Kellen stopped. I knew he was looking at me, but I couldn’t look back.

“Are you okay?” he said.

I nodded but the tears I’d been holding back escaped. He jerked out of me, as painful as the going in.

“Oh, Jesus, Wavy. You waited for me?”

“Who else?” I said.

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry. I didn’t think you’d wait for me. I never thought—after all that mess, I never thought you’d want me. You didn’t come to my parole hearings, and I figured I’d ruined everything.”

He was pulling away from me, but I dug in, my nails into his shoulders, my heels into his thighs.

“Hold on tight. Don’t let go.” I learned that from him.

“I’m hurting you, though. And we shouldn’t be doing this. You don’t under—”

“Yes.” I held him tighter, reached between us, found him sticky and still hard. He groaned when I pressed him into me. I only had to guide him there and he stopped arguing. My stomach clenched and my legs shook when he sank into me. Kellen stopped again.

I clawed at his back.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

“All the way.”

He started again, slowly, and as much as it hurt, I could see how eventually it would stop hurting. The next time and the time after. Given enough time there would be burning pleasure where my softness and his hardness met.

In the end he was pounding into me, panting, saying my name. I was lying on the tracks under a train I was in love with. To not cry, I sank my teeth into his chest. I was a vampire and he had invited me in. He moaned and for a moment all of his weight was on me. Between my legs was an expanse of pain, but my lungs burned with pleasure, breathing him in.

After, his eyes were full of me. I’d imagined he would have so many things to say, but he only lay beside me and looked at me. He was thinking of other ways for me to be his. The ring was on my finger, and I waited for him to see it and remember the one way I already belonged to him.

“Wavy, what are we doing? What am I supposed to do?”

“You love me?” Hearing him say it was like stolen food, to stuff in my mouth when no one was looking. If he said it a hundred times, I would ask him to say it again.

“I love you. I love you with my whole heart.” He took my hand, pressed it to his chest, and saw the ring.

The front door opened—click, swoosh—and filled his eyes with other things than me. Anxiety. Obligation. Guilt.

“Jesse? Are you h—” A woman’s voice, then a puff of air, surprise. I hadn’t just invaded Kellen. I’d invaded his home. As the woman crossed the kitchen floor, he stood and pulled up his pants. I stayed where he left me on the bed. We were that way when the woman walked in.

“I’m sorry, Beth.” Kellen fastened his pants while she watched. Orion’s belt buckled again. Always someone to walk in on us.

“Do you love her?” I said.

He didn’t make me wait for the answer: “No.”

Beth’s mouth twisted, angry and hurt, but she didn’t say, “Liar.”

Kellen loved me. Only me. I stood up naked in my boots, something hot running down the inside of my leg. I wasn’t embarrassed. I didn’t care what anyone but Kellen thought.

“Who the hell are you?” Beth said.

“Wavy.” As soon as I said it, I knew he hadn’t told the woman about me. She didn’t even know who I was.

9

KELLEN

The way her bare shoulders stiffened, I knew what it looked like. There I was living with some woman who didn’t even know about Wavy. All I’d meant to do was protect her. It didn’t seem fair to say her name to anybody.

“You fucking pedophile,” Beth said. “You said it was a mistake. One time, you piece of shit. That’s what gets you off? Little girls? I ought to call the cops. I swear. How old is she?”

“Twenty-one,” Wavy said.

In a couple months she would be, but seeing her naked in broad daylight for only the second time, I didn’t blame Beth for thinking the worst. Wavy was almost as small as she’d been at thirteen. She was all long legs and narrow in the hips. Her tits were perfect, but not even big enough to fill my mouth, let alone my hands. She hadn’t hardly grown at all. Did it make me a pervert that I still thought she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen? Did it make me less of a pervert that twenty and thirteen looked the same on her? When I had her in my arms, none of that mattered.

“Like hell you’re twenty-one,” Beth sneered. “Let me give you some advice, little girl. This is his thing. Whatever he told you, he doesn’t love you. He just wants your little hairless twat.”

Wavy laughed. I almost did, too, except Beth glared hard enough to stop me.

“This is her. Wavy’s the girl I went up for,” I said.

“You did six years for her? God, how old was she, you creep? She doesn’t look old enough to get a driver’s license now. You’re so goddamn stupid, Jesse. You want to ruin your life, go ahead, but don’t think I’ll lie to your parole officer for you. Get out.”

Beth went back into the kitchen and I pulled my duffel bag out of the closet and shoved clothes into it, with Wavy watching me.

“Get dressed, sweetheart,” I said.

“Yeah, get dressed you crazy little bitch.” Beth walked back into the bedroom and tossed Wavy’s clothes on the bed. “Goddamn, my new sheets, too.”