I freeze a little at his words, and I want to disagree. No, I’d say. No, it’s not time. I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even want to think about it.

But I can’t say that. Because even though I’d rather run out the coffee shop door, I know he’s right. It is time. And he deserves to know what happened.

“How long have you known?” I ask. “About the night of the party, I mean.”

“Technically, no time at all. I’m just making guesses here. But after I met him—after I learned how old he was when he got burned—I put it together. There was an accident that night, wasn’t there?”

Frowning, I hug myself. “Accident,” I say, the word bitter on my tongue. “That’s just too clean a word for what happened.”

“Hey, hey.” His voice has dropped to the gentlest of whispers, and I don’t realize why until he leans across the table with his napkin and gently brushes the soft skin under my eyes.

I manage a watery smile in thanks, and then try to clear my head enough so that I can tell the story. But I’m not having much luck.

“Let’s walk,” he says, rising and coming around the table to pull out my chair.

I grab my purse and stand, tilting my head up as I do. “Are you taking care of me, Mr. Segel? Or should I call you Mr. Royce?”

“Call me Wyatt, and yes.” He takes my hand, and leads me out the door. I expect him to release me once we’re outside, but he doesn’t. I realize that I’m glad, and it’s not because I crave his touch—though it’s true that the memory of his fingers on me during the photo shoot keeps teasing me.

No, what I crave is his support. His strength. And even though I know I’m playing with fire, right now I will eagerly cling to him.

As we walk across the parking lot, I expect him to ask me again about what happened to Griffin. But he doesn’t. He’s silent, his hand firm in mine, as if he’s giving me both strength and time.

In that moment, I remember the thing that I loved most about him. The way he’d take care of me and support me. He treated me like I was special. Like my wants and dreams mattered.

All these years, I’ve thought of him as dangerous. But maybe he wasn’t the danger at all. Maybe the danger was all inside me.

We reach Blue, and as we walk beside her, I run my fingers over her waxed surface, then stop and lean against the hood. Wyatt releases my hand and stands in front of me, his hands sliding into his pockets.

“He gave her to me,” I say without preamble.

“The car?”

“I call her Blue.”

He eyes the Mustang and nods, his eyes bright with amusement. “Not the most original name, but it suits her.”

“It does,” I say defensively. “It’s a perfectly good name.”

He holds his hands up in surrender. “The best name. And Griff gave her to you? She’s gorgeous.”

“He found her in a junk yard, did the restoration work himself, then gave her to me for my twenty-fifth birthday. I—”

I break off because tears are threatening again, and I refuse to cry.

“I totally baby her,” I continue when I’m sure I’m not going to start weeping again. “Griff says I baby her too much, actually. That I need to put her through her paces on the highway or in the desert or something. He thinks I need to cut loose.”

“Maybe you should. Sounds fun.”

“Maybe.”

“Then why don’t you?”

I lift a shoulder, but I don’t answer. I don’t really need to. Even though he says nothing, I’m certain Wyatt knows that I don’t cut loose that often. As in, pretty much never.

I push away from the car and start walking again. “At any rate,” I say as Wyatt falls in step beside me, “he’s so good to me. Like the best brother in the history of brothers. And I know it’s hard for him—just every day stuff, you know—but he hardly ever complains, and he’d do anything for me. I mean, he does do anything for me. And it’s wonderful, but it’s horrible, too, because—”

I stumble on the words, my throat clogged with unshed tears and my heart racing from the emotional weight of everything I’m saying.

I draw a breath and force myself to finish the sentence I’d just left hanging. “Because it’s all my fault.”

Wyatt doesn’t look like he believes me, but to his credit he doesn’t try to tell me that I’m wrong. Instead, he just listens as I tell him the whole story.

He already knows about the party, of course, and I explain about Griffin, and how he wanted to make s’mores and melt the marshmallows over the fire pit.

“I never thought he would without me,” I say, my throat tight with the memory of that night. Of my father telling me so brutally about what Griffin had done. Telling me it was my fault because I’d left him. Because I’d gone off to whore myself out.

Telling me that my brother might die because I’d been bad.

And me believing it, because of course he was right.

I lick my lips as we reach the sidewalk in front of the studio. I want to keep walking, but there are shoppers out this morning, and I’m feeling raw and exposed.

“Is there a class?” Wyatt asks, nodding toward the studio and obviously reading my mind.

“Not for two more hours. But Anita—the next teacher—usually comes in an hour early.”

“Then we have time.” He reaches for my purse without asking and pulls out the studio key, then opens the door for me. He follows me in, locks the door, and looks around. A moment later, he’s dragged out one of the tumbling mats used for the early morning Mommy-Baby classes. He spreads it out, gestures for me to sit, then joins me.

“I’m going to guess Griffin decided to make those s’mores.”

“He still likes them,” I say. “I can’t look at one without feeling sick.”

“What did he do?”

“After I left, he tried to light the fire pit, but he didn’t know how. And he turned on the propane, but couldn’t get the igniter to work. So he got gasoline from the garden shed. Which was bad enough by itself, but he also didn’t turn off the propane.”

Wyatt winces, and I press my lips together as I nod.

“He used a match,” Wyatt says softly.

“The flame jumped. At least that’s how he describes it. The firemen say the propane was concentrated around the fire pit because there was no wind. But he had some gas on his hand, and then it caught the sleeve of his shirt.”

“Long sleeves for a chilly night,” Wyatt says. “Even in the summer.”

“That’s all he remembers. The firemen say there was a cloud of flame. He must have turned, because it got his right arm and back and shoulder, and also that side of his face. He doesn’t have the outer part of his ear. Did you see?”

Wyatt shakes his head. His silence is solemn.

“It burned off a chunk of his face. He was lucky it missed most of his scalp, so he’s still got his hair. But it burned him so much. And so deep. All the way down to the bone. He lost his pinkie—you saw that. They had to amputate it.”

“That’s not uncommon with fourth-degree burns,” Wyatt says, and I must look surprised because he adds, “I did some volunteer photography work at a clinic years ago. I saw a lot.”

“Then you get it. At least some of it. How horrible it is now. How terrifying and painful it was then. And it all happened because I wasn’t there. I was—”

I cut myself off; he nods. “You were with me.”

I wipe away an errant tear and nod miserably. “Losing my virginity while Griffin almost lost his life.”

He moves beside me and puts his arm around me. I rest my head on his shoulder and close my eyes as he strokes my hair and my back. “I get it,” he says softly. “I do. But it wasn’t your fault.”

“It wouldn’t have happened if I’d stayed.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. But that only makes it horrible. It doesn’t mean you’re to blame. Me either, for that matter.”

I pull back, surprised.

He exhales. “You must have blamed me, too. At least a little bit.”

“Did I? I don’t think so.” And the truth is, I didn’t. I made the decision to go. I broke the rules. I was a bad girl, just like my dad said. Wyatt was just being Wyatt. He tempted me, sure. But I’m the one who left my baby brother alone.

I look at him. “If you’re thinking that I didn’t call you because I was mad at you, that wasn’t it. At first, I was scared. And in trouble. I didn’t have phone privileges for months.”

I hug my knees to my chest, remembering those awful days, my head filling with the memory of the sickly sweet smell of the burn ward, a combination of infection, flesh, and sterilization chemicals.

“I pretty much lived in the hospital. And even when I could call—well, how could I hold onto something good in my life when I was the one who did such a horrible thing?”

He takes my hand and squeezes it. “I get that. I do.”

“I’m sorry. Truly. I never thought that me not calling would hurt you. I was too wrapped up in me. And later, when I did think about you, I was too ashamed to call.”

His thumb brushes the back of my hand, the gentle sensation soothing me. “You thought about me?” he asks, and though there is a teasing lilt to his voice, I think I hear a whisper of hope.

“Yes,” I admit, my mouth going dry as I meet his eyes. “All the time.”

I see a flare of heat in the pale gold of his eyes and wonder what I’ve ignited. But I’m proud of myself too. It’s not exactly wild and crazy, but as far as cutting loose goes, that revelation might count as among my personal best.

“Me, too,” he says, and I feel a nice little squeeze around my heart. “And you should know, I did try to find you. I even called your school, but you were gone.”

“You did?”

He shrugs as if it was no big deal, when to me it’s huge. “You said that first day that I didn’t come after you. I guess I just wanted you to know that I tried.”

“Thank you,” I whisper.

For a moment, we just sit like that. Then he clears his throat and asks, “So how did you find out? About the fire, I mean.”

“My dad. He found the address to the party. I’d left it in the pocket of my jeans. He walked in while you were getting me a soda. He called me a—a whore. He told me what happened.”

“That lousy son-of-a-bitch.” The anger in his voice is as sharp as a blade.

“And he said it was my fault. That I was bad, just like my mother had been, and because of that my brother almost died.”

“Oh, baby.” He takes my shoulders and turns me so that I’m facing him. “It wasn’t your fault. You have to know that. And you weren’t bad. You were a teenager. You went out. You disobeyed your parents, yeah. But Griffin was old enough to stay on his own. You coming to the party isn’t the cause. And that’s true even if we had a crystal ball and could prove he’d have been fine if you’d stayed with him.”

I nod, sniffling. “I know all that. I do. Really. It’s just—”

I shrug, then tell him what I so often tell myself. “Knowing it and believing it are two different things.”

He makes a scoffing sound. “Your dad did one hell of a number on you.”

I try to smile, but don’t quite manage. “He had a lot of time to perfect the skill.”

“I knew he was strict in Santa Barbara, but I didn’t know—”

“It’s because of my mom. My real mom, not Tessa. She had an affair. And I guess she and the guy were driving somewhere. And there was an accident when I was two. They both died, and the driver of the other car was also killed.”

“And as you grew up, your dad told you that the accident happened and all those people died because your mom was bad. That she was a whore.”

I conjure an ironic smile. “It’s like you were sitting right next to me.”

“All the more reason for you to come be my model.”

I stretch my legs out in front of me and lean back, propped up by my arms. “How do you figure?”

“You say you get it. That you know your dad was full of it. You just don’t believe it.”

“So?”

“So let me help you believe it. You work for me and you’ll be cutting loose by definition. I mean, it may be art, but you’re still going to take your clothes off.”

I laugh. “Gee. You’re so convincing.”

“And you get to dance. And you get the money. All that’s good, right?”

I nod, then frown as something else occurs to me. “You really didn’t know why we left town? You didn’t hear about the fire?”

“Not a thing. I left for Boston soon after, but I’m not sure I would have heard even if I stayed. The house didn’t burn, right?”

“No. Griffin bore it all.”

“That’s part of it, then. It probably made the news, but I didn’t bother reading the papers. And that wasn’t a neighborhood that would have been on my radar.”

“Nobody mentioned it at the club?”

“Not that I heard, but I mostly kept to myself. And I only went back a couple of times after you dropped off the planet.”

“I really am so sorry.”

He stands, then reaches a hand down. I take it, then laugh when he pulls me up so quickly I end up pressed against him, his arm around my waist.

“How sorry are you?” he asks, his voice rumbling through me.

“Wyatt . . .” His name is a protest. It’s also the only sound I can manage. Because I’m desperately fighting the urge to lean into him and let him close his arms around me and simply hold me tight.

“I’m just saying that if you think you owe me, you can always offer compensation by way of doing my show.”

Immediately, I relax. And when I tilt my head up to look at him, I see him looking back with equal amusement.

“It’s true that I tend to be highly motivated by guilt,” I admit. “But I’m also working hard to fight that impulse.”

“Don’t fight it,” he says as he takes a step back. “Listen to your brother. He seems like a smart guy. Go a little wild, Ms. Draper. Cut loose. Take a risk.”

“Is that what you are? A risk?”

“Risk, reward. I’m pretty sure the two are tied together.”

I grimace, but mostly because I don’t have a snappy comeback.

“Seriously,” he says. “You’re just going to ignore your little brother’s advice? Your poor brother Griffin?”

Now, I laugh. “You’re terrible. You know that, right?”

“Terrible, but also brilliant. Give me your purse.”

“What? No.”

“Fine. Then just give me your keys.”

“Wyatt . . .”

He holds his hand out, palm up. “Come on. Hand them over.”

“Why?”

“I think you know why.” He wiggles his fingers. “Come on, Kelsey. Snails move faster than this. Just give me the keys.”

I do. I have no idea why, but I do.

“All right,” he says, dangling them from his fingers as he grabs my hand with his free one. “Let’s go.”