“Waiting. Thanks.” I wrapped a blanket around my shoulders and draped the other over my lap. “Waiting for Hannah. She’s inside with my brother.”

“Oh … shit. Do I need to get lost?”

“Soon.” I frowned. “Not yet. Seems like they’re holding her overnight.”

We sat in silence, watching the ambulances come and go from St. Luke’s. Mel didn’t ask for specifics, thank God. I wouldn’t have told her. Either I hit Hannah or Seth hit Hannah, and maybe Hannah had a concussion. I scrubbed my face.

“Fuck,” I whispered.

Mel rubbed my back. I tensed, then relaxed. The gesture was nothing but amicable.

“You need anything else? Food, smokes?”

I shook my head.

After a while, I said, “Saint Luke. Why do they have to make saints out of everything?”

Melanie chuckled.

“He was a doctor,” I said. “Doctor Luke.” And then, “I’ll be buried in a Presbyterian cemetery. Did you know that? I’m tired enough to go there now.” I could say that to Mel because she was young, and she wouldn’t roll her eyes at me. She didn’t.

After Mel left, I dozed, but sirens and the cold kept pulling me awake. I drifted in and out of strange dreams. Dreams of Hannah. Dreams of quiet earth.

* * *

Hannah and Seth emerged from St. Luke’s as the sun rose.

Seth wheeled her out in a chair—my heart faltered—but as soon as they reached the sidewalk, Hannah stood and jogged toward the car.

I burst out of the car and ran to meet her. Seth hung back, watching us from the curb.

Hannah gestured for me to get back in the car, but there was no chance of that. If someone recognized me, f**k it. Nothing could stop me from going to her.

As I got closer, I saw a deep purple shiner under her left eye and a bluish bruise along her cheekbone. “Ah, goddamn it,” I said. I wrapped my arms around her.

“Matt, you’re so cold.” She sniffled and hugged me. Her tears dropped onto my neck. “Did you spend the whole night out here?”

“It’s fine, baby. I wanted to. My God, are you all right?”

“Yeah, it … was nothing. Too much champagne at the party. The punch put me down for the count, that’s all. I’m fine, I promise. No concussion.” She stroked my hair and I held her tight, my eyes locked on Seth. Round two, brother? I couldn’t erase the image of Seth’s mouth on Hannah’s, his greedy hands pulling at her.

“He going to join us?” I said.

“I don’t think so. He doesn’t want to talk to you…” Hannah glanced back at Seth.

“Fine with me,” I said, but I hesitated and watched my brother awhile. “You think he’s going to tell anyone?”

“No, he won’t tell. He’s leaving today. He wants nothing to do with us.”

“Good. He’s got nothing to do with us.”

After some moments, Seth turned and rolled the wheelchair back into the hospital.

That was the last time I saw him for quite a while.

Hannah let me drive the short distance back to our condo. We were too stunned to speak, or too relieved. She leaned against the seat with her eyes closed and her hand in mine.

Near the condo, I said, “Hannah, what was going on between you and Seth?”

“I’ll tell you inside,” she said, and she did. We sat on the couch and I rubbed her back while she cuddled against me. She came clean about the night in New Jersey when Goldengrove played and Seth tried to kiss her onstage. She told me how they went to the mall and he held her, and how he appeared at the release party last night.

She told me, too, about Aaron Snow’s article and his new online zine, No Stone Unturned. She explained his theory about me writing Night Owl and how and why she said she wrote it. “Seth was there,” she said, “but I don’t think he’ll tell anyone, and I don’t think Aaron is going to run the article. I sort of … threatened him.”

I mulled over the new information.

“Mm, no matter,” I said. “He can publish the story or not. No one will believe him. I doubt many people read his stuff, and those who do are fanatics. Seriously, I don’t know what that guy would do without his lifelong boner for me.”

“Start a zine about aliens?” Hannah giggled.

I laughed for the first time in too long.

“Sounds about right,” I said.

Hannah didn’t have an icepack in the freezer, so I filled a ziplock with cubes, wrapped a dish towel around it, and held it to her eye. She had a prescription for Vicodin but refused to fill it. “It makes me groggy,” she said.

“Hey, you could always sell them.”

“Matt!”

I laughed and shrugged. “It’s what I would have done when I was younger.”

“Yeah, but you were a bad boy.”

“Mm. Hannah, I—” I bundled her up and carried her to the bedroom. “I’m so f**king sorry. I don’t know … if it was me, or if it was Seth … who hit you. I was—I couldn’t—”

“Don’t.” She touched my lips. It was one of her little gestures that I loved, the be quiet, Matt gesture. Her fingertips brushed my bruised eye. “Now we match. It was no one’s fault.”

“What are you going to tell people?”

“I dunno. I’ll come up with something. I’m becoming an expert liar.”

I set her on the sheets and undressed her. She didn’t help except to lift her arms indolently and extend her legs while I peeled down her stockings. The black-and-white skirt she wore to the party … I’d hoped to take it off under different circumstances.

When Hannah was naked, I began to undress. She watched me with her lustrous eyes—her face calm and serious, her br**sts rising and falling gently.

“I’m tired,” I said.

My body ached after a night in the car. My mind couldn’t hold another thought. I was dangerously weary, too tired to see all the angles, and I had a growing sense that Hannah and I would not get away with our lie.

Seth knew I was alive. Melanie knew. Aaron Snow suspected. There were too many unknowns. Too many people I couldn’t control.

“I know.” Hannah reached for me. “I am, too.”

I stretched out alongside her and pulled the covers over us. I moved against her and sighed. There. I had one perfect thing in my life.

And though I said I was tired—too tired for sex—the warmth and softness of Hannah’s body made me hard. Her pillows smelled sweet. Her ni**les grazed my chest. She rolled away so that I could enter her from behind, and I held her close as I moved inside her.

Chapter 31

HANNAH

We woke in the afternoon and Matt ran a bath for me.

I offered to drive him back to the cabin, but he said he would take a cab. I knew he was antsy to go. Denver was a cage for him now, and he hated cages. Plus, The Surrogate hit stores Tuesday, which meant M. Pierce fever all over again.

Matt insisted on carrying me to the bathroom. I hugged his neck.

“Matt, you realize I can walk with a black eye, right?”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” He set me on the counter and I squeaked; the marble was frigid under my bare bottom. He dropped one of my bath bombs in the tub and watched it fizz and color the water purple.

Once before I had managed to convince Matt to use a bath bomb with me. It was called a “sex bomb” and it was supposed to “put us in the mood” with “exciting scents” and “natural pheromones.” I grinned at the memory. As soon as Matt realized the bomb was coating his skin in sparkles, he leapt out of the tub ranting about “looking Twilighty” and “smelling like a girl.”

“What’re you grinning at?”

“You.” I smiled. “And this bath, which is such a transparent effort to avoid saying good-bye. Sweet … but transparent.”

Matt frowned and paced the small space of the bathroom. Ha! I was right. Matt planned to leave me in the tub and slip away.

My poor, adorable night owl—he really had issues with good-byes.

“No,” he mumbled. “Maybe…”

“Can I induce you to stay a little longer?” I uncrossed my legs deliberately and spread them. Matt watched. He folded his arms and tilted his head.

“How does your cheek feel?”

“They’re cold.” I grinned.

“And you say I’m bad.” He slid me off the sink and turned me. I watched our reflection through the patchy steam on the mirror. Matt—God, he was so tall, and the look on his face was arresting. He wanted me. I knew that look.

“Getting warmer now,” I murmured, nudging my bottom against his groin. His c**k stirred in his pants.

“Are you?” He spread my cheeks. He, too, watched our reflection. He lifted a hand to play with my br**sts. His green eyes traveled between my face and my chest. “Such gorgeous tits, Hannah. So heavy.” He lifted one and stroked his thumb over the nipple. I shivered. “You know I have to go, and maybe I shouldn’t have come. But what if I hadn’t?”

What if he hadn’t…?

For the first time, I imagined last night without Matt. Just Seth, forceful Seth, reading the signs all wrong. Kissing me. Grabbing me. The two of us in my condo.

I shook off the thought.

“I don’t have time for what-ifs,” I said.

Matt recognized his own words and laughed reluctantly.

“You…” He sighed. “You…” He bit my neck, then my shoulder. He leaned around to bite my breast. I felt him hardening rapidly against my ass.

I reached back to caress his bare sides and play with the band of his lounge pants. With our black-eyed reflections and love-marked bodies, we looked criminal. I found myself admiring us. We dodged a bullet last night. We were living on the verge of disaster.

And it excited me.

“You make me so hard, Hannah.” Matt sank to his knees and bit my ass. He kissed it and licked it, groping the soft curves. I bent over the sink. “I’m going to f**k you,” he said, “here—right here.” He tapped the tight ring between my cheeks. “And you’re going to get off with your fingers. I’m going to come in your ass. Understand?”

I heated instantly, a blush spreading over my face. My … my ass. Good Lord. How could Matt say that stuff with a straight face?

“Y-yeah,” I whispered.

He rose and leaned against the towel rack. He slid his dick out of his pants and stroked it as he watched me.

“Get me ready,” he said. “Get yourself ready, too.”

I crouched and fumbled with the stuff under the sink. Spare toilet paper, Windex, razor cartridges. Fuck, f**k, f**k … I used to have lube under here.

I was already panting, and I heard Matt chuckle behind me.

“You look good down there, Hannah.”

Finally, I found my small bottle of JO Premium.

I shuffled over to Matt, unable to meet his gaze. I wondered if I would ever feel confident in moments like this. My confidence—my sense of sexiness—seemed to come and go on a whim. And it was decidedly gone whenever Matt held the reins.

“Go on,” he said. He pushed down his pants and kicked them aside. “I would tell you to look at me, but right now…” His strong hand cupped my cheek. “Right now, you’re turning me on like this, with your blush … your lowered eyes. So shy sometimes, Hannah.”

My hands shook as I squirted lube into my palm and began spreading it over Matt’s shaft. He went on stroking my face and talking to me calmly. God, if only I could quit blushing and quaking like a mouse—but the way Matt drew attention to my nerves only made me more nervous. Maybe that was the point.

“In fact,” he said, his voice thick with desire, “don’t look at me this time. Keep your eyes lowered, and don’t speak—unless you want me to stop.”

I nodded. I spread the lube generously over Matt’s cock, from base to tip, because I knew that daunting length had to go inside me.

“Mm … you’re so good, Hannah. Now yourself. Turn around so I can watch.”

I trembled with anticipation and arousal. I turned and began rubbing lube against my anus, willing the clenched muscle to relax.

“Inside,” he prompted.

I swallowed. Right, inside.

I’d done this before, first on Matt’s birthday and once after that. We didn’t make a habit of it. It was a rare treat for both of us, and Matt insisted we exercise great caution.

I lubed up a finger and slowly pressed it into my backside. I kept my eyes lowered. Behind me, Matt moaned.

“I could get off just watching this,” he whispered.

I could get off to you watching this.

I spread the lube inside and outside again, and I braced my hands on the sink. I gasped when I felt Matt’s fingers between my legs.

“So wet,” he murmured. “You love to do this for me. You love to do it for yourself.”

He reached for the lube, his forearm moving on the periphery of my vision.

The little opening of the bottle pressed against my anus.

“I think you need more inside,” Matt said. His tone was mocking. He squeezed the bottle and a thick strip of lubricant squirted into my bottom. I jerked. It was cold and felt so strange, and so … “Good,” I moaned.

Matt’s hand hit my ass with a slap. I yelped.

“That was for speaking. Now, Hannah, nod if you’re ready.”

I gave a little nod. God, was I ever ready.

He spread my cheeks and poised his head at my entrance. I inhaled and exhaled deep from my belly, bending forward and controlling my breath the way I did in yoga. My body relaxed by degrees. The aromatic bathwater and steamy, low-lit bathroom helped.