted to cling to. I wanted warm and hard and solid. I wanted Kelly. *** I was at a loose end the next day, not having my car. There was a ready list of distractions in the form of errands I’d

planned to run, but now no way to run them. It made it far tougher to keep my head out of the gloom left by yesterday’s incident. I nearly pined for restraint training. I puttered and did laundry, called my mom for the first time in months. I didn’t reach her, but I left a message saying I hoped she was doing well, that my new job was challenging but good, give me a ring some time, let me know what she was up to. She didn’t call back. Amber didn’t call, either—not for more fighting or for a truce, but happily not for any fresh crises, either. To my chagrin, the absent call that haunted me most was Kelly’s. Until

about four in the afternoon, I had my hopes up that he’d ring to tell me my car was fixed. Maybe instead of dropping it off, he’d pick me up for dinner at the bar and we’d patch over our little spat with a bit of vigorous, no-strings screwing. But nothing. A nothingness that echoed with his voice and breath and moans and had dirty flashbacks strobing through my head. Sexual schizophrenia. And in the late afternoon, I did a bad thing. I drank two beers and tipsy impulse got the better of me, and I went places on the Internet I shouldn’t have. It took a couple of hours, but I found a site with Hamtramck’s public records going back

to the sixties. I searched for James Mahoney, and I found out exactly what Kelly’s biological father had done to get put away. Vet Earns Maximum Sentence for Assaulting Pregnant Girlfriend, the scanned headline read. Pregnant. My insides filled with ice. And there was his grainy photo, probably the same one Kelly had stared at on library microfiche when he’d been a teenager. James Mahoney looked sad in the picture, and tired. A lot older than twenty-six, the age cited in the article. There was a resemblance to Kelly, in the brows and jaw. Forty-five years he’d

been sentenced for aggravated assault, for beating Kelly’s mom unconscious and kicking her in the stomach. Jesus. Not even born yet and Kelly was getting waled on by a father figure. He hadn’t known she was pregnant, the article said, and my heart broke for him. Just back from the war, probably mindfucked with PTSD or struggling with alcohol or uppers like so many of those guys had. And still did. He’d screwed up, atrociously. He’d beat his girlfriend, but to then sober up from an episode or a drug high and find out he could’ve made her miscarry his own kid? Forty-five years was a long time to think about one’s mistakes. But

was it long enough to wrap your head around that? And Kelly’d been carrying that shit around for over two decades, going through life with that slung over his shoulders, trudging through a world full of Marcos. It was a wonder he’d held himself back as much as he had the day before. I shut my laptop, feeling more lost than ever. And so, in the end, I passed almost my entire waking day thinking about Kelly. It didn’t compare to seeing him. Hearing him or touching him. I’d had it bad after those simple little words uttered in my bedroom, well before we’d even kissed. We got a little something between us, don’t we?

Now I’d spent two days banging the guy, then a week trying to fool myself into thinking that was all it’d been. I was fucked. Just like I’d known I probably would be. I had to make peace with the fact that I needed to just suck it up. Stay alert and remind myself continually that infatuation wasn’t the same as a romantic crush, and try to enjoy the filthy-good memories without letting my libido trick my heart into thinking there was anything more to it. I didn’t see Kelly until work, but the second he strolled into the lounge for hand-off, a hot bolt of shame-lust crackled from my feet up through my hair, everything in between left sizzling

and tender. He started chatting with another orderly, and I studied him with furtive glances, trying to believe the things I’d done with this man. He looked so . . . He looked just as he had that first morning, and during our last few shifts, following my icy lead. Far away and untouchable. But I’d seen him come apart, tasted champagne on his lips, stroked that soft, short hair as he wallowed in a post-orgasm coma. And now I knew things I didn’t really want to. Ugly things that cast shadows over my assumptions about him, instead of shedding light. We didn’t speak until after lunch, when I was getting a coffee in the sign-in room

and Kelly walked in. He tossed me a “Hey,” and turned his attention to the whiteboard. I wandered over, stirring sugar into my cup. “Hey.” He scribbled Don’s name in his duties box. “Your car’s fixed.” “Oh yeah?” “Yup. Part was cheap. You owe me forty bucks.” “Plus . . . ?” He thought a second. “Plus a twelvepack for the labor.” “Sounds like a good deal.” He glanced at the open door, then lowered his voice. “I can’t park it anyplace legal near your building with

the tow bar on my truck, otherwise I’d just drop it off for you some morning. How about you come over for dinner tonight, and drive it home yourself? Good night for grilling, and I got hamburger patties ready to go.” Something hot wriggled low in my belly. “That works.” I imagined staying the night, and following Kelly in to work the next morning, our pulling up together, strolling into hand-off with a secret buzzing between us. I’d wasted my earlier chance to foster that conspiracy, but I didn’t have to waste it again. And with the promise of another round in Kelly’s bed leaving me with the focus

of a caffeinated sparrow, the rest of the day dragged on toward eternity. I had another chance to play cards with Lee Paleckas and I could tell he was doing better. More lucid, equally glib. Any hope he felt, he hid it behind a caustic persona, but he didn’t fool me. I asked Jenny if she’d heard any updates on his plan, and she said Dr. Morris had him tentatively scheduled to graduate to an outpatient program at the end of next week. I’d miss Lee; the first patient I’d forged a real connection with. Whose stay I knew I’d made more pleasant. But that was the way of the ward. The encouraging cases were always the first to fly the coop, the lost causes forever

lingering. It felt like midnight by the time seven arrived. Kelly and I dawdled behind our coworkers after hand-off, taking our time changing. We met in the sign-in room once everyone else had filtered out. “Ready?” he asked. “Ready.” We headed out to his truck. I cast paranoid glances around the lot as we climbed inside, scanning not for escaped patients, but colleagues. Which was silly. If anybody saw us, all I’d have to do was tell the truth—Kelly had fixed my broken car, and we were going to get it.

“How was Don?” I asked, buckling up. “Not bad at all.” “I saw you were on special obs. I didn’t know if that meant he’s still on suicide watch or not.” “Better safe than sorry, after a break like that. But Doc Morris has been seeing him for daily one-on-ones, and they’re making progress. That and some distance from Lonnie, and his paranoia’s been way down.” “I wouldn’t mind a bit of that myself, some days—a break from Lonnie.” Kelly smiled as the engine came to life. “He likes you.” “Oh, great.” “Not like, he’s hot for you.” Kelly

leaned out the window to key us through the gates. “But you got him where Jenny does, worked your feminine wiles and let him feel like he’s impressive.” I smiled. I’d thought maybe that was the case, but he was a wily one himself. It wasn’t wise to let myself think I had him pegged, when maybe he was just blowing smoke up my ass and biding his time. But if Kelly thought I did . . . “I like hearing his stories,” I said. “All that stuff he knows about Vietnam and Korea.” “And I bet he likes feeling like a scholar. No way he enjoys that on the outside.” “I hope I’m not doing him a disservice,

inflating his ego.” “Treating a man with respect can’t be a bad thing,” Kelly said, turning us onto the back road. “No, I guess not.” “Plus his ego’s all that man’s got left to his name. And if believing some pretty young nurse is impressed by his stories keeps him feeling human, I say keep it up. We could all stand to feel more human than we do.” With a psychic flash, I felt that punch as my eye collided with my side mirror. Yeah, we could all stand to feel well treated. “Lonnie’s had a hard road. Broken home, lies about his age so he can go off

to ’Nam at seventeen, and a few little paranoid whispers turn into full-on screaming demons inside his skull.” “I know. What a place to come into your illness.” I conjured James Mahoney’s grainy mug shot, and my lips twitched with a dozen un-posable questions about what I’d read. “He tell you his platoon nicknamed him Loony?” “No.” “Don’t ever use that word around him. Not even if you’re just talking about Bugs Bunny. Like a trip wire in his head.” “That can’t be good, what with all the new residents bitching about being sent

off to the loony bin.” “No, it’s not good at all.” I sighed. “He’s not ever going to get better, is he?” Kelly flipped his headlights on as the road snaked into the woods. “Not unless some new drug comes out that clicks for him. His voices are real loud. Way louder than any scrip can keep muffled for more than a couple days, not without turning him into a walking vegetable.” “That’s so sad.” “It’s a sad job, sweetheart. I know you and that new guy Lee hit it off, so focus on that. The ones you can get through to. And just remember that sadness is like rain. Keep reminding yourself it’ll

pass.” “Do you feel anything on the ward? Aside from . . . I dunno. Alert?” “Sure, I guess. I just don’t do anything with the emotions. Like I said, it’s all just weather patterns. Keep yourself separate, like self-control’s your little house, and you can watch them pass through like storms on the other side of the windows.” My storms didn’t always stay outdoors. Sometimes they stole inside my very body, fisted my car key and dragged it down some asshole’s shiny red hood. “You make it sound so simple.” He merged us onto the quiet highway,

sun already dipping low. “Maybe my little house is just built sturdier than most.” Indeed, with thick walls and good locks. But I’d peeked through the curtains, and caught little glimpses of the man who’d raised those walls. There were moments during those two days at Kelly’s place when maybe he’d even cracked the windows, and let a little of what he was feeling blow inside and stir things up. A thought slipped past my lips, utterly unintended. “Sometimes it’s like there’s a wildfire blazing outside my little house.” Kelly glanced at me, streetlights

wiping across his stern face in orangey strokes. “Outside? Not inside?” I let myself feel a little flash of my Mom-ness, that boiling anger that jerks like Marco could rouse when I was too worn out to keep my cool. All that hot, red hate seeping into my blood, poisoning my better judgment until my temper found an outlet and bled me clean again. “Sometimes it gets in. Other times I’m quick enough to barricade the door.” “That’s not so bad. Plenty of people’s doors have fallen right off their hinges. They don’t even know they got a choice about letting that shit in. And I don’t mean the mentally ill. Regular old everyday hotheads and crybabies.”

“How come your house is so weatherproof? How’d you do that?” “Growing up in my stepdad’s orbit . . . He lived in a fucking lean-to, if we’re sticking with this dumb-ass metaphor. Everything got in, and the place was always so soaked in alcohol, every lightning strike started a fucking fire.” “And it sounds like it had a corrugated metal roof.” Kelly laughed. “Yeah, I suppose it did. Anyhow. You grow up with other people’s rainstorms pissing all over you, you get eager to put up some nice thick walls.” We were quiet for a long time, then Kelly broke the silence as we entered downtown Darren.

“You think I’m cold?” “I think you’re . . . controlled. And if you sometimes seem cold, I actually kind of envy it. It’s not a bad temperament to have, on the ward.” “How about when it’s just you and me?” Another glance, and his eyes in the dying light cut straight to my bones. “No, you’re not cold then. Sometimes you’re mean. You know, during the sex. But not cold.” Scalding hot. “Good.” He shifted his gaze to the road. “I’ve been admiring your cold shoulder the past week,” he added with a smile. Be a stubborn jerk about it or own up? I’d own up, at least partway. “I’m just

trying to keep things how they were. I can’t let all that stuff that happened between us mess up how I do my job.” “Some filthy little glance in the break room wouldn’t have hurt my ego.” A warm tremor of pleasure rippled through me. “Sorry. I’m a girl, whether I like admitting it makes a difference or not. I have to work hard to keep all that stuff separated in my head . . . Do I seem like a wreck, to you?” He laughed. “Hell no. You seen where I work? You’re just fine.” Good to know . . . though it still felt like a windstorm was blowing around inside my little emotional cottage every time I let Kelly get close. The Big Bad

Wolf, huffing and puffing, rattling my shutters. But at times I actually liked the chaos. It was exciting. “Even if you are a wreck,” Kelly added, turning onto his street, “you crazy chicks are always fucking rabid in the sack. So I’ll take my chances.” I shook my head, miming all the annoyance and disapproval I’d have felt if he’d said that back when we first met. But I didn’t feel that anymore. I felt too much other stuff for Kelly to muster irritation, or indeed to take his provocations too seriously. Instead I just sighed and scolded, “You shouldn’t say ‘crazy.’” “If the diagnosis fits . . .”

“You know your chances with me always get worse, the more you talk.” And Kelly finally shut up. For a block, anyway.

Chapter Fourteen

We pulled up to Kelly’s house just as the last of the dusk light drained from the sky. I slammed my door and waved to my Tempo, parked along the curb. “Hi, car.” Leading me up to the front steps, Kelly said, “I changed your oil and rotated your tires.” I tried my best to sound exasperated. “You didn’t have to do that.” “Course I didn’t.” He grabbed his mail and unlocked the door, flipping on the

lights as he stepped inside. “That’s what makes me so dreamy.” “Well, thank you. I may just add a bottle of Scotch to that twelve-pack.” Kelly shut the door behind us, then came close. Real close. I stared up into his eyes and swallowed. I’d hoped I might see that look, but I hadn’t expected it until the burger-grilling portion of the evening was done. “Yes?” “Just looking at you.” There was a tiny glimmer of helpless, post-sex Kelly in his expression, tender and rare. It melted me far faster than any dirty threats he might have on tap. “C’mere.” He grabbed my wrist and

led me to the couch, then gently pulled me onto his lap. We were kissing before I even got settled—deep, sexy kisses that made his tongue feel as base as his cock. He let me hear him, every ragged, needy breath, every grunt and groan as his hips shifted between my thighs. By the time he pulled away, I was already wet. “I’m surprised you’re letting me do this,” he murmured, stroking my hair and watching his fingers. “The way you’ve been on the ward, I figured all this fun was over.” His gaze moved to my eyes. “You sort of presented it all as a onetime deal. I was just sticking to our unspoken agreement.” “I don’t remember saying that.”

“I thought it was implied.” “And I thought we had fun, and kinda hoped we’d do it again. But if you’re strictly a cold-hearted, strings-free sort of feminist, maybe you better get off my lap.” I smiled. “I could be persuaded to make it a two-time deal. In light of your being such a gentleman about my car troubles.” He grinned, attention dropping to my mouth. “I guess I better get busy persuading, then.” A soft kiss, then deeper. Then a growl. “Jesus, you smell like a cherry paczki.” That’d be my Chapstick, but who was I to break his little Polish heart?

As we kissed, my arousal crested from nerves to eagerness, then dropped low, leaving me hungry. Hungry for another taste of helpless Kelly, of that proof that I knew his body, if not his secrets. I bit his lip, then wriggled back on his lap until I made it to my feet. He watched, expectant. I smiled down at him, a strange sensation in itself. “Stand up and I’ll prove myself a very grateful woman.” Kelly didn’t need a second invitation. He got to his feet, and I stroked my palms over his shoulders, down his chest and abs to his hips, then dropped to my knees. I heard him blow out a reedy breath, a hiss of dark anticipation.

His fingertips grazed my temples, smoothed my curls behind my ears. I freed his button, my knuckle tracing his erection as I lowered the zipper. Kelly did the rest, easing his jeans and waistband to his hips and fisting the base of his cock. I put my hand over his. The first time I’d done this, I’d been so intimidated. Now I felt just the opposite —powerful. Capable and eager. I wanted to own his pleasure the way he could own my body with his. Without a trace of misgiving, I let him slip past my lips. Tension ran through him, a wave of powerlessness clenching his muscles before his groan signaled the return of

mean Kelly. I took him deeper, triggering a harsh gasp. “Good. That’s good.” Once I found my rhythm, he let his cock go and began softly pumping his hips. Kelly became the world—his smell and the taste of his skin, the faint pulse I felt in my grip, the pained sounds of his breathing. So familiar now, the feel of him; that smooth head, thick shaft, the sweet ache in my jaw. He gathered my hair in both hands. “Fuck. Nothing in the world looks as perfect as this. I could watch you suck me for hours.” Nasty words, but his voice was strained and soft. With my mouth I told him, I love this.

Let me serve you. For once, I trusted a man would give as good as he got, even after he’d enjoyed his payoff. I trusted Kelly, and that scared me a little. Skepticism and distrust had been the walls keeping my heart safe, keeping falling for him a convenient impossibility. If I trusted him, was attracted to him, respected him and felt respected in return . . . Fuck, what else did a woman need? But I couldn’t stand to want a man that much, to have it this close—in my fucking mouth—but know it might all be a tease, a sample of something I couldn’t have, not for real. The idea was too much, so I emptied my head and got lost in the act. In the

simplest language, spoken without a single word between our two bodies. After a couple minutes, he stilled my head. “Enough.” I eased him from my mouth, looking up with curiosity. He tugged at my arm. “C’mere.” He helped me to my feet, peeled my shirt up and away a moment later. Big fingers fumbled with my fly, and as he slowly pushed my pants and underwear down my legs, he trailed kisses from my neck to my breasts, my belly and hip. He stood and I kicked my jeans aside, and I let him lead me to the couch, straddling his lap once more. I know this couch already, I thought, the fabric soft under

my knees. I know this home and this body. I nearly know the man they belong to. “We need—” “Yeah.” He shifted to wrestle his wallet from his jeans. Seconds later he had the condom in place. Kelly held his cock steady and I took him slowly and deeply, wincing through a brief pang. But the next time he eased inside, the friction was nearly gone, and by the third we were gliding. I found an angle I liked and looped my arms around his neck so my breasts stroked his chest. He held my waist, following the motions, but not dictating for a change. His hands drifted up my back and

shoulders, and he held my hair in that soft, reverent gesture. It seemed laughable I’d ever found it gruff and possessive, when all I felt now was cradled. “Goddamn. You’re beautiful.” I didn’t say a word, afraid to scare this person away. One in a hundred glances, this was the man I saw in Kelly’s eyes, and he never stayed long. I kept my mouth shut and let him deep inside, welcomed him with the motions of my hips. “Just like that. Don’t stop.” His eyes shut, lids fluttering. My hair fell free and he squeezed my shoulders, massaged them, stroked his thumbs along my

throat. “Kelly.” “Don’t stop. Please.” “I won’t.” I said it so quietly, I wondered if he even heard. “Lemme feel you. Come for me.” Any part of what I was doing that was for show, I cast aside. I held his shoulders and scooted back, making the friction more explicit. Only a few selfish strokes and I was getting close. His skin against mine, his moans warming my ear. This wasn’t the man I’d agreed to submit to, in the previous life better known as last week. But I liked him all the more for his neediness. I loved being needed, after all.

He cupped my breasts, making me feel tiny against his broad palms. These same big hands that kept me safe at work and fixed my car. These hands that pleasured his cock when I wasn’t here to do the job. They couldn’t give him what I could. Weren’t as warm or wet as my body, just as my fingers were but a sad facsimile of what I craved from Kelly. “You feel so good,” I mumbled into his shoulder. “So do you. You’re so tight. Make me feel so fucking big.” “Kelly.” My face was hot, head foggy. My hips were sore but my clit was begging—begging for more, for relief. I held the back of Kelly’s head and

clawed his arm, skin slick under my nails. I used his cock just as I had that morning in his bed, pushing toward the edge in a barrage of shameless, sloppy thrusts. Then he was kissing me, swallowing my moans and grunts, coaxing them from my mouth with his tongue. I came so hard it frightened me —so intense I was bucking, pleasure like hot, flashing sparks. When I escaped his kiss and opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was red—two beading scrapes along his biceps, my fingertips sticky. “Oh my God. I’m sorry.” Even our most equitable and tender sex drew blood.

“Shhh.” He showed me his priorities, urging me to keep fucking him. “Don’t stop. Make me come. Please.” I went back to how I’d been before I got greedy, but he pushed at my thighs. “No, like you were. When you were using me.” My clit could barely take the friction now, my hips aching, but I gave him what he wanted. “Talk to me,” he said. “Tell me how I feel.” I held back the first word that came to mind—wonderful. “Big,” I said. Big, strong body beneath me, big and hard and excited inside me. And fucking wonderful.

He shifted between my thighs. “What else?” I huddled closer to speak just below his ear. “You feel good, Kel. I love when you’re excited. And needy. I love the way you lose control, right before you come.” “Good,” he breathed. “Good. I’ll show you that. Just keep fucking me.” The hands holding my waist slid down to my butt, kneading for a moment before he gave me a slap. I gasped, naive enough to have thought I was in control here. Even seated he was thrusting, mirroring my motions at first, then losing the pace. In seconds flat it felt as though our bodies were fighting,

a frantic flurry of driving flesh and grinding bones, nails digging and palms smacking, sending all my fond affection scrambling for higher ground. “Fuck. Talk to me. Say my name.” Smack. “I wanna see you come, Kelly. I wanna watch your face when you lose it.” “You feel so fucking good.” He closed his palms over my waist, pushing me back so the angle was even sharper. His bossiness gave me a dark thrill. All at once, I actually missed the way he’d been that first night, here on this couch. There was still room for that, with the gentler impulses shunted aside. I leaned back to smile at him. “I

would’ve sucked you off, if you’d let me. Without asking for anything in return.” His eyes shut. “Yeah. You love sucking my cock.” I leaned in to drag my lips along his jaw. “Yeah, I do.” “Maybe I’ll let you have that,” he muttered, still driving my hips. “Maybe I’ll just give you what you want. Nice big mouthful. That what you’d like?” I drew my tongue along his jugular. “That’s exactly what I like, Kelly. Pleasing you.” I didn’t know who the fuck this woman was, speaking these words. Some me I’d never met. Some me who spoke the truth

even as it undermined my self-image. Felt fucking good, letting her steer. I felt loose and naked, utterly liberated with all that rigid self-possession cast aside. His hands told my body what to do and I surrendered to their orders, so much nicer than resisting. His steady moans began to crescendo, sweaty palms slipping as his motions grew sloppy. “Fuck. I’m so close. On your knees.” He nearly toppled me to the floor, but I caught myself. He was on his feet, fist in my hair, the other stripping the condom. “Open up.” Two pumps and he was there, slick crown pushing past my lips, warm

release basting my tongue. “Yeah.” He said it again, and a third time, his grip on my hair loosening as his voice trailed to a low moan. I licked his head clean and swallowed, working hard to suppress a supremely cocky grin. I admired his flushed, spent body as he sank back onto the couch with a delirious huff. He curled a finger between us. “C’mere.” I complied on sore hips, straddling his thighs. Stroking his sweat-damp hair, I smirked. “Whatever happened to you being Mr. Control, and me just keeping my pretty mouth shut?” “Guess I like what comes out of your

mouth, as much as I care about what might go in.” I smacked his arm and he laughed. “I dunno,” he said, shrugging. “I like the way you fuck. You’re even more fun when I let you do stuff.” “Well, well.” “I like how you’re all . . . grabby. Physical. Like we’re scrapping, sometimes. But not always,” Kelly murmured, starting to kiss my neck. I cupped his head, welcoming the contact. “Does it distract you, when we’re on the ward?” I asked. “Our messing around?” “I’m extremely good at compartmentalizing my life.”

Figured. “Lucky you. I have work my ass off, trying not to think about sex every time we’re in the same room, in case I fuck somebody’s meds up.” A smug hmmm warmed my throat. “Do you now? What a terrible influence I am.” Kelly urged me from his lap and onto my back on the cushions then got braced above, framing my ribs with his forearms, hands cupping my shoulders. He smiled, an easy, swoonifying grin I’d never seen before. “What?” “Nothing.” He dropped his mouth to mine, the kiss brief. When he pulled away his smile had gone, but his eyes

were placid, nearly warm, like the ice had finally thawed. “You hungry? I lured you over here for dinner but we rushed straight to dessert.” “Yeah, I’m hungry.” “You’ve fucked all the ambition out of me. Okay if we go out instead?” “Sure.” Inwardly, I was embarrassed by how much the idea pleased me. It felt like a date, far more than being invited over for sex and hamburgers had. As dumb as it was, I wanted to be seen out someplace with Kelly. He might kiss me, with witnesses, and make it known that I was Kelly Robak’s woman. And shocking as it should have been, I wanted to let him. Even if the illusion

only lasted a night. We tidied ourselves and dressed, then climbed back into his truck. He drove us past Lola’s for a change, pulling up to the curb a couple blocks farther along the main drag, in front of a casual Italian place. Kelly held the door then led me past the bar to one of the booths against the back wall. I wanted wine, but I wasn’t sure if I was driving home or not, so when the waitress came by I stuck with a light beer. I ran a quick analysis, trying to read too much into the booth. Was it for privacy? Or intimacy? So Kelly could keep me all to himself, tucked possessively in his orbit? I don’t know

why I bothered trying to guess. Maybe he just hated somebody at the bar. We perused the menus. The sex had made me so hungry, everything looked amazing. “What are you getting?” “There’s a chicken parm special.” “Ooh, that sounds good.” I looked up to find him smirking. “What?” “We can’t order the same thing. That’s what old people do, and the sort of couples I can’t stand.” “Like there’s anybody you can stand. Plus we’re not a couple, anyhow, so that doesn’t apply to us.” I said it a little too fast, probably giving away the fact that I felt something about the topic. What, I didn’t even know. But even having the

concept of coupledom on the table instantly made me feel all overheated and irritable, fuse primed. Kelly sipped his beer, gaze pointed at my face the entire time. “What?” I asked. “We’re not a couple. How do I even know you’re not banging like, six other women from Larkhaven?” Or at least a couple from Lola’s. Kelly wasn’t Prince Charming, but he was employed and interesting, with a hell of a body and a nice face, if you liked ’em mean. He could surely get laid more readily than most any other guy in this city. He smirked. “I know we’re not a couple. I just think it’s cute, how

adamant you are about it.” I narrowed my eyes, faking over-thetop suspicion. “How many other women from Larkhaven are you banging, by the way?” “You’re the only girl I’m banging from anyplace, right now. I’ll be thirty-nine in a few weeks, and you work the same marathon shifts as me—I’m too fucking exhausted to juggle more than one woman at a time. Let the twentysomethings deal with that hassle.” “Twentysomethings like me?” He made a face like he’d forgotten exactly how young I was. “I suppose.” “You know I’m banging like, half the orderlies from the Warbler building.”

He mimed a smarmy, silent laugh and took a drink. It felt acutely as though there was more on the table than just our beers and elbows. So we were both seeing only each other, and now we both knew it. That put us perhaps one serious conversation away from Kelly becoming my boyfriend, but I didn’t even know how I felt about that anymore. I’d never had a boyfriend who’d fixed my car, or defended my honor, or fucked my living daylights out. Did I want one, if it meant admitting I needed those things? When the waitress approached, Kelly

warned, “I’m getting you the chicken.” “Sure.” I drank deeply, and watched as he ordered manicotti for himself, adding that, “The lady will have the chicken parm.” I actually felt sort of flattered by the old-school treatment. He didn’t seem like such a threat to my feminism anymore, and his be-my-bed-slave thing struck me as a special-occasion deal, not his baseline sexual MO. I knew things about him, things girlfriends knew— what he liked to have said to him in bed, what brand of beer was his, how his voice sounded right when he woke up. But no amount of intimate insider information changed the fact that he

oozed lone wolf. He’d told me pretty straight; he didn’t think he was cut out for marriage. Not that I was picking out dresses, by any means. Fuck, I hated that I was even thinking about any of this shit. It had all my Momnerves buzzing. And I hated that I could already pinpoint the exact flavor of heartbroken I’d feel if I did hear about him seeing some other woman, even though he had every right. Worst of all, I’d known I’d wind up feeling all this crap before I even agreed to sleep with him, yet here I was, being the sort of woman that annoyed me so

much. Like I didn’t know full well that the people who grate on us the worst are always the clearest reflections of our own weaknesses. What I did know for sure, though, was that if the are-we-a-thing? conversation was going to get broached, Kelly would have to be the one to broach it. I could tell from the chaos in my head just pondering it, I wasn’t ready to lead those negotiations. Kelly folded his arms atop the table. The blood from where I’d scratched him had dried to two dark smears, fresh battle wounds to add to the tableau. I eyed his fingers, trying to imagine what it’d be like if Kelly were my

boyfriend, and I could just reach out and hold his hand. What if that wedding band, the one that unintentionally told women, back off, he’s taken . . . What if he were taken, and that ring’s inaccurate message was on my side? Suddenly Kelly reached between us, tapping my wrist with his finger. “Did I freak you out or something?” “Pardon? When?” “I dunno. You’re all glazed over.” “It must be the beer. Or the sex,” I added quietly, eager to steer us back to an arena we knew how to grapple in. “You got defensive, after I was teasing you about couples shit.” I shivered, suddenly naked again. And

in public. “Since when do you waste your time trying to interpret emotionalchick nonsense?” “See? It’s making you all squirrely. But I’m just saying, if that freaked you out, don’t worry. I’m not looking to threaten to your precious feminist autonomy.” Wait, what? “You’re thinking too hard about this, Kel.” “Fine. Just didn’t want to wreck what we got, if that kind of talk weirds you out. I like this arrangement we’ve got going. I don’t want to scare it away, either. Forget I even uttered the c-word.” Oh lovely. At least that settled the uncertainty of whether or not that

discussion was imminent. I knew where we stood, now—absolutely no place special, but as a consolation, the sex was off the wall. I squinted at Kelly. Sometimes I felt I knew him. Other times, like now, it hit home that we’d only met a few weeks ago. “What?” “I know like, nothing about you.” “Sure you do. You know way more than most people.” I cocked my head. “You’ve seen me naked,” he pointed out. “Been inside my house. Heard a little about my upbringing, and you know where I’m from. You know I wish I had

a dog.” “Yeah, I guess.” And in truth, I knew something very personal about him, something rough and heinous and intense, but I hadn’t heard it from Kelly, so it shouldn’t count. “But other stuff. Silly stuff.” “Like?” Like stuff girls know about their boyfriends. “I dunno. Your middle name?” “Paul.” “Are you a Republican?” He raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Independent.” “Do you . . . Can you dance?” “I can waltz.”

I goggled at him and he shrugged. “I went to a Polish Catholic middle school.” “Oh my God—can you polka?” “If a wedding demands it and I’ve had enough vodka, sure.” “Huh.” I propped my chin on my hand. My angst disappeared, so engrossed was I in trying to picture Kelly dancing. Our food arrived and we chatted as we ate, and I let myself get caught up in the more superficial details of Kelly Robak. His birthday was July twentieth. He hated sushi. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d finished a book, but we’d both read and liked everything by Oliver Sacks, unsurprisingly. If he’d gone to

college, he imagined he would’ve studied history. “What part of history?” I asked, wadding my napkin. Kelly drained his glass. “American, I guess. The Civil War seems pretty interesting, plus all the industrial stuff. Railroads and shipbuilding. Subway construction.” If this were my boyfriend, I’d have allowed my wheels to start turning with ideas for birthday presents. “Better get back,” he said, standing. “It’s a school night, after all.” I tucked my debit card inside the check presenter and went to use the ladies’ room, but when I got back, I discovered

without much surprise that Kelly had paid in cash. He handed me my card. “Not fair. I wanted to pay. You fixed my car.” “Tough shit.” I shook my head, following him to the exit. As we climbed into his truck he asked, “You heading home tonight, or in the morning?” I bit my lip, buckling my seatbelt. “I dunno. What do you want me to do?” “I want you to stay the night so we can have sex again.” “You don’t play games, Kelly. I’ll give you that.” “You’ll give me all kinds of things,” he

said, turning onto the street. “Just you wait and I’ll tell you what they are.” I rolled my eyes, but inside I smiled. By the time we pulled up to his house, I’d succumbed to a long series of yawns. The beer or the heap of pasta or the twelve-hour shift had done me in. As Kelly locked the door behind us I said, “Don’t be offended if I fall asleep in the middle of the sex.” “I’ll wake you up when it’s your turn to come,” Kelly said, but then he yawned, too. “Or we can give it a miss, just this once.” Which meant what? If there was no sex imminent, did that mean I should head home, or were going to like . . . cuddle?

“You need something to sleep in?” he asked, answering my unspoken question and filling me to the brim with a weird, giddy energy, like I was suddenly made of kittens. “Just a tee shirt is fine.” Oh crap, I was sleeping over and we weren’t banging, and I’d be wearing his shirt. That sounded suspiciously boyfriendgirfriendish. And I liked it. “Want a nightcap?” he asked, rounding the counter. “No, thanks. Do you have any tea?” Kelly poked around a cupboard. “I’ve got something for colds. Lemon eucalyptus,” he read off a box. “As long as it’s not caffeinated, I’ll

have that.” He filled his kettle and I took a seat on a stool, watching as he poured himself a generous shot of bourbon. Kelly put a tea bag in a mug and leaned his elbows the other side of the counter. “Any updates about your sister and her situation?” “No, not really. She’s annoyed with me, so that probably means they’re united for the moment. But I’m not worried for her safety or anything.” “That’s what I was getting at.” “He’s never laid a hand on her,” I added, then realized it was a lie—he’d shaken her, if not hit her. I decided not to open that can of worms with Kelly, lest

he head over there this minute to demand reparations. I didn’t want reparations. I wanted to fall asleep next to Kelly and forget all that. “Not that I’m defending him.” “Hasn’t laid a hand on her yet.” “No. Not yet.” Another lie. Plus I hated saying that, admitting to myself it could one day happen. Again. He’d shoved me, after all—completely sober, as far as I could tell. I’d provoked him, but that was no excuse. And no one provoked like Amber. It was practically her craft. He could do the same to her. Or Jack. Kelly filled my mug when the water boiled and slid it across the countertop,

taking a seat on the stool at the end, so we sat kitty-corner. “It sucks that you had to grow up with that,” I added quietly. “All that stuff with your stepdad.” He shrugged. “Not like it’s an exclusive club.” “No, I guess not.” I bobbed my tea bag. “What about you?” Kelly asked. “Your mom ever get physical with you? Or any boyfriends of hers or anybody?” Lee Paleckas’s face popped into my head. Poor kid, getting terrorized in – and outside his own brain. I’d gotten off easier than him, and a lot of girls who’d grown up in that kind of disarray

couldn’t say the same. I shook my head. “My mom hated confrontation. If anything she needed to be pushier with us. With Amber, anyhow. And she hardly ever brought men around. She didn’t like for guys to see her as a mom. Made her feel old, I think.” “Maybe it was for the best. Doesn’t do kids much good to meet every boyfriend or girlfriend their single parent takes up with.” “No, probably not.” I blew on my tea, thinking. “Were you ever mad at your mom, after you found out about your biological dad? I’m assuming she never told you about him.”

Kelly spun his glass around on the counter. “No, she didn’t. For some reason, on my birthdays, I’d think, maybe this is when she’ll sit me down and tell me. When I turned fifteen, sixteen, eighteen—maybe this’ll be the birthday that makes her think I’m old enough to hear it. But she never did. Looking back now, she must’ve figured I didn’t need another reason to reject my stepdad. Like if I’d found out he wasn’t my real father, things would get even nastier between us. And when he died, when I was in my early thirties, I wondered if maybe she’d finally tell me then, but nope. Never did.” “Huh.”

“Maybe she’s saving it up for some deathbed confession. Better pretend to be surprised so I don’t wreck her moment.” He shot me a dry smile, warm despite the sarcasm, then stared down into his whiskey. “Maybe . . .” I held in the thought, not wanting to seem too nosy. But these heart-to-hearts with Kelly were rare, and I wanted to go deeper. Know him better, for as long he kept that window cracked. “I’m not sure how loyal she could expect you to feel about some guy who’d never even met you. And . . . you know. Did whatever he did. To get sent away.” My voice had gone odd, way too casual—condemningly so. Might as well

spill it. “I know,” I added quietly. “Know?” “What he did. That he beat your mom up bad enough to get sent to prison.” Kelly’s head jerked up and those eyes bore into mine, sharp and cold. “How the fuck d’you know that?” His tone knocked me off balance, the change as sudden and ringing as a slap. My heart thud-thud-thudded so hard I imagined it must be echoing ripples through my tea. “I looked it up. Online.” Christ, it sounded even lamer than it had felt when I’d been snooping. His back straightened with the jolt of a cocked rifle, and even seated he looked

eight feet tall. “If I wanted you to know I’d have fucking told you.” “I . . . I’m sorry. I just wanted to understand. I was curious, after we talked.” “Well, congratulations. Hope you enjoyed that little bedtime story.” He wasn’t just annoyed—he was pissed. And a pissed-off Kelly Robak was a terrifying creature to stare in the face. I didn’t know what to say, but I suspected if I cried he’d probably get even more annoyed, so I bit my tongue and focused on the pain until the emotional surge subsided. “I’m sorry,” I said again, at a loss for anything better.

“I’m sure you are.” He took a deep breath, nostrils flaring, but he seemed to calm. We were quiet a long moment. I fiddled with the tea bag’s string. “It must have made it hard. When you were working at the prison.” His eyes narrowed. “I cried myself to sleep every night.” Threatened by the cruelty in his tone, I felt my hackles rise. “Wow. Glib, much?” “What do you want me to say? Want me to lay down on a couch and weep about what shit luck I had in the daddy lottery?” “No. I just . . . I dunno. I just know

now, and I wanted you to know I knew. In case you wanted to talk about it or anything.” “Not gonna happen.” “Maybe I want to talk about it.” “I’m even less qualified to wear a white coat than you are, sweetheart. Got no interest in being your therapist. ’Specially if this session’s gonna be about me getting my shit beat out in utero.” I sighed, stymied by how callous he was being, how thoroughly he was rejecting my attempts to empathize. He could hoist that wall up quick as any resident I’d met on the ward. “At least it wasn’t on purpose,” I

offered. “I mean, at least he didn’t know.” Beating up your girlfriend was heinous, but even the sort of asshole who’d do that would’ve suffered, to find out he could’ve made her miscarry his baby. “It’s a pretty dismal silver lining, but—” “He fucking knew,” Kelly said. The blood drained from my head and fingers, leaving me cold. My hands fled the counter of their own accord, hiding in my lap. “You really thought that was some accident? Fucking kicked in the stomach?” “That article—” “That wasn’t your plain old everyday

beating,” Kelly said, wearing an ugly, joyless smirk. “How fucking naive are you? That was just a DIY abortion that didn’t take.” My numb face flushed hot, stinging like frostbite. “Jesus, Kel.” I mustered the balls to touch his arm, but he yanked it back. He wanted no part of this bonding session, and I felt hollow and scared, wishing to God I hadn’t brought it up. “Don’t you pet me like some stray.” The stool squeaked as he shoved to standing, wobbled twice and settled. I’d frozen, unsure how to be around this version of Kelly. I’d never seen him upset before. I hadn’t known him

capable of this kind of emotion, or known he nursed any wound raw enough to trigger so harsh a recoil. It struck me with a rattling blow that I didn’t know what he was capable of, full stop. I didn’t want to find out. I wanted to go home, and he wanted the same. “I’ll get your keys.” Cold as ice. I nodded stiffly and he disappeared down the hallway. He returned in seconds, tossing my keys on the counter where they slid to a stop beside my untouched tea. I gathered them and hopped to the floor, grabbed my bag. He followed me to the front door, leaning in the frame, backlit by the kitchen lights. I stalled on the top step, feeling like there

ought to be some kind of farewell. Something official to punctuate the end of this experiment in delusion. At least we were even. He’d meddled in my life, threatening Marco. I’d meddled in his, snooping into the most personal shadows of his past, places I should’ve waited to be invited into. We were done, for sure, but at least I could tell myself we were parting as equals. We’d fucked up equally bad. The only difference was, I’d forgiven him. “Guess this is over, then.” His voice sounded stark in the night air. “We were never a thing, Kelly.” His brows drew together, more

annoyed than hurt. “I always figured we must have been something, if we fucked all those times. But I get it. Loud and clear.” I felt myself receding, pulling away out of shame. Of course he was right. But I hadn’t let myself count whatever we’d been, because I’d never had the security of knowing he was mine, alone, for keeps. Worse than that, I’d denigrated the sex for the same reason. Written off the most formative intimate experiences I’d ever had as some sordid fling just because it wasn’t going to lead to boyfriend-girlfriendhood or some stupid nonsense? Or because deep down, I wouldn’t

admit I could care for someone like Kelly, because of who he was . . . or who I’d thought he was, at first. My sister’s type. My mother’s type. Not mine, not levelheaded, practical me, the one who made the good decisions. What good decisions? I had to wonder. Baiting Marco? Violating Kelly’s privacy? Continually thinking my sister’s issues were mine to fix? God, I could be such a deluded bitch. I took a deep breath and ordered my shoulders to unbunch. “Okay, yes. We were something. And it was fun.” “A day at the water park is fun,” Kelly said, still visibly pissed. “It was really nice, okay? It was great,

and it was the best sex I’ve ever had.” And in brief moments, it had been the closest I’d felt to a man, and the most safe, the most . . . cherished, in a way, despite the fact that he’d ostensibly been degrading me, at least to start. But brief moments of true intimacy weren’t bricks enough to build any kind of lasting foundation. Not one strong enough to weather this current shitstorm. “I didn’t think you’d care this much,” I told him. “I thought it was all a game to you.” “You’re good at making assumptions about people,” Kelly said. “You might want to quit that if you decide to become a shrink.” And with that, he shut the door

on me. I stared at the brass number. “Bye, Kelly.” When I reached my car, I glanced back at his house. There he was, silhouetted in the living room window, watching. Well, he could just keep on watching, maybe regretting how he’d handled that conversation as my taillights turned the corner, never to brighten this block again. But I was wrong. The second my engine started, he disappeared. He’d only been waiting to make sure I wasn’t carjacked or something, a taste of that hyper-protectiveness that drove me to simultaneous sighs of exasperation and

swoon. I shook my head, disgusted that I’d jumped to the most self-flattering and unlikely diagnosis. So, no. I probably wouldn’t make that great a shrink.

Chapter Fifteen

The worst thing about my non-breakup with Kelly was working with him the next day. And not because he glared at me or ignored me or undermined my duties. It was because he treated me exactly how he always did. Cool and professional. No sign I’d hurt him. No sign he cared what had happened. No sign that we’d ever been anything to each other besides colleagues, and that transformed my

dread and embarrassment to pure regret. It was a splinter in my heart, a sharp, ragged pain that pierced me anew with every beat. These past couple of weeks, I’d scaled Kelly’s massive wall and peeked at what lay beyond. But I’d made myself too comfortable, and he’d tossed me back out, stacked his defenses thicker and taller and coiled it with a halo of concertina wire. Offering nothing but a cold gray shadow, long as a Starling shift. At lunch I sat with Lee Paleckas, and my mood wasn’t lost on him. I’d been short with everyone all morning—not testy, but curt and monosyllabic.

“What’s up your ass?” I looked up from my macaroni and cheese and offered a sardonic smile. “PMS?” Lee asked, no trace of sexual mischief in his tone. “Can’t I just have an off day?” “I guess. Seems unfair, though, how if one us inmates has one, we get jabbed in the ass and sent to bed early.” I rolled my eyes. “If we sedated people just for being grumpy, you’d be in a perpetual coma, Lee.” He laughed at that—one of the rare, high wheezing sounds I’d begun collecting like merit badges. Getting Lee to laugh put a gold star on my day. Though today I’d need more than that to

feel much aside from miserable. Steering the topic off of me, I told him, “It’s perceptive of you to notice my mood. Are you good at that—picking up on how people are feeling?” He shrugged. “I guess.” “That takes a lot of empathy.” A quality not in line with Lee’s preLarkhaven diagnoses. It boded well for his psychotic episodes being attributable to substance abuse, not his own natural chemistry. I hoped I’d find a chance to share this interaction with Dr. Morris, and ask if he’d noted the same thing. “And a lot of clarity. Have you noticed yourself feeling any different, since Dr. Morris changed your meds?”

He nodded, grudgingly at first, then with some enthusiasm. “I have, yeah. I feel kind of . . . awake, for the first time in a while. A long while. Like when you first open the windows in the spring, and air everything out.” He blushed, like he didn’t know where those words had come from. “How about your voices?” “I haven’t heard any in days.” “That’s great!” “Tell me about it. Feels like I finally got a volume button.” “Amazing what the right medication can do, huh?” “Yeah . . . Just sucks they couldn’t have put me on whatever they did, like

fifteen years ago.” “Well, you’re on a better path now. Focus on that. Everyone wishes they could change something about what’s happened to them, or because of them . . .” With a bolt of awareness, I sensed exactly where Kelly’s body was in the room, in relation to mine. “But it just doesn’t work that way.” *** My mood tripped and tumbled back downhill after lunch, the highlight of my shift being a chance to share my encouraging conversation with Lee during evening hand-off. Dr. Morris was working, and he nodded thoughtfully as I

spoke and scribbled a note, which made me feel important and proud. But as I changed out of my scrubs and headed for home, the sadness descended once more. My phone vibrated when I was halfway across campus. Hope spiked for a breath then died just as quickly. Amber. “Hi,” I said, no clue what greeting to expect in return. She sounded bored, a vast improvement over our last conversation. “Hey. I’m just calling to let you know you don’t have to watch Jack on Monday.” My heart sank. “Oh. Okay.” Amber sighed, and when she next

spoke, her voice was softer. “Not because of what happened.” “No?” “Nah. Your boyfriend’s an asshole, but that’s not your fault, that he did that.” “He’s not my boyfriend.” Amber snorted. “Sure.” I opened my mouth to say that even if he sort of had been, he sure wasn’t now . . . but it hurt too much to think about, let alone explain. “How come you don’t need a sitter?” You didn’t get fired again, did you? “Jack’s had the flu for a couple days. I don’t want anybody else catching it, and work said it was fine to take the next few shifts off.”

“Oh, that’s too bad. You know I’d risk a bug to hang out with him, right?” “Course I do, Auntie Er’n. But it’s a nasty one, nothing you want your patients catching—trust me. This one’s too gross. He’s like a snot dispenser.” “Okay then. Let me know if you need me to grab anything for him.” “Thanks.” “Sure . . . Hey, Amber?” “Yeah?” “How’s Marco been? Since everything went down. Is he being nice to you?” “I haven’t seen him in a few days. Before that, he was super-pissed off for a while, then just sort of . . . blah. Maybe he’s got the same flu. Who knows?”

Licking his wounds, more like, if I knew that man at all. “But he’s been just the same as always, with me and Jack.” “I was worried maybe . . . you know.” “I know he can be a hothead—he’s a passionate guy.” I rolled my eyes, so not finding that synonym in my own mental thesaurus entry for grown-ass spoiled brat. “But he’s not gonna punish us for what happened with what’s-his-name.” “He better not.” I thought about telling her not to worry, no chance what’s-hisname would be coming around with me again . . . But it stung too much. Some other time.

Amber’s voice drifted from the receiver a moment. “It’s not medicine, honey—it’s a smoothie. No. That was jelly in the spoon. Now drink.” I smiled at my sister’s bald-faced lies. “I’ll let you go. Give him a telephone kiss from me.” “That’s probably safest, with this cough.” I listened to a distant mwah smooch sound and the muffled noise as she pressed her phone to Jack’s cheek. “Talk to you soon.” “You, too. Love you both.” “Love you.” And just like that, we were good again. I pocketed my cell and resumed my walk, feeling a bit lighter.

Amber’s temper arrived and retreated in the same fashion—frequent but fleeting downpours. Kelly’s had manifested with no warning, a bolt out of an otherwise clear sky, drawn by what must have been a rare and perfect lightning rod, waved around idiotically by me. Even when he’d messed Marco up, he’d been calm. He’d been in control, his actions conscious choices. What I’d brought out in him was something else entirely—the type of knee-jerk emotional reflex I’d assumed he was immune to. Assumed. That’s what I’d done, exactly as he’d called it. But what could I do? I could apologize

again, after he’d cooled off for a day or two. Drop the forty bucks and the twelve-pack off on his stoop as a peace offering. But I didn’t get the sense that he’d want those things. I knew something about him now, something intensely awful, something he’d never even spoken to his mother about. Something he didn’t want to talk about, a fact so obvious in hindsight, I blushed at my own selfish, selective blindness. I locked my door when I got to my room, knowing I wouldn’t be roused by a knock. No tall, uninvited visitor bearing stolen flowers or sexual advances. Not tonight and probably not ever again.

*** I moped through my weekend, trying not to think too hard about Kelly. On Monday morning I told myself for the fiftieth time in my life that I might like jogging, if I gave it another try, and so I laced my sneakers and discovered for the fiftieth time what a miserable hobby it was. Now I had shin splints to match my heartache. I holed up in my room and researched BSN programs. I browsed apartment listings. I’d been ending my shifts with dull twinges in my lower back, so I bit the bullet and checked out a brand of shoe Jenny had recommended. Some of them were nearly cute, and I ordered a

pair of red orthopedic clogs, embracing the inevitable. Nothing I had in the communal kitchen was appetizing in any way, so I let my restless taste buds trick me into thinking I’d find the solution at the grocery store. The solution would probably take the shape of an entire bag of Fritos or a tub of sorbet. So be it. I climbed into my car by the last glow of dusk and hit the road. The store was quiet, just me and a few other shoppers and the softly echoing Top Forty hits droning from the speakers. I piled junk in my basket, my mopey inner child plotting to alternately pickle and sugar-glaze our sadness. Canned ravioli, Junior Mints, frozen egg

rolls, butterscotch pudding. I was debating which was healthier, puffy Cheetos or crunchy ones, when my phone buzzed at my hip. Setting my basket down, I checked the screen. Amber. I hit Talk, scanning the nutrition facts on a sack of kettle chips. “Hey, sister.” “Oh my God. Erin.” There was panic in her voice—quavering dread that I caught in a heartbeat. “What’s wrong?” Gaspy little breaths answered me, and behind that muted siren wails. The bag fell from my hand. “Amber? What’s going on?” I could already feel Marco’s thick neck between my

strangling hands, but— “It’s Jack. We’re in an ambulance. We have to go to the ER at the children’s hospital in Darren.” I abandoned my basket, feet dragging me toward the front of the store. “Why? His flu?” A million terrifying thoughts visited me in the half second it took her to reply—pneumonia, infection, hundred-and-six-degree fever. “They don’t know what’s wrong. He’s burning up, and . . .” Her words were swallowed by frantic sobs, and I began to march, fishing my keys from my purse. “I’m leaving now. I’ll see you there.” “Oh Erin. Tell me he’s gonna be okay.”

And I gave her the only answer I was willing to hear, myself. “He’s going to be fine.” We hung up and I jogged for the exit, swearing when the automatic doors parted too slowly. I shoved between them and out into the cool night air. I was in my car and already a mile down the road when I realized I had no idea where the children’s hospital was, only the main one affiliated with Larkhaven. Lamenting my ancient phone, I pulled onto the shoulder and cued up a contact I’d really been hoping to not need a favor from ever again. I stared at the passing traffic, grinding my teeth and counting the rings. One. Two.

“C’mon, Kelly, answer.” Three. “Please answer.” After the fourth tone, a cold, “Yeah.” “Kelly. Hi.” “Hi.” “Can you tell me how to get to the children’s hospital in Darren? I can’t get online and—” “What’s going on?” Don’t, I begged myself, but the second I started speaking, the tears were stinging my eyes. “My nephew’s being taken there. They don’t know what’s wrong.” “You know the major road that runs past my neighborhood? You take that like you’re coming to visit me, but keep

going, about a mile and a half, and it’ll be on the left. You’ll see signs.” “Thank you.” “Was it him?” Kelly asked. Was it that piece of shit that landed the kid in the fucking ER? “No. Thank you, Kelly.” And I hung up. Any more talking and I’d be crying too hard to drive. I sped, sixty-five in a forty-five the entire way, but karma was on my side. I ditched my car in the lot and jogged through the sliding doors to the reception area, shin splints screaming. I hurried to the desk. “Yes?” asked the bony older woman on duty.

“My sister Amber and her three-yearold—an ambulance was bringing them here.” “Yes, the boy was checked in about ten minutes ago.” “I need to see them.” “This blue corridor,” she said, pointing. “Down all the way to the end, take a right, then a left after the elevators. Pediatric emergency department.” She probably didn’t even catch my muttered thank-you; I was already halfway down the hall. I heard Amber before I saw her. She was in the pediatric ER’s lounge, demanding information from a woman in

scrubs in a high, broken voice, answered by a hushed tone and gentle hand on her arm. I skidded to a halt beside her, my sneakers squeaking on the linoleum. “What’s happening?” Amber squeezed her eyes shut, mouthing a soundless, “They don’t know,” and dissolving into sobs. I steered her to a chair and went back to the nurse. “I’m her sister. What’s wrong with my nephew?” “The doctors don’t know yet. But he’s got a very high fever, so they’re working hard to treat that, first and foremost.” “We can’t be with him?” The nurse shook her head, frowning

apologetically. “Not until we know what’s going on.” “I’m an LPN,” I said, desperate for any extra clues. Throw me a fucking bone here, lady. She lowered her voice. “Your nephew is ill-appearing.” My blood turned to ice at the term. A child could arrive at the hospital with the nastiest flu their parent had ever seen, and still get labeled wellappearing. “What?” “We’ve got too many staff in with your nephew to allow family at the moment. What we really need is for your sister to stay calm, and stay close. We’ll need her on hand as we work to get to the bottom

of this.” My brain knew full well this was completely reasonable, but an angry sigh shuddered from my throat. I rubbed my face, willing myself to be calm. I was the rational one. The one who kept it together. I was a fucking nurse. Amber was a mother, but I was hers, and I had to be strong now, when she couldn’t be. I took a seat beside her. She was doubled over, head on her knees, arms wrapped around her shins. Exactly the position she’d always adopted on the front stoop of our apartment building when she “ran away,” following a fight with our mom. Just folded herself into a wretched ball and waited for someone to

take pity. One day I’d come home after school and found her just that way, with her stuffed turtle and a family-sized bag of pretzels. For nutrition, she’d explained. For when I go and live in the woods and never come home again, ever. I rubbed her back, just as I surely had all those years ago. “He’s going to be fine,” I said, at a loss for any other words. She sat up, face beet red. “Is that what she said?” “No, she didn’t, honey.” Illappearing, my brain echoed. Panic surged and I stuffed it down. “But I know. I know Jack and I know he’s going

to be okay.” “You didn’t feel him, Erin. He was so. Hot. I went to wake him from his nap and . . . Jesus.” I kept rubbing her back and shoulders, doing my damnedest to act calm, when all I wanted to do was scream, scream until my lungs burst, until somebody fixed this. “Where’s Marco?” “I left him a message after I called the ambulance.” She checked her phone. “Nothing yet. He’s working way over past Mount Pleasant this week. He must be driving back.” He fucking better be, to ignore a call like that. The thought boiled my blood.

“Hang tight,” I said. “I’m going to find you a water or something.” In truth, I didn’t want her to see it when I started crying. If ever my sister needed a steadying anchor to latch onto, now was the time, and I was it. In the ladies’ room, I gave myself two minutes to speed-cry, then pulled myself together, splashing cold water on my mottled face. I bought Amber a water and some M&M’s from the vending machines and found her just as I’d left her, in a snotty, panicked heap. A nurse or aide was trying to calm her down, but I gently asked her to leave us be until there was news. I set the water and candy at Amber’s

feet, and grabbed her a box of tissues from a coffee table. She blew her nose and gulped a couple hitching breaths before turning to me and saying, “I’m a terrible mother.” “Oh, honey. No you’re not.” I crouched in front of her and squeezed her knees. “Kids get sick. Kids get fevers. You remember when you were like, four, and you ate a whole tub of French onion dip and had diarrhea for two days?” She laughed weakly. “No.” “Kids are always getting sick. And Jack’s going to get better.” Illappearing. “We just need to stay calm, so when the doctor has more information, we don’t miss anything,

okay?” She nodded, shoulders bucking with a few tearless sobs. “Good girl.” I moved to the chair next to hers and let her rest her cheek on my shoulder, stroking her hair. We probably looked silly to any witnesses, two matching, baby-faced urchins, doomed to get carded until we were forty. But I felt ancient. I felt like a mom must when her child’s threatened—ten feet tall and singularly focused, a force not to fuck with. How I felt on the ward, on a good day. For a long time, we waited. After a week masquerading as fortyfive minutes, my patience snapped and I

marched to the desk. “Any updates on Jack?” She shook her head with a tight smile. “We’ll tell you as soon as we know.” Was no news good news? Had his fever come down at all? I plopped back beside Amber. “Nothing yet.” She’d run out of tears for the time being, her irises looking violet from how red the crying had made her eyes. “I can’t stand this.” I put my arm around her. “I know, honey.” A funny noise cut the silence— Amber’s message alert crowing like a rooster. She fumbled in her pocket, the screen turning her pink cheeks ice blue.

She frowned. “Marco?” Looking disturbed, she passed it to me. that sucks. ill try 2 get over there “I’ll try to get over there?” she asked me, blinking. “Here.” I texted him back, judging from Amber’s expression that she was only apt to make things worse. Jack’s in the ER. Need you here. I asked the attendant for the hospital’s address and sent the message. “There. I’m sure he’ll come as quick as he can.” I passed her the water. “Here. Drink something.” Grudgingly, she did. The first real update didn’t come for

another hour and a half—not until after Amber had been called away three times, to speak with three different pediatric staff. She’d returned from each interview more hysterical than ever. At long last, a new nurse appeared from the hall and called, “Amber?” She shot to her feet, me right on her heels. Probably unsure which panicked woman was Jack’s mom, the nurse’s attention jumped between the two of us. “They’re still not sure exactly what’s wrong, but his fever’s down to one-ohfour, which is an improvement.” Amber looked to me. “That’s good, right?”

“But it’s not looking like any bug we’ve been seeing.” “Maybe a different doctor should look at him,” Amber said. She smiled tightly at my sister’s tone. “Dr. Chandra is one of our most experienced pediatricians.” “Does he have kids, this doctor?” Amber demanded. “Dr. Chandra is a mother, yes,” the nurse assured her. “And we’ve got specialists consulting from other departments as well.” This revelation seemed to calm my sister somewhat, and I added, “I’m sure Jack’s getting the best care possible.” Amber took a moment to breathe,

cheeks puffing, eyes shut. I rubbed her back. Having ascertained that the more shrill of the two of us must be Jack’s mom, the nurse told Amber, “I’d like to take you to a private room and ask you some questions, to help the doctors narrow down the potential causes, okay?” “I’ve been answering questions! The same ones, over and over and over!” “Yes, but this flu is tricky, and we need all the details we can get.” “Can I see Jack?” “Not yet. His room’s still too chaotic. But you can help by answering these questions, and hopefully we’ll know what’s going on real soon.”

I patted Amber’s arm. “Go on.” “What if I don’t know the answers?” she asked me over her shoulder, following the nurse, just like she might have panicked over a looming test as I dropped her at the middle school on a hundred bygone morning walks. I told her what I would have then. “Just do your best.” A couple of women in the waiting room watched me as I took my seat. One smiled weakly, seeming to say, Hang in there. The other looked away when our eyes met, hiding in her paperback. Whatever new questions the nurse had to ask Amber, they must’ve been numerous—she was gone for ages. I

prayed she’d be back before Marco got here. The last thing I needed was to deal with his bluster, without Amber there to cling to him, placate him, snap him into big, tough man-mode. I glanced up at the clock as I finished skimming a magazine, and it was past eleven. My stomach growled and I ate Amber’s M&M’s. I saved the blue ones for last, just as Jack would, and I cried a little when they were gone. My shins hurt. My chest ached. My eyes stung and I felt scared and useless. Like a fraud. I’d come here to be the strong one, but I felt anything but strong. I felt more alone than I could remember, trapped in this too-bright room between

cheerful nurses and frightened parents. I rubbed the floor with the toe of my sneaker, to see if a fleck there was actual glitter or just some mica in the tile. A shadow killed the sparkle, and a pair of black shoes stopped before me. Shit. Marco. And I looked up, and there was Kelly.

Chapter Sixteen

I was too hollowed out, too wrung of emotion to process Kelly’s presence. My heart felt hard and small, rattling around my chest like a stone. “Hi,” I said, and reached for the Kleenex box on Amber’s chair to blow my nose. Without a word, Kelly took my snotty tissue and the ones Amber had left and shuttled them to the nearest trash can. Taking her spot, he held the tissue box on his thigh, rubbing his thumbs over its

corners. It looked tiny in his hands, and I wanted to crawl onto his lap and go to sleep inside the box, safe on that soft, miniature mattress. I looked in his eyes. The waiting room bulbs were bright, bleaching his irises to the color of rain clouds. He looks so exactly his age, I thought idly. No gray in his short hair, but lines beside his eyes and mouth, across his forehead. I wondered how he’d got those lines, when he so rarely smiled or frowned. Though when he did, he made the gestures count. I pursed my lips, unsure what to offer aside from another, “Hi.” “Can I ask what’s happening, or are

you too upset?” I cleared my throat. “They don’t know yet. Some complication with his flu, it sounds like. Or some flu they’ve never seen? I’m not sure. His fever’s high. Like, really high. It came down some, but not much . . .” Kelly slipped his arm behind my back, squeezing my far shoulder. My chin and lips trembled and a tear made its escape. “You didn’t have to come.” “I live ten minutes away. What kind of a shit would I be if I didn’t?” I gulped a sob. “The kind of shit who calls himself Jack’s father?” Kelly tensed, sitting up straight, his

hand sliding to my neck. I sensed his anger surge and recede in a breath, dutifully suppressed. He began rubbing my back in slow circles. “Your sister’s in there with him?” “Not yet. She’s been taken someplace to answer questions, so they can try to narrow down what’s wrong . . . She’s been in there over an hour.” “Waiting game sucks, doesn’t it?” I nodded, letting a few more tears slip down my face. “You need anything? You or her?” “I’m not moving until I hear some kind of update.” For an eternity we sat there, the motion of Kelly’s palm hypnotizing me,

eventually bringing a small measure of calm. When I found I could take a full breath again, I gently shrugged his arm away so I could sit back in my chair. I’d used up the tissues, so I dabbed my nose with my cuff. “Thanks. For coming.” “Sure.” “It could be a long wait. Don’t feel like you need to stick around. It’s nice that you came at all. Especially after . . . you know.” He didn’t acknowledge our fight. He didn’t do much of anything, except lean forward with his elbows on his knees, absently linking and unlinking his fingers.

I knew this version of Kelly. I’d gotten the briefest glimpse of him, that second night he came to my room, after Don had attempted suicide. This was how Kelly got, when he was mired in a situation he couldn’t control. Couldn’t fix things in the ways he felt competent at, with muscle or threats. He couldn’t hit on me now, like he had that night when Don cut him. He couldn’t close himself inside some hard, empowering role, and in lieu of that option, he seemed to just turn himself off. There were plenty of times I felt that shameful sting of weakness, but I never shut down over it. If anything it charged

me up. Sometimes with anger, sometimes for the worse, but I never just went numb in the face of my own discomfort. “You don’t need to be here,” I murmured, picking up a copy of People from another chair. His gaze met mine but he didn’t reply. “I didn’t ask you to come.” I opened the magazine, retreating from his stare. “And I can tell you can’t stand it.” “Who can fucking stand this? Flipping through magazines while you wait to hear whether a kid’s going to be okay or . . .” “You don’t even know my nephew. You can just choose not to care. I wouldn’t blame you.”

His eyes narrowed. “How fucking coldhearted do you think I am?” I sighed, exquisitely exhausted. “There’s nothing you can do to help, and it’s obvious this whole place is making you uncomfortable.” “If you don’t want me here, just say it. I’ll go.” The thing was, I did want Kelly here. Not this Kelly, but the one who watched over me at work, the one who’d scared Marco off. Guilt jabbed me in the heart to realize it, but I wanted strong Kelly, even after all those times I’d resented that side of him. Now I was rejecting this helpless version of him, just as he so often rejected it himself.

I’d cared about this man, but I couldn’t have loved him, before. Not if I wasn’t ready to see him this way. Maybe he was a better person than I was, even being willing to be here, letting me see him so . . . stripped. I chewed my lip, gnawed it the way the shame was worrying my insides. I took a deep breath and let it out, out, out, and turned to Kelly. “No, I want you here.” He might not be my lover anymore, and we might not even be friends, but he’d come without my even asking, and he was prepared to stay. And I couldn’t think of another person in my life who’d do the same. I touched his arm. “I’m glad you

came.” My throat tightened, but I forced the words through—the absolute truth, despite how much I resented hearing it. “I hate feeling this helpless. I don’t want to be alone.” He nodded, just a single dip of his chin, gaze dropping to the floor. “I doubt we’ll be hearing anything soon,” I said. “You want to check out the vending machines?” “Sure.” We got up and wandered down the hall. I fished singles out of my wallet and bought myself a pop. Kelly got a Butterfinger. “You need some air?” he asked. “Yeah.” I tapped out a text to let

Amber know where I’d disappeared to, and we headed through the lobby and outside, finding a bench that faced the circular drop-off area. For the moment there were no sirens, no flashing lights, no smokers stealing a taste of their vice. Just me and Kelly under the yellow glare of the awning’s bulbs. His candy wrapper crinkled loudly in the relative stillness, and my bottle hissed in reply. For five minutes or more we nursed our worries in silence, my thoughts tugged between Amber, Jack, the uncertainty of how my life might look come morning . . . and Kelly. Kelly’s nearness. The miracle of his very presence, when there was

absolutely no reason for it. And how I’d so meanly diagnosed his callousness as fragility, when even putting himself in this position had to be intensely humbling. And brave. We were just the same. Two powerless people stuck waiting for news we couldn’t affect. Two people who felt too many ways about each other, too soon. How long had I even known him? Three weeks? Felt like months. He cleared his throat. “How you doing?” “I’m scared.” He nodded. “I am, too. But nothing like what you must be feeling.” And I broke. My face crumpled and

tears pooled hot in my eyes before sliding down my cheeks. “C’mere.” I twisted my pop’s cap shut and set the bottle beside me, edging closer to Kelly. I expected his arm around my shoulders, but he surprised me. He hauled me sideways onto his lap, like a fireman cradling a rescued child. I let all my stupid, stubborn defenses fall away, and I wept against his neck. He stroked my hair, and when he whispered, “Go on,” I could smell chocolate on his breath. I cried like I was already in mourning. And maybe I was. Maybe I was grieving the loss the old me, the one who’d gotten so used to acting like she had it together,

who’d convinced herself she could fix whatever needed fixing. Kelly’d killed her. He’d struck the first blow when I had to admit I needed him on the ward, another when I submitted to him during sex. Again when I’d called him after my car broke. And this was the deepest and most mortal wound, letting him hold me like a baby and see me this weak and lost. The grief ran deeper still, to realize what I’d had with this man, and to imagine we’d likely wrecked it beyond repair. When the sobs petered out, I dabbed my nose on the collar of Kelly’s shirt, etiquette be damned. A thick, homely breath rattled out of me, making my

shoulders shake. “Better?” “My heart hurts. So bad.” “Mine, too.” Maybe he meant empathetically, about Jack. Maybe about us. I was too tired to truly care, and there was no room left in my brain for the confusion that guessing would bring. I pressed my face to his neck, damp with my tears, and took comfort for a final minute in how strong he felt. How much I’d miss this access. How much more naked and delicate I felt, when our bodies weren’t touching. And just how he smelled, how steady his pulse was— The lobby doors shushed open and I

pulled my face away. Getting found draped in Kelly’s lap would’ve been humbling if it were a stranger, but far worse was finding Amber standing there. If there was any time she needed her big sister to have her shit together, it was now, yet here I was a tear-streaked mess. I fumbled to standing, wiping my face and accepting Amber’s hug. The second my arms closed around her skinny shoulders, she lost it, like I’d passed her the baton in a mental-breakdown relay. I rubbed her back and let her sob, fighting every instinct in my being to demand to know what was happening with Jack. Finally she stopped quaking, and I

stepped back, smoothing her hair. “What’s going on, honey?” “They think it’s s-something called Reye’s Syndrome.” I mentally scanned my nursing school notes but came up blank. “Because I gave him some medicine—” she fell apart all over again, shaking and wheezing. I steered her to the bench and sat beside her, ignoring my pop bottle as it tumbled to the ground behind us. I massaged her shoulder. “Breathe slow.” Kelly wandered a few respectful paces away. “Oh my God,” she muttered after a minute. “It must’ve had aspirin in it, they

decided. It was just kids’ medicine. But he could—” She cut herself off. “It messed him up, and it’s all my fault. It could fuck his liver up, or his brain . . . I just wanted his fever to go down . . .” “It’s nobody’s fault, honey.” In my head I was screaming, Did they say he’s going to die?! But she didn’t need to hear that. Didn’t need to hear it even more desperately than I needed to hear the answer. I glanced up, wanting a glimpse of Kelly. For once his arms weren’t locked across his chest. His thumbs were tucked in his front pockets, almost like he was saying, I’m open. Lean on me if you need to. I waved him over, and he took a seat

on Amber’s other side. After a pause, he began to rub her back, slow, soothing strokes that made her entire frame sway, but it seemed to relax her. She snuffled loudly and looked up, face pink, eyes red. “Have they said . . .” I began, gagging on the words. “Did they give you any sense of how he’s doing?” “They said he’s stabilizing.” My heart soared. “Did they?” “And they got his fever down some more, to one-oh-three. They wouldn’t say anything for sure, except that his temperature was better and they’re going to do something, something to do with his liver. But they can’t say if . . . They

don’t know exactly how he’ll be. After.” I nodded. “But he’s going to . . .” I couldn’t say it any more than she could. Couldn’t say live or die or bear to hear those cold, black-and-white words in relation to my favorite child in the entire world. “They wouldn’t say for sure, but I think if they were allowed to, they’d say he was going to . . . you know. He’ll be okay.” Amber’s chin quivered as she turned to Kelly. “It’s real nice of you to come. His daddy didn’t even show.” Hate flickered through Kelly’s eyes for just a second, then he got ahold of himself. “That’s a shame.” “I know it is. And I always knew he

was a loser, but I never thought he . . . That he’s this much of a coward. Child support’s one thing, but I mean, fuck the checks. He coulda kept every dime and I’d probably wind up forgiving him, if he’d just been here when Jack needs him.” “No offense, but your boyfriend’s just a kid himself. I met him for about five minutes and I can tell you that.” She nodded, miserable. “I know he is.” After a pause she asked him, “How old are you?” “Thirty-eight.” “Damn, that’s old.” She started laughcrying then, and Kelly cracked a smile. “But maybe I ought to look for a guy

closer to your age, someday. Somebody who’s got it together.” She sniffled. “You make Erin happy, anyhow, and that’s not easy.” I looked away, and Kelly must have felt as I did, that now was not the time to tell her we weren’t a thing anymore. Let the girl think something in this world was dependable. Functional. “I have to get back inside. They told me I might be able to see him after the liver thing. I don’t want to miss it.” “We’ll be in soon,” I told her, not quite ready to resume all that horrid waiting. Kelly swiveled and bent, fishing my pop bottle from behind the bench. I accepted it with a sheepish smile.

“Thanks.” We sat in silence for a while. I let the positive update settle over me, loosening those old corset strings, one lace at a time until I could take a deep breath. Kelly just sat with his eyes on the city’s lights, bent forward with his elbows on his thighs. I watched his back swell and fall, swell and fall. My phone buzzed and I scanned the text in a heartbeat. “They’re letting her in to see Jack.” He put a hand to my shoulder before I could stand. “Give her a couple minutes, just her and him.” “She needs me.” “She’s a mom. She’ll be okay.”

I pursed my lips, but he was right. Maybe it was just that I needed my own protective role right now. I wanted to trick myself into believing I felt strong, as much as I wanted to trick Amber into believing it. Maybe it was time she was strong on her own, if only for a few minutes. I sank back against the bench, my pop opening with a mighty hiss, agitated from its fall. Kelly grabbed it before it could erupt all over my lap, holding it over the concrete until the fizz died again. I took it back and he licked the spoils off his fingers. “It’s hard to let go,” I said softly. “I was trusted with her since I was like,

eight. Whether I wanted that gig or not. If I’m not there when she needs me, I’m like . . .” I trailed off, choked by a tearless sob. “Like nothing,” Kelly said quietly. “I know.” “Is this how you feel, when something’s beyond your control? Like that night Don tried to kill himself?” Kelly shook his head, looking sad. “Nah. When that happens, I don’t feel anything.” “That sounds nice.” “It’s not,” he said quietly. “It’s a fucking cop-out.” We were quiet for a minute or two. I drained my bottle, and we headed back

inside and down the halls to the pediatric ER’s waiting room. A different nurse had come on duty. She looked to Kelly and me as we approached the desk. “There’s a little boy named Jack, with a flu? Can we visit him?” She checked something on a ledger. “Are you family?” “I’m his aunt,” I said, then blurted, “and this is my fiancé,” grasping Kelly’s arm. If there was ever a time I could admit I wanted a sturdy male presence at my side, now was it. “Are you both well?” We nodded. “He’s been moved to the ICU. You can

visit, but only for a couple minutes. Follow the staff’s instructions, and don’t touch him. And please don’t panic if he doesn’t respond.” That nearly got me bawling all over again, but Kelly put his hand on my back and gently ushered me to follow in the nurse’s wake. She passed us off to a male nurse, who had us pull paper booties over our shoes and don face masks, and scrub our hands with antibacterial soap before he let us in the unit. The ICU was bright and stark, which might’ve upset some people, but it imbued the situation with a no-nonsense sterility I found comforting. There were

scrub-clad bodies everywhere, checking this monitor and that. The nurse needn’t have told us not to touch Jack—he was lying inside a kind of toddler-sized incubator, nested in a tangle of tubes. His skin looked so red against the white pillow, and too tight, from the swelling. “Oh my God,” I murmured through the mask, pressing my knuckles to my cheeks to keep my hands from trembling. Kelly rubbed my back. “They know what they’re doing.” Did they? How could he know that? I felt panic coming on, but then Jack’s blue eyes opened, and a rush of hope swept the fear aside. I turned to the male nurse. “Where’s

my sister?” “She’s talking with Dr. Chandra,” he said, scanning Jack’s vitals. I leaned as close as I dared. I hoped I wasn’t scaring Jack, some crying, redfaced creature half hidden by the mask. “Hi, buddy.” He just blinked at me, looking stoned. “Hi, Jack.” I waved, fresh tears rising. “You be strong now, sweetheart. We all love you so much.” Kelly’s hand slid all the way down my back and enveloped my clammy fingers. “You remember my friend Kelly, from the other week?” “I got a blue truck, just like you,” Kelly offered.

I don’t know why, but that just wrecked me. I started crying so hard I knew no toddler could find my presence comforting, and Kelly followed my lead as I waved good-bye and headed for the door. We emerged in the hallway still holding hands. He seemed to notice right as I did, and let mine go with a final squeeze. We stripped our masks and booties. “You okay?” I shook my head. Like Amber, I wouldn’t be okay until I heard that little boy laugh again, and looked in those eyes and could see he was the same Jack as always, all there, all fixed. “He looks strong to me,” Kelly said.

I nodded. If only he were as strong as the man standing before me, so big and tough and fearless, nothing could ever hurt him. Though was I really so right, thinking Kelly couldn’t be hurt? Surely I’d hurt him myself, picking the lock on his closet door, rattling his skeletons. He sighed, sounding a hundred years old, and leaned against the wall. He rubbed his face, and I rubbed his shoulder. “Are you okay?” “I can’t fucking stand feeling this way.” And I realized I knew him well enough that I didn’t need clarification. I knew exactly what he meant because it was the

same thing eating away at my own insides, this sickening helplessness. Having to accept that all the things you rely on to feel worthy and strong . . . none of them could do jack-shit to fix this situation. You had to just turn a child’s fate over to strangers and pray your trust wasn’t misplaced. All the time in the world to sit back and accept how useless you felt. I stepped close and forced a bear hug on Kelly. He accepted it, stroking my back. Though I wasn’t turned-on in any way, I’d never wanted to kiss him so badly. Out of gratitude or recognition. Just to feel something good amid all this fear and uncertainty. But our time for

kissing had passed, so I just held on, breathing with him for a long moment before stepping back. I checked my phone. “It’s after two. You should go home, try to get some sleep before work.” I saw him resist for a breath, then surrender. “You need anything?” I shook my head. “Just the company’s been awesome. Really.” He nodded. “Gimme a call if you hear any updates. If you want. Or if you need anything. I’m only ten minutes’ drive.” “Thanks, Kel. I will.” I watched until he turned a corner, then I was alone again. But I felt okay. Though his body was gone, it felt as if

he’d draped me in some psychic jacket before he went, a lingering, comforting presence. Amber returned shortly from a talk with the doctor. I stayed with her until six, when Jack’s condition got officially upgraded to stable. We cried a bunch, the whole scene feeling trippy and unreal from the lack of sleep and the overdose of emotion. I did as Amber insisted, and gave myself permission to go home and crash. My eyes were so dried out from crying, my head so foggy, I didn’t feel entirely safe, driving. But the roads were deserted, no one around to get pissed if I went ten miles under the limit. I got

home just after six thirty, so tired my bones ached. I left a message on Dennis’s direct line, telling him I was sorry, but there was a family emergency and I didn’t know if I’d be in for my shift, but I’d call when I knew. Fully clothed and with my sneakers still laced, I flopped across my covers. Sleep hit me like a mallet, a dull thump full of mercy and peace.

Chapter Seventeen

I slept until noon, nearly, waking with a leaden gutful of fear as the previous night��s memories cleared away the initial confusion. Two missed calls from Dennis sank the dread deeper. But the first was from around seven, just him telling me to play things by ear, the second left a little before ten, saying an extra tech had been called in and to not worry about work, just do what I had to do, let him know if I thought I’d be in tomorrow when I had

a minute. I spent the rest of the day at the hospital, long enough for Amber and I to complete a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, and for me to leave on various errands—to fetch drops for her tearpickled eyes, a pillow, better sandwiches than the hospital’s café offered. A stack of glossy magazines, always her balm when she’d been stuck home with a flu herself. We weren’t allowed in the ICU for more than twenty minutes every couple hours, and it was killing her. But doctors and nurses came into the waiting room with updates now and then, Jack’s prognosis getting brighter and brighter as the day went on,

unclenching my heart one puckered cell at a time. After a yawn-filled dinner in the hospital café, Amber ordered me to go home. “Only if you’re sure.” “I’m sure. I’m so sleepy, I barely know what I’m even saying. Jack’s stable, and you’ve got work in the morning.” “I’ll call in, if you need me.” “No, you go. I can handle this.” I smiled, knowing she was right—she could handle this herself—and realizing it was high time we both started accepting that. “Plus if Marco shows up . . .” She tossed up her hands and blew a

raspberry. “I’ve got enough of an earful to give him, without you getting him even more wound up, just being here. No offense. Not your fault or anything. Just . . .” “I know.” I reached across the table and took her hand. “You know you can do way, way better than him, right?” She pursed her lips, then nodded. “Yeah, I do. Sometimes I doubt it, but after all this . . . I met your boyfriend exactly once before this, and it wasn’t such a hot time. But he still showed up last night. I know he came for you, but he came. Marco didn’t come, not for me or his son. You’ve got a good man, Erin. I wish I could say the same.”

I wished I could, too. “He’s not my boyfriend.” She sighed. “So you keep saying. But he must be something special, to spend the night at the ER with us.” “Yeah, I guess he is.” I knew he was. “It’s better to not have anybody, than somebody who sucks,” Amber concluded, a fat tear slipping down her cheek. I held her hand tighter and another fell, as though I’d squeezed it out of her. “But it’s scary having no one,” she said. “And lonely. And . . .” She laughed, looking sheepish. “And boring. But maybe I ought to get better at being bored. Before I wake up and realize I’m Mom.”

I nodded. “And you don’t have ‘no one.’ You have me and Jack.” “Yeah, I know.” “Boring as we are.” She laughed, and let my hand go to blow her nose. “Go home, Erin. Get some sleep. I’ll call if there’s any news.” “Including good news.” “Sure.” “Especially good news,” I added, standing and organizing my purse. “No matter how trivial.” “I promise.” I leaned in and kissed the crown of her head. “Get some rest, yourself.” On my way out I bought a shot of

espresso in a tiny takeaway cup, just to make sure I didn’t nod off during the drive home. Coupled with my weariness, it made me feel high and weird, the streets of Darren and the fields en route to Larkhaven slipping past like painted movie backdrops. The world looked so organic after the clinical white order of the ICU. There was disorder everywhere, in the twisted tree branches, the bits of litter on the highway shoulder, chaos rippling through the wavery V of geese passing overhead and broadcast in their arrhythmic honks. I draped an arm out my window to feel the wind on my skin. I got home at six thirty, just in time to

jog across campus and slip in before the end of the day shift, letting Dennis know I’d be in the next morning and apologizing in person for my absence. I think we talked, maybe even hugged. I was so pooped, I didn’t even register walking back to my apartment until I was flopped facedown across my covers. I didn’t sleep, just lay there, grateful for horizontality and stillness. For a respite from being strong or alert or anything at all. I was a lump of flesh tossed across a bed and left alone, and it felt amazing. After perhaps a half hour’s Zen, a rapping at the door killed the peace. Lifting my chin, I eyed the clock. Seven

sixteen, as if I needed any more reason to suspect who it’d be. I rolled off my mattress and shuffled to the door. Flip of the lock, tug on the handle, and there he was, that big old wall of calm, still dressed in gray. “Hi, Kel.” “How is he?” I smiled. “He’s doing well. He’s going to be back to normal in a week or two, they think. The syndrome he’s got has five stages, and he was just reaching stage two. It could have been way worse.” Kelly blew out a long breath, sagging with relief against the door frame. “And it’s a really rare thing to happen

these days. We’re lucky the doctors diagnosed him as quick as they did . . . You want a beer?” His brows rose for a moment’s deliberation. “Yeah. Sure.” “Come on in.” Kelly took a seat on my desk chair and I locked the door, then fetched the last two beers from my minifridge. It had grown dark, and I turned on the reading lamp before sitting cross-legged on my bed. Kelly leaned forward to accept his can and we cracked them in unison. I fiddled with the tab, back and forth and back and forth, until it snapped off. “I want to thank you again, for hanging out. Today must have been the longest

shift ever, on no sleep.” He shrugged. “I was with Don most of the day, and he was pretty calm. Took everything I had not to nod off in the rec room during the soaps.” “And still another shift to get through tomorrow.” I’d have thought the idea of going back to work would beat me down even more, but I was actually looking forward to it. I could use the routine, some familiarity and focus. Funny to think the ward and its faces could be called familiar, so soon. But I wanted to see Jenny and Dennis, and the friendlier residents. See if Lee was still as clearheaded as the last time I’d spoken to him, and ask how he felt about

transitioning to an outpatient program. Strangest of all, I even looked forward to seeing Lonnie. Funny how the people who are forced on you—family, colleagues, dependents —can be forgiven their faults, in light of the commitment. The inevitability of being stuck with them. Caring was all about surrender, in the end. The opposite of control. The difference between strangling someone and embracing them. We sipped our beers for a few minutes, then Kelly reached for my can, setting both of them on the desk, halfdrunk. “Lie down.” It wasn’t an order, not like it might’ve been one of those first

nights we spent together. I stretched out on my back and Kelly joined me, resting his hands on his stomach. “Have we wrecked all this?” I asked the ceiling. “Whatever we had between us before?” He replied after a long pause. “What we have between us is strong and stupid.” I laughed, surprised by his answer, and struck by an image of a small-skulled, club-wielding ogre. “What we got,” Kelly said, “we’re stuck with it, even if our stubborn, rational brains might decide we’re through. It’ll always be there, whether

we like it or not.” “Can I be honest?” He kept his eyes on the ceiling. “Sure.” “I do like it. Whatever it is. It’s just that some angry part of me doesn’t, because I feel like it’s out of my control, maybe.” “I like when things feel out of my control.” I blinked. “Really?” “Sometimes, yeah. I don’t want to enflame your angry part or anything, but being in control comes easy for me. It has ever since I hit my growth spurt and lost my fear. But shit like what we got between us . . . it’s interesting. Because I

can’t do anything about it. I’ve just gotta give in and let it have its way. Which is fucking refreshing, when you’re used to having to be on top of everything all the time.” “Huh.” We stared up at the spackle, not saying a word. Whatever force kept us wanting each other—I could feel it, as real and physical as a cat curled on the comforter between us. It was docile now, a warm and reassuring presence. But it had sharp teeth and claws. We both knew that. I sighed. “I really am my mother’s daughter, in some ways. I like to tell myself that Amber inherited all her impulses, but it’s in me, too. And I hate

it.” He coaxed me onto my side and cradled my head. “You’re not your mom. Not any more than I’m any man who’s ever considered himself my father.” “Sometimes I . . .” “What?” “She comes through. Some ugly, angry fragments of her get the better of me.” “Those aren’t hers. Those are yours.” “Yeah, I guess.” “We’ve all got ugly stuff in us. Get most anybody mad enough or drunk enough or backed into a small enough corner, and you find it. You saw mine, that night you started us talking, about what had happened to land my

biological dad in the pen.” I winced, not wanting to think about that fight. “I’m real good at keeping my shit under control, but you hit my trigger.” He paused, lips tight like he was trying to suck a fleck of food from between his teeth. “I’m sorry about that night. About losing my rag on you.” “It was my fault. I shouldn’t have known to begin with, unless you’d decided to tell me. Even after I snooped, I should’ve let you be the one to bring it up.” “You knew what you knew, whether you should’ve or not. I get that that shit’s not easy to carry around. And I

know . . .” I waited almost half a minute for him to finish the thought. “I know I don’t let people in too deeply. What you found out, that was like a crowbar. Something that stood a chance at prying me open deeper than the sex even could. It’s just that you jammed it right in there, right between my ribs and cranked it, without any warning.” I cracked a sad smile at that. “Subtlety’s not really my strong suit.” “And I’m not good at feeling caught off guard by things.” “A good instinct, in our line of work.” “But not good, if I’m trying to keep things together between me and a

woman.” All at once my heart felt thick, beating with hard, muscular thumps. “Were you thinking that way, about me? About trying to keep things together?” “You really just thought it was about sex for me, didn’t you? Was that how it felt when we were getting into it? Just sex?” My face burned hotter. “No. But I told myself that’s how it was supposed to be, and not to get it in my head that it might turn into something more. I didn’t think that was on the table.” “What’d it feel like though?” His expression changed, a smirk twisting his lips, and though the word didn’t fit him,

he snuggled closer. “Stroke my male ego. What stuff did you feel, that you didn’t want to?” “I just felt like . . . Like, shit, this sex is insane. And if I don’t remind myself constantly that it’s just sex, I’ll start trying to make it mean something more. It’s hard to not get attached to someone, when they can make you feel that good. And you’re so attracted to them. Plus a part of me didn’t want to like you, that way. You make me feel weaker than I’m comfortable feeling . . .” I trailed off, but it didn’t matter. His lips were there to take the place of words. Our kiss was tender and slow, excruciatingly personal. It took all my

will to pull away after a couple minutes. I cleared my throat. He stared at me with something like awe lighting his gaze. When he kissed me, he seemed so, so close, I felt a tingle behind my nose. But I wouldn’t cry. This was too nice to mess up with crying, and Kelly and I communicated best with our bodies. His mouth explored mine, and in no hurry. He’d kissed me this way before, for a moment here, a moment there, little glimpses of tender passion. But this time it stretched out for glorious minutes, a kiss erotic and romantic enough for the movies. He held my face in one hand, fingertips stoking the vulnerable hollow

behind my ear. I wriggled closer and found him hard, but for once he seemed immune to the demands of his cock. All this was different. I could feel it. And it felt better than the sex, almost. And way better than resisting this thing between us. The kiss seemed to strip me bare, past my clothes, through my skin, until Kelly held my heart in his hands, held my hope. I felt more naked and quivering and helpless than I ever had, faced with violence or danger. Was this love, turning me inside out? It felt as wonderful as it did scary. After five minutes of possibly the best human contact I’d ever experienced, I

pulled away. I took a deep breath of the warm silence hovering between our mouths, then another. Kelly stroked my hair. “You look like you’ve got something to say.” “Why do you like me?” His smile was pure surprise, and it crinkled the skin at the corners of his eyes in a way that made my loins melt. “Why do I like you?” I shuffled back a little and put my hand on his arm. “At the risk of sounding like a presumptuous jerk, I got the impression you . . . I don’t know. That you weren’t really after something . . . you know. Serious.” “Well,” he said slowly, “at the risk of

sounding like a dick, I wasn’t. I never am. It happens, from time to time, usually because a woman sees something in me that she decides needs saving. Or thawing, maybe. And I’m not just a walking cock, despite how I advertise. I want more than just sex, if the woman seems special. But like I told you when we first talked, my domineering shtick doesn’t usually fly, past a couple weeks. Not once a woman realizes getting bossed around isn’t hot, in the long run. It’s not a sustainable way for two people to relate. Especially with the kind of girls I like. You scrappy types. It might work a date or two or five, sure. Not much longer.”

“You only bossed me around for a night, really. Like, properly.” “Yeah.” Kelly nodded, averting his eyes. “I dunno quite why that was. Why I liked you better, speaking your mind.” I smiled, a bit cocky. “Maybe you like my mind.” He tugged me closer. “I think you know I do. But back to your original question, about why I like you?” “Yeah?” “Maybe because like me, you grew up with nobody really fighting for you. Right?” I nodded. “Surrounded by people who were too beat down to give a shit, even if it

wasn’t their fault. Nobody showed you how it felt, to be cared about. Or wanted. But I know if anybody got between you and your sister or your nephew, you’d kick and scratch and bite to defend your own.” “Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t . . . But yeah, it’s in there.” “You grew up into a better person than the ones that raised you,” Kelly said. “And that’s unusual, with people like us. Me, I’m an okay guy, brought up by a violent drunk and a passive shell of a mom. I’m better than they raised me to be. That’s gotta be rare.” Kelly smiled and stroked my hair. “So that’s why. Because you’ve got something special in

you, something that won’t stay buried, no matter how many times experience tries to say it’s fighting a losing battle. That’s what made both of us take these jobs, I bet. Believing maybe we could fix something ugly in the world, try to be of use to the people everybody else has given up on.” The first tear escaped, rolling hot down my cheek. I’d never thought about it that way. I’d taken my job because I needed to be near my sister, but what he said was right, too. I didn’t want to give up on those people, no matter how nasty and ungrateful they sometimes were. I wanted to believe they were like Kelly, if you just dug deep enough—a hard

exterior hiding a vulnerable core. “I got that same streak in me,” he said, “and I want it in my life. In a woman. I want to fill in the gaps, fight all the battles you can’t, because of whatever— your size or your gender. Maybe that’s sexist, but it’s what I want. I just want to feel needed by somebody who deserves whatever I got to offer.” I laughed, looking down to hide my reddening face. Kelly tipped my chin back up with a crooked finger. “I’m not afraid of your tears.” “I am, maybe.” “Don’t be.” My lips felt swollen, nostrils stinging. I cleared my throat. “When this all

started, I thought you saw me as some little woodland creature, one who’d give you a good chase before you eventually brought me down and tore me to pieces. Sex-wise.” Kelly laughed. “Maybe we were two dogs all along, and all you wanted was to get in the pit with me.” “Maybe. Even if I wasn’t, that’s what I got.” I slid my hand down his arm to stroke his knuckles. I paused, one of his fingers feeling odd. I rubbed the spot—a strange, smooth divot—and pulled back to examine it. “You got your ring off.” “I bit the bullet and took a pair of

clippers to it when I got home from the hospital.” “Oh, what a shame.” Such a personal inheritance, marred forever. He shrugged. “I’ll get some jeweler to weld it back together someday, should the need arise.” “I guess it’ll wind up with a scar,” I mused, tracing my fingertip along the mark on his neck. “Why’d you bother?” “It just felt like something I ought to get around to. Like maybe it was keeping me from considering myself fully . . . I dunno. Open to stuff.” “Stuff?” “You know. Letting somebody in or whatever.”

I took a deep breath and asked, “Do you think there’s enough of this ‘something’ between us to actually be, you know . . . something more? For us to be a couple?” “Would you like us to be?” I pursed my lips and nodded. “Okay then.” “Jeez, that was easy. What about work? We don’t work in some office where we can afford to be distracted.” “You really think I give a fuck about some HR clause?” I smiled. He kissed my forehead, a gesture fast becoming my favorite thing. “We’ll keep our mouths shut about it. But someday, if

somebody catches us speaking too closely in the parking lot or the break room, fuck what they think. By then they’ll have seen us both doing our jobs perfectly well for who knows how many weeks or months. No one’s really going to fire us, not if us dating isn’t threatening the residents’ care. Certainly not Dennis or your number-one fan, Dr. Morris.” After a pause, he said, “When you asked before, why it is I like you, I left something out.” “Oh?” He grinned down at me, eyes narrowed and sinister. “You are fucking attractive.”

I blushed. “I’m okay, I guess.” “I think you’re sexy. Real sexy.” “Usually if I get called anything nice, it’s ‘cute.’” “Nah. You got this way of pursing your lips at work, when you’re thinking about shit . . .” Kelly fake-shuddered with arousal, eyes rolling up. “All that you got going on with the big eyes and the pink cheeks, I can see through that act. You’re a raccoon underneath that bunny costume. I like your claws as much as your whiskers.” I laughed. He flopped down beside me with a sigh. “Can I crash here? I’m fucking exhausted.”

“Of course.” Settling in, he pulled me tighter against him. “You’re not even going to try to take advantage of me?” I asked. “You really must be wrecked.” Eyes shut, he smirked. “Here,” I said, turning in his arms. “Let me guarantee you a good, deep sleep.” His eyes opened just as my fingers found the waist of his pants, and his lips parted. I thought for a second he’d stop me, but the hand he reached out merely stroked my arm, making all its tiny hairs rise. When I got his button open he did the rest, lowering his fly and wrestling

his pants away. For a minute or more I fondled him through his shorts, until he was stiff and thick and his breaths had grown sharp and hungry. He pushed his waistband down, releasing his bare length into my palm. He felt just like he should, big and powerful. Only this time I got to wield it. I got to be the one doing. It was nothing like the things we’d done before. The angle was awkward, the eye contact intense and intimate and humbling. He let me watch every stage of his arousal as it transformed his expression from intrigued to dirty to desperate. As he neared orgasm, he cupped my ear, fingers fidgeting in my

hair. No orders this time, just a series of near-silent grunts as I stroked him closer to the edge. Then— “Please.” He needn’t have begged. Just now, watching him was as hot as fucking him, and I was as antsy for his release as he was. “Yes. Please.” Again his eyes shut, expression pure and perfect agony. His twitching arm and hips told me he was a goner. He came with the softest, sweetest moan, filling my cupped hand in three long spurts. “Good.” I left him panting, slipping away to tidy my palm with a tissue. He

moved so I could free the covers and we kicked our way between the sheets. I hadn’t even realized how chilly the room had grown until we were enveloped by all that warmth. “You need something?” he asked. I kissed his temple. “No, I’m perfect.” Perfectly satisfied, and perfectly exhausted, same as him. “I’ll get you back,” he mumbled, already fading. “Don’t you worry.” “I’m sure you will. Thanks for making it sound like a threat.” “Mmm,” he hummed with a smile, and rolled over. I switched off the reading lamp and draped my arm around his waist.

“I’m gonna fall in love with you,” Kelly said. His words hung in the darkness, bright as candle flames. “You think so?” “Yeah. And I don’t think I’ve ever been in love with anybody. Not beyond that dumb kind you feel when you’re young.” For a long moment I just nibbled my lip, dumbstruck. When I did speak, all that came out was a soft, “Wow.” “I’ve never loved anybody, for the right reasons,” he said quietly. “I love my mom, but I don’t respect her. I loved my grandfather, but I also never really felt like I knew him. A part of me might even love Don, but I can’t ever tell him

that . . . “If I fall in love with you, it’ll be because I know you inside and out, and because you’re somebody I want to be a better person for—instead of in spite of.” What he said gave me chills. It felt like he’d opened some secret door and let me come inside and handle the softest parts of him, off-limits to the rest of the world. It meant far more than the bones of any dusty secrets I might exhume on my own. “There’s nothing I can say that’ll be anywhere as nice as what you just said.” “Just let me say it first.” I smiled, unseen. “As you command.” After a pause he added, “You know,

it’s not so bad, needing someone. And not even needing someone . . . Letting someone help you.” “Are you saying this to me, or yourself?” “You . . . And maybe me.” “I’d rather want someone than need them,” I decided. “But you’re right. It’s nice to have someone to fall back on, when things suddenly go to shit.” I’d had that in Kelly, that night at the ER. I just hadn’t known it until he strode into the waiting room. “Someone to rely on,” Kelly murmured. “Some man who’d bust his ass so you could work through your RN, full-time. Or something more. If you

wanted that.” I blinked in the darkness. “He’d have to be an awfully rich man, if I tricked myself into thinking I was cut out for medical school.” “Nah. Just some loner with his house already paid off and inexpensive tastes.” These were thoughts for another time. For another year. I had plenty to learn as I found my feet at Larkhaven in the coming months. Just as much to learn as I fumbled my way into a romance with this strange and startling man. I squeezed his fingers. “I don’t know what I want yet, for the future. I just know I want . . . I want you to need me back,” I whispered. “For more than just

sex.” “Sweetheart, I already do. I need you for what you let me be for you last night.” “Oh.” “I’m nothing without people relying on me. You ever feel tempted to offer me a foot rub, save your energy and ask me to fix something instead.” “If it makes you so happy, I’ll break stuff on purpose.” “No.” He turned around and kissed my forehead, then coaxed me to flip so he could do the spooning, hugging me tight. “There’s always something broken. No need to make trouble when there’s plenty already waiting. Just lemme fix what I

can, when you can’t do the job yourself.” “I will,” I promised. He already was. Fixing that ache in my chest, just being here, holding me. Chiseling a few bricks out of his cold gray tower, just enough for me to slip inside and feel shielded from the wind and rain. With a shallow, yielding noise, he went slack, muscles surrendering their duties, his arm a warm weight against my waist. “Goodnight, Kel.” Gently, I turned enough to kiss his jaw and feel his stubble against my lips, its usual rasp softened by an extra day’s growth. From the rest and routine he’d sacrificed, to come and be with me, to

let us see each other for the helpless, frightened humans we were. We got a little something between us. So little. No thicker than a layer of cotton now. The thinnest membrane of latex when I’d next welcome his body inside mine. Barely anything at all, with those stubborn barriers demolished, just us two, lying here as the dust settled. Just us two, stripped and spent, hearts beating together in the dark.

With the most heartfelt thanks to my dear friends and talented peers—Ruthie Knox, Charlotte Stein, Edie Harris, Serena Bell, Del Dryden, and Shelley Ann Clark—for their energy, time, and input. Thanks also to my editor, Jesse Feldman, for seeking me out and inviting me to New York, and to my agent, Laura Bradford, for pushing me there in her wheelbarrow. And with extra big thanks to my kick-ass mom and to Mary Ann Rivers (and unwitting colleagues), for their expertise. If I bungled any clinical details in this book, may the blame lay firmly on my own shoulders.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at Cara McKenna’s next novel,

UNBOUND Available October 2013 from InterMix

Three Weeks Ago From: Merry To: Lauren, Kat Subject: Farewell drinks? Hey gals! Anybody free for prevaca drinks tomorrow? I figure it’s pretty likely I’ll get taken captive as a sex slave by some rippling, kilted Highlander next week, never to return. Promise you’ll keep San Fran warm for me. I’ve got a zillion things still to wrap up at work, but I should be free by 7:30. Any takers? So hoping to see you guys one more time before I fly

out. Mer From: Lauren To: Merry, Kat Subject: re: Farewell drinks? Wouldn’t miss it—I could use a drink this week. Or three. Just tell me where. L From: Kat To: Merry, Lauren Subject: re: Farewell drinks? Hell yeah. See you then! Kat

From: Lauren To: Merry, Kat Subject: re: Farewell drinks? Is it totally cunty that I’m sort of looking forward to Merry being gone for a month? Probably. But I swear she lost her old personality, right along with the weight. If it gets any worse she’ll start tossing her hair and giggling every time someone tells her how great she looks. My last nerve. She is on it. Bon voyage. Okay, yeah. That WAS cunty. Whatever. See you tomorrow! Cuntily yours, Lauren

Merry blinked at her phone’s screen, just as another message alert pinged. From: Kat To: Merry Subject: re: Farewell drinks? Uhhh . . . o_O I’m guessing Lauren didn’t mean to reply all. And I don’t think she knows she did. Shall we just let her keep thinking that, or . . . ??? Anyhow, I can’t wait to see you tomorrow! Awkwardly, Kat

Merry frowned, considering her reply. She wasn’t hurt. Well, yeah, she was. But not surprised.

Lauren’s default setting was snide, but it stung Merry to have her suspicions confirmed. She’d lost ninety-two pounds, but clearly she’d gained something else—readmission to the joys of high-school bitchery! Nothing like a Reply-All faux-pas to make thirty-one feel like fifteen. She squished the carpet between her bare toes, wiping her smudged screen with her sleeve. To confront or not to confront. Lauren had told her once, “You can be fat, or you can be a bitch. But you can’t be a fat bitch. Bitchiness is a luxury only hot girls can afford.” Merry hated that motto, but she still

remembered it word-for-word, five or more years after Lauren had decreed it. As though a girl couldn’t be big and a bitch, and for that matter, hot. Though sadly, it seemed perhaps a girl could not be Lauren’s best friend if she didn’t stay fat. Which was a rather bitchy policy, Merry felt. Nearly as bitchy as that email. Was she more annoying, now? She hadn’t thought so. Like anyone on earth isn’t annoying, from time to time. And if she was chirpy and smiley when people complimented her, it was because her mom and had raised her to accept praise graciously,

never to deflect or apologize. Save your deflecting for the insults—there’ll be plenty. Swallow the kind words whole. Merry sighed, physically feeling the angst, forcing it from her body as she’d trained herself to do in lieu of muffling it with food. Let Lauren sulk. Let her vent. Let her think Merry had turned traitor by veering off a comfortable, delicious collision course with diabetes or joint problems or whatever else she’d managed to ignore until last year. Maybe Lauren would come around, in time. And if she didn’t, Merry might have to admit that maybe Lauren was an additional two hundred pounds she’d be

well rid of. Sucked, though—ten years of friendship, and she’d never managed to notice how codependent they’d been. Kind of like how she’d never quite realized she was fat, despite the numbers on her jeans tag and the scale giving it to her straight on a daily basis. People were nothing if not selective in their perceptions of reality. She hit Reply. From: Merry To: Lauren, Kat Subject: re: Farewell drinks? Awesome! 7:30 at First round’s on me.

Americano.

Mer

Yeah, awesome. Merry could be the bigger man . . . even if she was now the smaller girl. She’d broken some unspoken, fat-girl solidarity pact she’d subconsciously entered into with Lauren. She could forgive the woman for feeling betrayed or abandoned. Though yeah. It was pretty cunty. She turned to the catastrophe that was her living room, strewn with three weeks’ hiking supplies she had to magically clown-car into one pack. She lined items up by necessity—tent, sleeping bag, water filter on the front line. Essential clothes, followed by ifthere’s-room clothes . . .

Friends love each other, she thought, checking the caps on her travel bottles. Friends hurt each other. Friends came and went, but Merry had already lost a lot in the past year and a half. Her mother, then a third of her body weight, then her . . . Well, not her boyfriend. Her fuck-buddy. Jason had quit texting a few months ago, right around the time Merry had spun giddy circles in a departmentstore dressing room when the zipper slid home, practically dancing out into the street carrying her first size-twelve dress, with a side of intoxicating confidence. Magically, a few weeks later, she’d had to take that dress to a consignment

shop—it was too big now. After this vacation, she might need to do the same with all her tens. Holy shit. Size eight. The single digits. She might actually one day fit into the sample sizes she patterned at work. Shangri-fucking-La. The weird thing was, she still felt like the old Merry, inside—caring, competent, fun, loyal. But now people were reacting differently to the package those qualities came in. Guys from work who’d never said more to her than, “How do you change the toner in this thing?” were suddenly asking about her weekend, her vacation, her opinions on the latest reality TV scandal. While part of her was thrilled—these

were side effects of the weight loss she’d been hoping for, after all—another part had to think, caring, fun and loyal don’t really count for much, do they? Not unless they came wrapped in a pleasing female shape. Not if you wanted to get past the proverbial receptionist with a guy. Which kind of sucked. And yet . . . she did want that. Thirtyone, and she’d never been in love. She’d been infatuated, sure. She’d been in love in a guy’s general direction, but she’d never felt that light and heat shining back on her. She’d been clad too heavily in her own self-consciousness to welcome it.

Now the armor was gone. She felt exposed, but the sensation was as thrilling as it was scary. And if she ever wanted to get tangled in the writhing tentacles of passionate, mind-blowing, stupid-making, reciprocal true love, she’d have to make peace with this naked feeling. Perhaps Lauren, like Jason, had preferred the old Merry, the Merry who’d bend over backward to please the people she liked, who put herself last. You’re welcome to her, she thought, stuffing her sleeping bag into its sleeve. This new Merry’s off to walk across Scotland. And she’s not coming back until she’s

fucking found herself.

Before becoming a purveyor of smart erotic romance, Cara McKenna worked as a record store bitch, a lousy barista, a decent designer, and an over-enthusiastic penguin handler. She loves writing sexy, character-driven stories about strongwilled men and women who keep each other on their toes . . . and bring one another to their knees. Cara now writes full-time and lives north of Boston with her bearded husband. When she’s not trapped in her own head, she can usually be found in the kitchen, the coffee shop, or jogging around the nearest duck-filled pond.

Connect Online: caramckenna.com twitter.com/caramckenna