An hour later, Penny lay curled against Caleb on his sad, lumpy mattress in his sad, drab room in his sad, gross house. What kind of life is this? she wondered as she listened to his breathing slow and deepen. There was nothing joyful or beautiful in this place to brighten his life. He didn’t even seem to have friends to distract him. It was like he was living in exile in a self-imposed prison. Doing nothing but working and exercising and saving his money until he was sprung from his incarceration.

Now that she’d seen how dreary his life was, it was easy to understand why seeing her had been the brightest part of his days. It wasn’t that she was all that special, it was that everything else was so awful in comparison. He must be counting the days until he could leave this place and start his new life.

He let out a soft snore and she smiled, marveling that he managed to be sexy even while snoring and drooling a little out of one side of his mouth. Moving carefully, so as not to disturb him, she unwound herself from the heavy arm draped over her and slipped out of bed. She padded over to his closet and slid open the louvered door. Inside, all the shirts she’d gazed at lustfully over the months hung on cheap wire hangers. She ran her fingers over them until she found her favorite, the red plaid flannel he’d been wearing the day he dumped iced coffee all over Kenneth. She pulled it off the hanger and put it on. It fit her surprisingly well—one of the many benefits of sleeping with a man who lifted weights. Kenneth’s puny shirts hadn’t even fit her arms, much less her bust.

She wandered over to Caleb’s desk as she buttoned up the borrowed shirt. There was no chair, so she sat on the edge of the mattress as she peered at the stacks of books covering the surface of the desk. The nearest stack was all from the library—mostly science fiction with a couple of thrillers scattered in. There was a pile of imposing biology and anatomy textbooks at the back that had gathered a fine layer of dust. The rest of the books were more eclectic, their spines creased and the corners well-worn as if they’d been read over and over again. She studied them, hoping for some kind of window into Caleb’s soul. His tastes ran the gamut from Edgar Allen Poe and Fritz Leiber to Michael Chabon, Margaret Atwood, and John Le Carré. It was difficult to draw any conclusions other than he had good taste in literature.

A single framed picture perched at the back of the desk, partially hidden behind all the books. It was the only photo in the entire room. A group of smiling kids beamed out of the frame from the shore of a lake somewhere. She picked it up to study it more closely, searching the faces to see if one of them was Caleb. She found him standing off to one side. A teenager by the looks of it, but several years older than the other kids.

“Hey,” Caleb said behind her, his voice husky and sleep-roughened. “What are you doing?”

Penny turned toward him, clutching the photo against her chest. “Snooping,”

“Ah.” He propped himself up on one elbow. His hair was all lopsided and sticking up, and he looked just as sexy as when he’d been snoring. “Find anything interesting?”

“Not really. You’re so secretive, I was hoping for something juicier.”

He actually had the nerve to look affronted. “I’m not secretive.”

“Yes! You are! I barely know anything about you, you never talk about yourself—or anyone else for that matter—and wrangling an invitation to your house was like extracting a tooth from a grumpy bear.”

“I thought it was pretty obvious why I didn’t want to invite you over here.”

“Okay, fine. But the rest of it still stands.”

He stretched out his arm and ran his fingers along her thigh, dipping them under the hem of the shirt she’d borrowed from him. “What do you want to know?”

Refusing to be distracted by his wandering fingers, she held out the photo. “Tell me about this.”

He sat up with a sigh and took it from her, adjusting the pillow behind his back. “That’s Camp Northbrook. I was a counselor there for three summers in high school.”

“Why is it the only picture you have in your room?”

He shrugged and handed it back to her. “I don’t know. The others are all back at my parents’ place.”

“See, that’s what I mean,” Penny said. “You don’t want to talk about things.”

“I don’t know what you want to hear.”

“I just want to understand you.” She thrust the picture back at him. “This photo is the only one you didn’t leave behind. There must be something special about it.”

He stared at the photo with an inscrutable expression. “I guess it’s one of the last places I remember being really happy.”

She scooched closer and crossed her legs underneath her. “Why?”

“We moved a lot, so I never really made close friends at school or felt like I fit in. But at camp, everyone was just there for the summer, so everyone was new. It’s a camp for special needs kids, and most of them were really excited to be there. Seeing how much harder they worked to do things most of us take for granted really gives you a sense of perspective. I guess they showed me what kind of man I wanted to be—which was something my father never did.”

“That’s why you’re going to med school.” The realization raised a lump in the back of Penny’s throat. “It’s not because of your father, it’s because of them. Because you want to be able to help them.”

“I guess. I never thought of it like that, but maybe.” He shoved the photo back at her. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“Yes.” She leaned over and kissed him softly on the lips. “That wasn’t too terrible, was it?”

His hand smoothed over her curls. She hadn’t straightened her hair in a week. “Not too terrible, no.”

“Wonder of wonders. Caleb Mayhew talked about himself and didn’t die. And now I feel like I finally know something real about you.” She set the photo back on the desk and selected a Neil Gaiman hardback from the top of a stack. “Tell me about this next.”

He regarded it dubiously. “You want a book report?”

“No, I want to know what you like about it. I assume you like it, since it’s one of only a dozen books you seem to own.”

“I have crates of books at home. I just didn’t want to lug them all around with me.”

“So why do you lug around this one?” She flipped it open and a piece of paper that had been tucked between the pages fluttered to the floor. “Oops.” She stooped to pick it up. It was a letter from the University of Mississippi billing office about the tuition deposit deadline. “You haven’t paid your bill yet?”

He leaned over and snatched it out of her hand. “I will.”

“The letter says it’s already overdue.”

He sat up on the edge of the bed, covering himself with the sheets, and shoved the letter in his desk drawer. “There’s a grace period.”

“Which ends in a week.”

“You read all that in the half-second you were looking at it?”

“I’m a fast reader.” Penny frowned. “Is the money a problem?”

“No, I’ve got the money.” His face was turned away from her, so she couldn’t read his expression. Not that she’d have been able to read it anyway.

“Why haven’t you paid your bill?”

“Laziness. I’ll get to it.” He shot her an exasperated look. “Would you like to see my electric bill next, or can we talk about something more interesting?”

“You haven’t started packing yet.”

“So? I’ve got two and a half weeks.”

“I’d have started packing a month in advance.” Two months in advance, even.

He cracked a faint smile. “Yeah, but we both know you’re a freak about things like that. And I don’t have that much stuff. It’ll take me two hours, tops.”

“Still.”

He sat back on the bed and pulled her into his arms, tucking her head under his chin. “Tell me something about you now.”

“Like what?”

“Tell me about your family.” His fingertips stroked a path down her arm, and she let her eyes fall closed.

“My family are really boring.”

“Boring families are nice. Do you like them?”

“Yes. They drive me crazy sometimes, but they’re my family. I love them.”

“Liking them and loving them aren’t the same thing.”

“No, it’s not.” She gave his arm an affectionate squeeze. “But I like them too.”

“You’re close?”

“I’m really close to my parents. My brothers and sisters…” She thought about her brother who only seemed to care about football, and her sisters who only ever talked about their kids and their husbands. “We don’t have as much in common.”

“What’s your dad like?” Caleb’s voice had grown soft, and it rumbled pleasantly under her ear.

“Quiet. Kind. Nerdy. His favorite TV show is Jeopardy, and he looks forward to his Times Sunday crossword all week. When I’m home we do it together.”

Homesickness burned at the back of her throat as she pictured her dad bent over the kitchen table with his reading glasses on, chewing the cap of his ballpoint pen while her mother cooked breakfast.

Penny FaceTimed with her mother almost every week, but her father didn’t like to talk on the phone. Occasionally, he’d wander through the room when her mother was talking to her and say hi, but video calls made him even more uncomfortable than the phone. Instead, he sent Penny long weekly emails touching on a range of topics, including politics, the antics of their neighbors, the latest documentary he’d watched on TV, and any new bird sightings he’d made on his morning walks.

Caleb smoothed a hand over her hair and she burrowed deeper into his arms. “He tells lots of dad jokes,” she said, smiling faintly. “He’s really big into the dad jokes.”

“What’s he do for a living?”

“He’s a chemical engineer too.”

“You wanted to be like him.”

“I wanted to be like both my parents, but a chemical engineering major seemed more lucrative than English. Also, I didn’t want to have to write all those papers.”

“You said your mom’s a teacher, right?”

“High school English and German.”

“Ich spreche ein bisschen Deutsch,” he said in an impressive German accent.

Penny looked up, surprised. “You speak German?”

He shrugged. “Just enough to get me in trouble. We lived in Germany when I was in middle school.”

“My mom would love you. She’d talk to you in nothing but German.” Between this and his taste in books, she’d be calling him “son” within ten minutes of meeting him.

Except her mother would never meet him. Penny hadn’t even told her parents he existed. What was the point, when he’d be out of her life soon? No sense getting her mother’s hopes up, only to crush them again. She wouldn’t approve of what Penny was doing, anyway. She’d think she was setting herself up to get hurt. Which was exactly what she was doing.

Penny’s throat squeezed again and Caleb kissed the top of her head. “Your parents sound nice.”

“They are.”

“You must miss them.”

“It was hard moving here, so far away from them.”

“Why did you?”

She shook her head. “It’s your turn again.” He’d finally struck on something she didn’t want to talk about.

“Penelope.” He put a finger under her jaw and tilted her face toward his. “Why did you move out here? If you telework anyway, why move so far away from your family?”

She lowered her eyes, embarrassed. “For a man.”

“What happened?”

“I thought I was in love. So when he wanted to move here to pursue acting, I followed him—stupidly, as it turned out. He moved out here ahead of me while I was still waiting for my telework application to be approved. I was so excited. It was supposed to be the start of our new lives together. But when I got out here a couple months later, I found out he’d started seeing someone else. An actress, of course.” Penny still couldn’t believe that Brendon had let her move out here instead of breaking up with her before she disrupted her entire life for him. Even that one small consideration had been too much for him. “He dumped me a month after I got here.” She felt Caleb go still, and flinched in anticipation of his pity. “Don’t feel sorry for me. I hate it when people feel sorry for me.”

“I don’t.” He lifted her chin again and regarded her steadily. “I feel sorry for that asshole who didn’t know how lucky he was to have you.” There wasn’t a trace of pity in his soft brown eyes. Only affection.

“Now you’re just sucking up.”

“I’m serious. Any guy who’d cheat on you must not be working with a fully charged battery. Including that loser Kenneth.”

Penny sighed and laid her head down on his chest. “Unfortunately, cheating boyfriends are a recurring theme in my life.”

“So why didn’t you move back home?” Caleb asked, changing the subject.

“Stubbornness.” Her fingers toyed with the light dusting of hair on his chest. “Running back to Virginia with my tail between my legs would have been admitting to everyone I’d made a mistake. I wanted to prove I could make it on my own in a new city.”

Penny had promised herself she’d give it two years. That was long enough that she wouldn’t look like a quitter. After two years in Los Angeles, she could consider applying for a supervisory position back in DC. Or maybe even transfer to Dallas. There was a satellite office there now that was always looking for Chem-Es. She could start over in a new city of her own choosing this time.

“Do you still regret moving here?”

“Not so much. It’s better now that I’ve made friends.”

“But you still miss your family.”

She nodded against his chest. “Every day.”

He tightened his arm around her, and she nuzzled her face into his throat. When he held her like this she didn’t feel homesick at all. She felt like she was exactly where she belonged.

“I couldn’t wait to get away from my family,” Caleb said quietly. “I know this place is a dump, but the fact that it’s not on an army post and my dad is a hundred and sixty miles away makes it feel like a resort.”

Penny lifted her head and touched his cheek. “I guess that’s why you don’t have any pictures of your family.”

His jaw tightened. “I do have one, actually. I just don’t have it sitting out.” He shifted her off him and got up. She was afraid she’d upset him until he started rifling through a drawer in the desk. He pulled out another framed photo and handed it to her.

It was from Caleb’s high school graduation. He wore a serious expression with his navy blue gown and National Honor Society collar. His two younger brothers flanked him in ties, looking miserable. Caleb’s father stood a little to one side in his uniform, glowering at the camera. The only one smiling was Caleb’s mother, standing rigidly at the other end of the photo. She was small-boned and petite, with perfectly coiffed hair. None of his family were touching or standing close. They were lined up like grim little soldiers, their postures ramrod straight and their hands at their sides.

“Your dad does look a little like Colonel Kurtz,” she said.

“You said you hadn’t seen Apocalypse Now.”

“I looked it up on Wikipedia.”

Caleb took the photo from her and stared at it. His lips compressed into a taut line. “My dad’s not quiet or kind like yours.”

She slid her fingers into his hand and bit down on her lip to keep herself from asking anything more.

His fingers curled around hers. “He likes to give orders and expects everyone to follow. All that matters is what he wants. If you don’t live up to his expectations, he blows up.”

“He was abusive.” It wasn’t a question. Whether or not his father had laid a hand on him, it was clear Caleb had been left with deep scars.

There was a long silence, during which the only sound was his uneven breathing. She stroked her thumb over his knuckles, trying to soothe some of the tension away.

“Yes,” he said finally. He shook his head like he was trying to shake off the memories. “It could have been worse though. Lots of people have it worse.”

Very gently, Penny took the photo from him and studied it more closely. “You don’t look anything like your father.”

Caleb grimaced. “That’s not what my mother says.”

“You look more like a young Zac Efron in this photo. And Zac Efron could never play Colonel Kurtz. He’s got much too sweet of a face.”

She was rewarded with a faint smile. “Is that your roundabout way of trying to compliment me?”

“It’s not roundabout. Zac Efron is an international heartthrob.”

“Is that an official title? Is there some sort of nomination process or a panel of judges that bestow international heartthrob status?”

She leaned forward and gave him a slow, lingering kiss. His hands came up to cup her face, holding her gingerly. Like she might shatter if he held on too tightly.

Orange afternoon light slanted in through the blinds, picking up the highlights in Caleb’s hair and bathing his skin in a golden glow. He was so beautiful she couldn’t believe he was real.

He was a hero from a Greek myth come to life and somehow she had made him hers—but only for a little while. Their story wasn’t a fairy tale, or even one of Shakespeare’s comedies where the couple winds up together in the end. They were a tragedy. Maybe not as tragic as Hamlet, where everybody dies, or Oedipus, who kicked off a whole cycle of misery and disaster. But they were tragic enough.

Penny knew, as certainly as she knew the sun would set in the west, that she was going to be shattered when Caleb left. And she had no one to blame but herself.