I got dressed in my jeans and put on my other T-shirt, cleaner but barely. I’d have to see about laundry. I grabbed my phone from the bedside table, but there was no service.

Figures. Satellite, really? This felt like a step back in time.

I shoved my feet into my boots and stepped out of the apartment. Pest made a break for the door, but I didn’t let her out, not without knowing where those other dogs were.

“Sorry, girl,” I said and heard her whining from the other side of the wooden door. The outside air smelled like pine needles and sunshine and something else on the breeze. Something with a bite.

Standing on the small deck at the top of the stairs, I held my phone up, but still there was no service. I took the stairs down to the parking area and got one bar, but it flickered in and out. It would be nice to just go hide out in that apartment, waiting for Beth to come back so we could have sex again. But Simon was undoubtedly freaking out, especially if he’d seen the news with Beth’s mom looking for me.

I also needed to call Paul and quit.

Shit to do, man. I couldn’t have sex and live on the run forever.

I smiled thinking it, and that I accredited to the sex. How did people get anything done? How was the whole human population not just holed up and fucking each other constantly?

Simon always said I didn’t know what I was missing, but I’d sort of thought about sex the same way I thought about cheesecake. Could it really be that good?

Now I was going to have to try cheesecake just to see.

Because the sex stuff was pretty fucking amazing.

Even with all the weird shit Beth and I layered into it. This Jada thing I was compelled to hold on to like it might keep us safe? I wasn’t sure who I was kidding with that.

My shoes kicked the gravel of the parking area, and the dogs came barrelling out from around the house like I’d tripped a wire.

“Hey,” I said, slipping the phone back in my pocket. “Hey, guys. Nothing to get excited about.”

The oldest of the two took me at my word and flopped down, panting from all the excitement. But the young one with all the teeth kept growling out of her throat. Holding her ground.

Beth and Peter came out from around the house; Peter looked less menacing without the shotgun. But not much. He looked—no lie—like a hermit. Like Clint Eastwood playing a hermit in a movie about a hermit.

He and Beth with her Technicolor self were an unlikely combo.

Peter whistled, and the young dog sat back on her haunches but watched me out of the corner of her eye.

“Sorry about that,” Peter said.

“They’re just doing their job,” I said and stepped a little closer to the young one, my hand out for her to sniff. She did, reluctantly, but once she got a good nose full of my smell with her master next to her, she settled down. “I was trying to get a signal,” I said, pulling my phone from my back pocket.

“Yeah, the only for sure place for a signal is the back deck; otherwise you have to wait—”

“For the satellite, Beth told me.”

Peter nodded, his eyes on the dogs and the ground in front of my feet and not at all on me. “Follow me.” He waved me forward and started back around the house.

“You all right?” I asked Beth as I walked by her. She seemed so different in these clothes. Familiar and not, all at once. And she was tense, her shoulders around her ears.

“Fine,” she said with a quick smile that wasn’t convincing.

“Is it Peter?” I asked. “He’s not happy you brought me?”

“What makes you say that?”

I laughed a little. “Peter doesn’t look like the kind of guy who’s real happy to have unexpected visitors.”

“No, he’s fine. Just a little crusty is all.”

She still had that wide-eyed, darty look she used to get when she was freaked out about school or the Pastor getting wind of something someone had done.

“Is it…” I dropped my voice. “Did I hurt you?”

Her eyes were big and wide and so pretty they kicked me in the gut. She shook her head. “You didn’t hurt me.”

I touched her cheek, the side of her neck where it met her shirt. The freckle just below her ear. “I want—” I stopped, shook my head. It seemed wrong somehow to say what I wanted, to put it into words in the sunshine. Everything I wanted usually lived in darkness.

Wishes I never said out loud.

“What? What do you want?”

Everything. All at once. All the time.

“I want to touch you again.”

“Good,” she said. “Because I want to be touched.”

My blood beat hard in my veins, and her eyes dilated in the sunlight. If I touched her, she’d be wet. I knew she would be. Just like I was, beneath my zipper, hard as a rock at the thought of her.

She wanted what I wanted.

Me. Deep inside her. Now.

“I have to…” I whispered, lifting my phone. There were people worried. I couldn’t leave them worried.

“I know.”

“Go upstairs,” I said. “Wait for me.” Take off all your clothes and spread yourself across that bed. Take your hair down and make yourself ready.

That’s what I wanted to say, because I was a lit fuse all of a sudden, the control I’d lived under all my life crumbling around me.

“I’m coming with you,” she said, stepping back from my touch. “Peter’s... kind of tricky.”

I smiled at her diplomatic language. Tricky seemed like an understatement.

“You sure he doesn’t care that I’m here?”

“I’m sure.”

I sucked down a huge breath. Adjusted my cock in my pants. She saw it and grinned, and the air around us sizzled.

“Come upstairs,” I said, reaching for her hand to pull her away with me. “We can be fast.”

I could. I could be so fast. I could be embarrassingly fast. But she shook her head.

“Peter,” she sighed. Right. Of course. The guy was waiting for us on his porch. It was enough that we were going to fuck like rabbits above his garage. But to keep the guy waiting wasn’t cool.

“And I don’t want fast,” she said. “I want it to last and last and last.”

We could do that. I would fuck her until neither one of us could walk out of here. “Okay,” I said.

“Promise?”

“Oh, it’s a promise.”

I grabbed her hand and pulled her along behind me, following where Peter had gone.

The wooden deck, gray and splintered, led around the side of the house and then opened up over the edge of the mountain, and it was nothing but clear views of the hills beneath us and the ocean beyond that.

“Holy…wow,” I breathed, actually coming to a stop. Beth, in my wake, bounced into me and then chuckled.

“It’s impressive,” she said.

The Channel Islands were out there and the oil rigs, and it was beautiful. The forested hills beneath us rolled down into a small town, a sandy beach just there at the edge of the water.

“It’s amazing,” I said with a smile ghosting across my face. It was like a scene out of a book.

“You should get a signal out here,” Peter said from a deck chair where he was sitting, his dogs around him. A coffee mug on the railing. There was a newspaper in his lap.

A king on his retirement throne.

“Is this all your land?” I asked.

“From there,” he pointed to the far edge of the deck and swept his hand to the other edge of the deck. “To there, down to about the first hill. Thirty acres.”

“What do you do with it?” I asked.

“Look at it, mostly. I used to farm it,” he said.

“Farm?” Something prickled up my spine. “What did you grow?”

“Hops,” Beth said. “Like for beer.”

Peter, after a long moment, nodded.

I didn’t know shit about hops. They could be growing weed out there for all I knew.

“I’ve never been on a farm before,” I said, laughing a little at how dumb that sounded.

“Not ever?” Beth asked.

“Not a whole lot of farms in the Tenderloin,” I said.

“Go ahead and use your phone,” Peter said.

“We’ll give you some privacy,” Beth said and opened the sliding glass door into the house. She waved in Peter, who stood up slowly and followed her in.

I turned to the water and dialed up Simon, who answered on the first ring.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” he said.

“Hello to you, too.”

“You’re alive, I guess.”

“I am. So is Beth.”

“Well, interestingly enough, there are some pretty fucking suspicious dudes hanging around my apartment. I haven’t been home in two days. You have any idea who they are?”

“Bates’s guys, I guess.”

“You better start explaining.”

I told him everything. Beth and the guys in the bathroom. Beth’s mom.

“Where are you now?” he asked in his calmer voice.

“A friend of Beth’s. Way up in the hills south of Santa Barbara.” Again something pinged in my head, but I couldn’t pull it all together.

“What are you doing about Bates?”

“I told Carissa about Beth’s mom, and I’m hoping she’ll call off the dogs.”

“Well, it would be nice to get back to my apartment.”

“You and me both, man.”

“What’s Beth going to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“How is she gonna deal with her mom?”

“I don’t know,” I said.

“Well, tell her she needs to get ahead of it. Tell her side of the story.”

That seemed…unlikely. Beth didn’t tell her side of the story. She dressed up in costumes to avoid it. She ran away and changed her name. Lived with a hermit out in the mountains so she’d never have to tell her story.

“How?” I asked.

“Well, I can put her in touch with some people who could make it easier for her. Or—she could just do a YouTube video on her channel. Cut out the middle man; she’d probably reach more people that way. In fact, I think that’s the best way, for sure.”

“A video of what?”

“Of her telling her story.”

No makeup. No disguises. Just her.

It would be seriously effective.

“I’ll talk to her,” I said. “Has Bates come sniffing around you?”

“Other than the goons at my door, you mean?”

“Yeah. I mean the debt.”

“No. Not yet.”

“Where are you staying?”

“I’m in a hotel. But I’m being sent out again on assignment tomorrow. So no worries.”

When Simon said no worries, I always got about a million more worries.

“What are you gonna do?” Simon asked.

“Well, right now I’m just waiting until Carissa gets back to me, I guess. Not much else I can do.”

“Makes sense.”

“Hey…Simon?” I pulled a splinter off the railing, but it was bigger than I expected and a long chunk of wood came with it, revealing new wood beneath, a divot of fresh yellow cedar.

“Yeah?”

“I never thanked you for taking me to the hospital that night.”

“You don’t have to do this, man.”

“No. I do. Thank you. Thank you for the hospital that night. And thank you for the last seven years.”

“No way, man, it’s me that should be thanking you.”

I liked that. I liked being thanked by a guy I respected so much. It made me feel like I had something to offer when I’d never felt that way.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked. “Thanking me. This isn’t your death bed.”

“It might be if Carissa can’t call off the dogs.”

“Fuck that. We’ll think of something.”

“We won’t think of anything. You’ll be overseas, and I’ll be going back to the city to grovel to Bates.”

I could hear Simon breathing.

“Hey, man,” I said. “I’m just kidding.”

But I wasn’t and we both knew it.

“You should run. I can send you all the money I have in my savings account.”

“No, Simon. I’m not going to run.”

He sighed heavily. “That’s not really your style, is it?”

“Everything is going to be okay,” I said. “I’m sixty percent sure of it.”

Simon didn’t laugh at my lame joke. Just like Beth hadn’t laughed at it earlier.

“That’s not funny.”

“It’s a little bit funny.”

“You don’t make jokes ever,” Simon said. “But now you’re a comedian?”

“Just trying to lighten the mood.”

“Well stop, you’re bad at it. I’ll be on my work phone after tomorrow. Call me or text me on that.”

“I will. Take care of yourself.”

“You too.”

When I hung up, I felt better than I had in a long time. Having said what I should have said years ago.

I called Paul at work, but it went over to voice mail, which wasn’t surprising. No one could hear their phones or feel them on vibrate at work, not with all the heavy machinery.

“Hey,” I said, “I hate doing this over the phone, but I hate leaving you hanging even more. I’m not going to be back at work for a while. And I totally get it if you need to replace me or whatever. I’m real sorry, Paul,” I said. “You’ve been good to me. And I haven’t taken that for granted. Thank you.”

I hung up and took one more look out at the ocean and the trees, and I thought about starting over and wasn’t sure how I was supposed to feel about it. If I did get out of this thing with Bates, I didn’t want to be a forty-year-old stone mason, but what else was I good for?

I was a high school dropout. No one would hire me to work in an office even if I could stomach the idea of that.

Working in a bar wouldn’t be so bad. I could go home and see if Lucy was hiring? Or maybe…maybe now I could wish for something. Something just a little bit better.

A guy with my skills was useful no matter where I went.

And maybe...if Bates wasn’t after me…maybe, I could go with Beth. Los Angeles or Europe.

The wish sat in my throat, unsaid, but burning like an ember from a fire that hadn’t gone out in seven years.

I opened the sliding glass door and poked my head inside. “Hello? I’m off the phone—”

It took a second for my eyes to adjust to the darkness of the inside of the house. The door opened into a living room with a beat-up couch across from a fireplace. The open-concept kitchen was in the back. I saw Beth and Peter there, lit up by the light over the stove.

They were arguing. Or Peter was arguing and Beth stood there with her head bowed.

“Everything okay?” I asked, and they stopped arguing midsentence. Beth plastered just about the fakest smile on her face I’d ever seen. And Peter turned his back to me, getting stuff out of the fridge.

“Let’s go back outside,” Beth said in an overbright voice, rushing to the door to push me back out on the deck.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Totally fine.”

“You’re lying,” I said, and she went so still. “Is he making you feel bad for having me here? I can leave—”

She shook her head. “No,” she said. “It’s me making things awkward. It’s just…me. He’s making lunch.”

“That’s nice,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

Beth was quiet for a long minute, and I ducked down to see into her face. “Are you really okay?” I asked her. “I mean, it’s been a rough few days. This shit with your mom?”

Her smile was sweet, and her hand against my face was even sweeter. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Are you hungry for lunch?”

“I’d fucking love lunch.” I was starving. She must be too. We’d been living on oranges and adrenaline and sex for days now.

“Then we’ll have some lunch. Wait here.” She went back inside and came out a few seconds later with a platter in either hand and a tablecloth under her arm.

Was she nervous because they were arguing? The tension between them was thick and it totally had to be about me. But I didn’t know how to make that right for her. Or help her with it. I could try and make nice with the old guy, I guessed.

Make some small talk. Not be a concrete stump, which was my usual thing meeting new people.

I grabbed one of the big platters out of her hand and let her turn and lead the way to a table set up on the opposite end of the deck. Peter followed, his hands full of plates and cutlery.

Beth made another trip to the kitchen and grabbed some more plates full of food, and Peter spread the bright red and yellow tablecloth over the gray splintered wood of the old patio set.

“My wife used to do this,” Peter said like he needed to explain something to me. “The tablecloth and stuff. I never really got out of the habit.”

“It’s nice,” I said. And it was. I wouldn’t have done it for myself or even thought of it, but now that the tablecloth was here and platters of food were set across it, I couldn’t deny—it was nice. Like a beautiful picnic.

“You want a beer or something?” Peter asked, but I shook my head.

“No, thank you.”

“Beth, you mind getting the lemonade from the fridge.”

She paused, watching us like she wasn’t sure what we would do without her, like we might combust under the threat of conversation. But finally she nodded and went back in, and Peter set out the platters of cheese and ham and cut-up slices of fruit and hard-boiled eggs. Fresh bread.

Something about this seemed so familiar. I hadn’t had a hard-boiled egg since I was a kid.

“You all right?” Peter asked, his hand over a plate of sliced tomatoes and avocados.

“Fine,” I said. “It looks great.”

“It’s not much, but it’s lunch.”

“We’ve been eating oranges and pudding cups for the last few days, so this is pretty amazing.”

“Beth filled me in on some of what’s going on,” he said as we sat. “The drugs and how you helped her.”

“Helping her is a stretch,” I said with a laugh, guessing she left out the part where I kidnapped her.

“She says you did.” Peter shrugged like that was all that mattered, and I glanced away, the sun a bright yellow ball in a deep blue sky. She would. She would erase what I’d done and my part in everything that had happened to her.

“She hasn’t told me much about you, however.”

I blinked. “There’s not a bunch to tell.”

“You’re a mason,” he said.

I nodded.

“How long you been doing that work?”

“Five years. I apprenticed under a guy I met at a construction site. We were building this big fancy house, and Paul was out in the backyard building retaining walls and stone paths, and it just…well, it just looked like a more interesting job that sanding drywall.”

“You like it?” he asked.

“I’m not sure what liking has to do with it,” I said with a shrug. “I’m a high school dropout, and the only thing I have going for me is I’m a big guy. It’s about the best job I could get and stay out of trouble.”

“Is that hard for you? Staying out of trouble?’

This felt like a job interview. I shook my head. “Trouble never interested me.”

“Beth says you were in foster care together.”

“Care doesn’t feel like the right word.” Joking about it was a surprise.

Somehow in the last few days I’d let go of some of the bitterness around the memories. Maybe it was the sex? I was pretty sure it was Beth, allowing me to laugh about St. Joke’s like it was no big deal.

“It was bad,” he said, not quite a question but not quite a statement either.

“It wasn’t good.” Again I was laughing about it, but Peter looked pained and I realized how much he must care for Beth, to be so stricken at the thought of her in foster care. “Beth wasn’t there very long,” I told him. “Three months. And the night she would have been hurt was the night we all got out of there, so she… she was safe.”

“She said that was your doing. Keeping her safe. Keeping all the kids safe.”

“Well, I tried. It didn’t do much good. But everything worked out fine,” I told him. “Beth is safe. She’s got talent and money and people who care.”

“What about you?” he asked in a rough whisper. “You got people who care?”