“I didn’t enjoy the blowing up part,” she finally says.

“What was it like?”

“Full system shutdown. I just blacked out.”

“We can’t get some of the most powerful sedatives in the world to work on you when you’re triggered, but at the first sign of a major trauma, you just black out? How does that work?”

“I wish I knew.”

“I don’t suppose they told you.”

“They shared some test results with me. They were general.”

“What does that mean?”

“Their working theory is my whole body basically went through what a muscle goes through in the gym. It gets traumatized, and it grows back, possibly a little healthier, they’re not sure. Only thanks to Zypraxon it happened almost instantly and all over my body.”

“Healthier . . . how?” he asks.

“Red and white blood cell counts are a little better than they were before. Resting blood oxygen levels are improved, like I’ve done a bunch of cardio. Same with resting heart rate. Everything just . . . a little bit better. That’s how they put it.”

“Well, if you factor in that all of those things should have been knocked way off-balance by your injuries, it’s more than just a little bit.”

“True,” she says.

He averts his eyes, releases her from his embrace. He starts cleaning the head of the clippers, a tense set to his jaw.

“What?” she finally asks.

“I guess we just have to trust them. I mean, that’s the deal you made, right?”

“Yeah, it’s the deal I made. I’m sorry if I didn’t consult you first. I—”

“No, no, Charley, I didn’t mean to sound like that. I just . . .”

“What? You can tell me anything . . . right?”

Even though I can’t tell you everything, she realizes. Wow. Walked right into that one. But he doesn’t take the opening.

“Some things happened while you were gone. Not as big as what you went through, but . . .”

“But what?”

“They’re making me wonder about the deals Cole made to get all this stuff going.”

“Which stuff?” she asks.

“The tunnel. The resort.”

“Well, those are good things, right?”

“Sure. But . . . So I brought in Jordy Clements last night because his girlfriend said he beat her up. Cole called my cell phone and told me to let him go. I’d only had the guy in holding for a few minutes.”

“That isn’t petty. That’s . . . weird. Did he say why?”

“He said I was making mountains out of molehills.”

“OK. Did you point out that he’s currently developing a drug that could allow women to protect themselves against violence and meanwhile he’s telling you to let a guy free who just beat up his girlfriend?”

“No.”

“Why not? That’s exactly the kind of thing you’d say.”

“The old me, maybe. The new me doesn’t want to make things worse for you. With him. He said you were recovering. I didn’t know what that meant. I just didn’t want to be an inconvenience.”

“That’s not a word I’d ever use to describe you.”

“You know what I mean. I’ve got a mouth on me,” he says quietly.

She kisses the mouth in question. “Thank God.”

“You’re using sex to distract me from my feelings.”

“Do you mind?”

“Not really, no.”

He returns the gentle kiss she gives him with a more powerful one of his own. Then, just when she feels herself rocking forward onto the balls of her feet, he pulls away. “You think I could have said that to him?” he asks.

“What? The irony thing?”

“Yeah. I mean, am I allowed to say anything to him?”

“He called you, right?”

“To tell me you were OK and to give me an order. I mean, he didn’t call to discuss sports.”

“I don’t think he’s into sports.”

“That’s homophobic.”

“No, I just don’t think he’s into anything that doesn’t involve billions of dollars and some form of light world domination.”

“Light world domination? That’s cute. Does it say that on the bottle?”

“I’ve never seen his pantry. I’m assuming it’s spotless and white. Look, you’ve met him, all right? I have no idea what the guy does for fun besides . . .”

“Run our lives.”

“He doesn’t run our lives.”

“Charley.”

“He runs a few weeks of our lives out of every few months.”

“A few weeks? You were gone for over a month.”

“Yeah, well, most of that was prep.”

“All right, careful. Don’t tell me too much that’s top secret.”

Because you don’t want me in trouble with Cole, she thinks, or you don’t want to hear about the game unless you can play, too?

“I’m just saying. When I’m on an operation, he runs our lives. When I’m home, we run each other’s lives.”

“Good.”