He was asleep when I went back up to the room, and the coward in me was relieved. The television was on, casting blue shadows over the walls. The plate beside him was empty, and he lay sprawled half in, half out of the covers, like he’d just drifted off.

He’s tired, I thought, tender and sad.

I set Pest down on the floor, and before I could shut the door behind us, she’d taken a flying leap up onto the bed and climbed up on his chest.

He woke with a startled huff, his eyes taking in the room even as his hand came down, holding Pest to him. He looked like he was ready to do some battle.

“It’s just me,” I said softly, my voice matching the shadows. I walked to the bed and stroked his arm, the warm skin over the hard muscle of his shoulder. “Go back to sleep.”

“Hey,” he said, shifting as if to sit up. “Everything okay?”

“Fine,” I said. “Don’t get up. Go back to sleep.”

He sighed and relaxed back against the bed. “So fucking tired. I can’t believe it.”

“You’ve been sleeping in a chair for like three days,” I said with a small laugh. He’d been sleeping in a chair, having sex, driving or fighting. He should be tired. It was in fact hard to believe he’d been awake this long.

His eyelids were drifting shut again. “Just… everything’s okay?”

“Fine, baby,” I said. “Let’s get you under the covers.” I moved the plate off the bed and pulled back the blankets, revealing the crisp white sheets. He was still wearing his blue boxers, and his skin looked smooth in the shadows from the TV. Like he was made out of blue pearl.

A treasure.

He sighed as I pulled the covers over him, and he was back asleep right in front of my eyes.

In the bathroom, our toothbrushes were in a cup. His red, mine yellow. It was cute. Like a scene out of a movie, something that would tell the viewer that this couple was happy and close.

They didn’t care if their toothbrushes touched, that’s how intimate they were.

The owners of these touching, cheerful toothbrushes were not a couple that would lie. That would keep secrets from each other.

I scrubbed my teeth, and when I was done, I put my lying toothbrush back in the cup.

I slid between the sheets with Tommy, facing him. Watching him sleep. He looked younger in his sleep. The hard lines between his eyes were gone. The crow’s feet from working out in the sun all the time, also gone.

With my thumb I touched his skin.

He was, at this moment, so dear to me. So impossibly special.

We were sleeping together. In the same bed. Just sleeping. Like an established couple.

Would he snore? I wondered.

Would I?

Oh God. What if I had a nightmare?

Well, neither the snoring nor the nightmares were likely tonight. My brain was turning too fast in my head to let sleep come.

I rolled onto my back and grabbed the remote control. I arranged the pillows behind my back, let Pest jump up on my tummy and flipped through the channels, over and over again.

* * *

I blinked awake, something feeling…not wrong. Just not totally right, either. I opened my eyes to find Beth beside me, and I was, for the moment, filled with a kind of giddy happiness. A wild sense that I’d lucked out somehow. I’d been standing still for so long, moving not at all in fear of the world turning around on me. Coming up to bite me in the ass. But it seemed the world was turning in my direction for once.

“Hey,” she whispered, noticing I was awake. “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“You didn’t. What are you doing?”

She sighed. “Just watching TV. I couldn’t sleep.”

“Anything good?” I asked, stretching and rolling to my back to see the TV.

She was watching the news, and there was a clip of a YouTube video and a woman in a mermaid costume.

It was her.

I sat up, suddenly wide awake. “Turn up the volume,” I said, and she lifted the remote and hit the button with her thumb. “I haven’t seen this.”

“They’ve been playing it pretty steady the last few hours. It seems my disappearance has hit the national news.”

I had to admit, the makeup did an amazing job. Her freckles were gone. The shape of her nose was different. Her face looked longer. Her hair was a wild blonde wig. She even wore contacts, white ones that were eerie and magical all at once. She was painted a shimmery green and blue color.

If I’d just seen this video, I never would have thought it was her. It wouldn’t have occurred to me.

“I can’t…I can’t believe your makeup… I mean, you changed the shape of your face even.”

“Shading and highlights do most of the work. Losing the freckles. The contacts help.”

“All to hide from your mom?” I asked.

She was silent for so long I finally turned to look at her, the real her in my bed, not the creation of her on the screen.

“I think…I think I was hiding from everyone,” she said. “I told myself it was about my mom, but I think it was really about me.”

She looked at me, the liquid of her eyes reflecting the flashing lights of the television.

“About you, what?” I asked.

“Hiding from myself. Hiding from what I wanted. Hiding from what happened to me in that office.”

“Beth,” I sighed.

“I mean, I told myself I was okay because I didn’t know how to not be okay. If I wasn’t okay, my mom was right about me.”

That sounded so plausible it made me so proud of her that she could see that in herself. “But…there’s more, too. You know? If it wasn’t me up on the screen, if it wasn’t the real me but some version of myself I’d created up there, then I could still be safe. I couldn’t be hurt. Not really. Because I’d shown someone myself, my real self, and I got so fucking hurt.”

She was talking about me. About us.

And it was true. We both got hurt. Amazing how I’d thought she’d moved on, but in ways she’d been as stuck as I’d been.

The screen changed, the video over, and the two anchors from a popular entertainment show were talking. The screen behind them showed a picture of Beth in Walmart from a few days ago trying on sunglasses. Beth lifted the remote like she was going to change the channel.

“Wait,” I said, putting my hand on her arm. “What are they saying?”

“Same thing they’ve been saying for the last few hours. I’m on a drug-fueled mission of self-destruction. I’ve always been prone to theatrics and erratic behavior. As a teenager I’d gotten in trouble with police and been sent to a foster home for court-placed juveniles.”

“Oh my God,” I breathed. Her whole life was the news. Every single mistake she’d ever made thrown up on the screen to be dissected and torn apart. “Beth—”

“Oh wait,” she said with a sharp smile. “Here’s an interview with one of my ‘friends.’”

I recognized the new person on the screen as the man that had been in the bed with Beth when I grabbed her from the house in Santa Barbara.

“I knew Beth very well,” he said with a smug tone that made me see red. “A lot of us did.”

I gaped. In ten words he’d slut-shamed Beth on national television.

“I didn’t sleep with that little fucker,” she said. “I didn’t sleep with anyone on my team or my crew. Like it was a rule I had. But no one will believe me now. And even if I did sleep with them, even if I slept with every single person—why does he get to judge me? Why does anyone?”

“Beth,” I sighed. “I’m so sorry.”

“None of it matters,” she said in a tone that implied all of it mattered. All of it mattered a lot.

“How long have you been watching this?” I asked.

She sighed and then winced. “I don’t know. Too long probably. You’ve been asleep for a while.”

I took the remote from her hand and turned off the TV. The sudden silence buzzed. “You’ll never get to sleep listening to that crap.”

“I’m not sure I’ll get to sleep anyway.” She sighed heavily, her hands resting over the sheets pulled up to her chest. “I’m so fucking tired, but my brain won’t stop. At all.”

“What do you usually do when you can’t sleep?’ I asked.

“Watch too much TV.”

“That’s not working tonight.”

She looked at me, a small grin around her lips, her eyes twinkling in the shadows and moonlight. My cock perked up at that look, sensing it was going to like whatever she had to say.

“You really want to know?” she asked, pretending to be coy.

“I absolutely want to know.”

She rolled to her side so we were facing each other, and the intimacy of this bed was magic. Like it was just us floating above the world. All the shit waiting for us when we got out of this bed… it didn’t matter. Not right now.

Her hair was down, loose over her shoulders and her neck, and I thought of that shitty Jada/Beth thing I’d been doing with her hair. I wondered if it had hurt her. If it had hurt both of us and I just wasn’t aware of it yet. Like a cut so deep it didn’t bleed right away. I’d be off this mountain and she might be gone, and then I’d realize how badly I was hurt. How badly I’d hurt her.

“I masturbate.” She whispered like it was a secret. We smiled at each other, so pleased with ourselves.

“That seems like an excellent plan.”

“You want to help?” she asked, kicking the sheets off her body. She was wearing a T-shirt and a new pair of panties, yellow this time.

“I want to watch,” I said. “I want to see what you do when you’re alone.”

“You want me to pretend you’re not watching?”

I nodded.

“Impossible,” she said.

Her breath brushed my face, and I could smell the scent of her skin from the sheets she’d been wrapped in. It was a cocoon, this bed. And I had to wonder what we’d be when we walked out of it.

Blood pounded through my veins, heading straight for my dick, and I reached down and adjusted myself. My cock pressed against the warm fabric of my underwear.

“Show me,” I whispered.

She caught the edge of her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyes glowing, and she was the sexiest fucking thing I’d ever seen. Beth rolled to her back, shifting so she was lying a little beneath me and I was watching her over her chest, down between her bent knees. She tilted her head back as if to make sure I was still watching.

Oh, I was watching.

The hem of her shirt lifted up over her flat belly, the lacy edge of her bright yellow underwear. With one hand she cupped her breast, teasing her nipple until it stood up hard against the fabric of her T-shirt. My fingers twitched with the need to touch the other breast. Tease the other nipple.

But this was about watching.

Her other hand wandered slowly down her stomach, stopping to caress with the backs of her fingers the small dip of skin by her hip bone.

Over and over again she did it until she gasped and I put that little spot away for future reference. The things I would do to that pretty stretch of skin.

She slid her fingers down under the lacy edge of the underwear, and the bump of her finger under that fabric was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. It was innocent and dirty and private all at the same time.

“How do you feel?” I asked.

“Wet.”

“And?”

“Swollen,” she said. “My pussy is all swollen and wet.”

I groaned in my throat like I was trying to swallow it, but there was no point. I could imagine what she was describing. I could imagine pushing my thick cock between her swollen lips, deep and down and all the way into her.

I kept my hands away from my cock, even though I wanted to stroke myself so bad it hurt. My dick was twitching and leaking precum, and all I was doing was watching this beautiful woman touch herself in the way she liked best.

That finger between her legs, I could see it running from her pussy to her clit, over and over again. Back and forth. Back and forth. Not lingering but not going fast either. It was mesmerizing in a way.

She did it until her breathing was coming in ragged gasps and the silk between her legs was dark and damp. I could smell her arousal. I opened my mouth to breathe like I could taste it in the warm air around us.

She shifted, her one hand abandoning her breast to join her other between her legs.

The slow hypnotic movement of her hand stopped, and she focused on her clit, circling it slowly. Getting faster by tiny increments. She was not still on the bed anymore; she arched and shifted against the sheets, her hair wild across the pillows, and I couldn’t resist. I laid my hand flat against the curls, feeling as much of it as I could.

Her finger against her clit was moving faster, two fingers now, not in a circle but back and forth. The sounds she was making in her throat, gasps and groans and small cries that pushed their way under my skin.

“I don’t…” She’d turned her head to look at me. Her face was flushed, and sweat gathered at her hairline. “I don’t want to do this alone.”

I needed no other encouragement, and I reached down and cupped her breasts. Palmed them. Rougher maybe than I should have been, but I couldn’t rein myself in.

“I meant,” she gasped as her fingers worked harder against her clit. She was damp through her shirt. Sweaty and soft. I fucking loved her. Loved this. “Get off with me.”

“You,” I said, pinching her nipples harder, the way I knew she liked, and when that seemed to do nothing, I shifted on the bed, reaching for that sweet spot beside her hip bone, and I touched it so carefully. So softly. Like a tickle but with heat.

“Oh my God,” she cried, her eyes wide, her lips caught somewhere between a smile and grimace. “I love that. I love it so much.”

I did it over and over again. Same pressure. Same touch. Same place. But I lifted myself over her and took her hard, beautiful nipple into my mouth through her shirt, sucking as hard as I dared, and she came apart beneath me. Twitching and crying and swearing my name over and over again. I kept touching her, slowly easing off. Slowly touching other parts of her body. Her hands between her legs. I kissed her ear. The side of her face.

She sighed, breathing hard. Her eyes at half-mast. Her body relaxed.

“Can you sleep now?” I asked.

“After I watch you come,” she said, and I didn’t need to be asked twice. I was awkwardly crouched over her, so I sat back on my heels. My bruised knee protested, but I was too turned on to care. She was delicious spread out in front of me. Shirt skewed, panties damp and rumpled between her legs. Her eyes all blissed out and happy.

I pulled my shorts down under my cock, and I was so hard, so ready, I knew this wouldn’t be much of a show. She smiled at me, all vixen, and I wanted to kiss her so her lips would be swollen.

“I won’t touch you,” she said, lifting the hem of her shirt up and over her head, and I gasped at the sight of her. I’d seen her before. Her breasts and the freckles, but every time it was a surprise.

A beautiful thing I’d never get used to, no matter how many times she let me look at her.

“But…” She tilted her head, cupping her breasts. “I’ll give you somewhere to come.”

I groaned and put my hand under her panties, getting my fingers wet with her. My palm. I’d jack off with her on my skin—best fucking idea I’d ever had.

I wrapped my fingers around my dick, and I needed no preliminaries, no warm-up. I was going to come hard and fast and all over her beautiful tits.

“I like you like this,” she said, her voice adding fuel to the flame. “So hard and big over me. I want you to come—”

“Yeah.”

“Tommy. Come.”

And just like that I was coming in thick spurts, landing in stripes across her tummy. That sensitive skin by her hip. All over her breasts. My heart pounding so hard in my chest I was light-headed.

“Fuck, Beth,” I sighed, collapsing beside her.

“Can’t, baby,” she said quietly, her lips smiling even as her eyes were shutting. “I’m too tired.”

“Sleep,” I said and used the shirt she’d taken off to clean her up. I wiped the come off her body slow and gentle, and by the time I was done, she was asleep.

No idea what time it was, only that it was still dark outside, I lay down next to her to watch her sleep. To guard against her nightmares. To be here when she woke up.

I’d wanted this so badly when we were kids. To be able to be beside her at night so when she had a nightmare, I’d be there.

It was one of those wishes I’d had, that I’d been too scared to say out loud.

And now here it was.

I could get used to this, I thought, my own eyes drifting shut.

The sound of Pest whimpering and scratching at the door made me blink awake, disoriented for a minute by the bright sunlight pouring through the window.

God. We’d really slept.

Beth was beside me wrapped in my arms, her hair like a net across her face. I pulled my arms free as gently as I could, and she rolled forward onto her tummy, the freckled skin of her back revealed as the sheets slipped down to her hips.

The urge to touch her, to spread my hand wide over her spine and run it from the nape of her neck to the curve of her ass was hard to resist, but Pest was at the door, about to have an accident.

I took a second to appreciate the fact that this moment was one I could have again and again. We were at the beginning of us. Well… not the beginning maybe…the continuation of us.

She was where I belonged.

And I wasn’t letting her go.

Quietly I slipped out of bed and pulled on my underwear and jeans and T-shirt. I shoved my feet into my boots and, without thinking, opened the door and Pest tore out down the stairs. While I watched, the two other dogs came screaming around the edge of the patio.

Shit! Shitshitshit!

I flew down the stairs while the three dogs were all standing in place growling at each other.

Pest looked ridiculous with all her hackles raised.

But so, so small.

I was nearly close enough to grab her and maybe Pest realized I was there and in her wild little mind she thought she needed to protect me, I didn’t know, but she broke the stalemate and lunged at younger of the dogs and the older one darted forward and clamped her tremendous jaw around Pest’s neck.

“No!” I shouted, my voice deep and rough, hoping to scare the dog into dropping Pest, who was making a terrible high-pitched yelp. “Drop it!” I said again, my voice shaking.

Jesus, that dog was going to kill Pest.

I was about to drop to my knees and grab the monster around the throat and pry open its jaws when Peter came jogging around the corner.

One sharp whistle from that guy and the bigger dog dropped Pest, who lay in a crumpled, bleeding lump on the ground. I scooped her up in my arms to check her out.

“Oh no, Tommy,” Peter said, shooing off his dogs. “Is she okay?”

“She’s got a few cuts, one puncture wound, a little blood, nothing too bad,” I said, embarrassed by how relieved I was.

“I got a first-aid kit inside; we can clean up the worst of it.”

“Yeah,” I said, “that’d be good.” Like a sap I leaned down and nuzzled Pest’s little face and she licked my nose. I seriously thought I’d lost her there, and my heart hurt from the fear.

“Follow me,” he said, walking back around the side of the house to the large patio.

“I’m real sorry,” he said over his shoulder.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Your dogs are doing their jobs. I should have taken better care of her.”

There was haze down in the valley beneath the house, like a thick cloud we could see over. The ocean was gone. The islands and the oil rigs. Nothing but thick dense cloud.

Peter opened the sliding glass door into the dark interior of his house, and I followed him in. “Go ahead and use the sink in the kitchen if you need to,” he said, and I walked across a thick red and blue rug toward the open kitchen in the back. The place was immaculate. No dishes on the counter. No toast crumbs. Nothing.

I turned on the sink, cranking the water to warm, and looked around for a dishtowel. I found it hanging over the handle of the oven, spread out as if to dry. I snagged it, got the corner wet and went after Pest’s cuts and the puncture wound with a gentle hand.

She still didn’t like it. She rolled and did her best to get out of my hands, biting at me and whining in her throat.

“Shhhh,” I kept saying, not that it did much good. I let her have a go at my thumb, because her teeth didn’t stand much of a chance against the armor of all my calluses.

I set the towel on the counter, but it slipped off and I bent down and grabbed it, turning so I didn’t bonk my head on the counter. I was facing the fridge, an old white one with chrome handles. There were a few receipts stuck on it.

A picture of Beth in that makeup with the spider coming out of her eye. I smiled and leaned closer. It was her as I remembered her. A beautiful girl growing into a stunning woman but with… you know…a spider growing out of her eye.

There was another one beside it, stuck to the fridge with a black magnet covered in glue like whatever had been on it—a bottle opener or a welcome-to-Hawaii thing—was long gone.

The picture was an old one.

The edges curled. The color faded. Three people on a red blanket eating a lunch not unlike the one we ate yesterday. Right down to the hard-boiled eggs.

“Ploughman’s lunch,” I murmured and peered closer. Peter once had brown hair. A whole lot of it. His wife, judging by the way she had her hand on his knee, was a pretty blonde woman, curvy in a dress with ruffly sleeves. Beside them was a girl, also blonde, but not so happy to be there.

A teenager dragged there against her will, clearly. Her scowl told the whole story.

I peered closer and realized the girl was pregnant in the picture.

Yikes, I thought, but as I looked at her, she started to feel familiar. Her eyes. And her white-blonde hair.

Between one blink and the next, something went wrong.

Something sick and awful happened in my body. My stomach heaved and my head spun. I nearly dropped Pest because my hands were suddenly numb.

That wasn’t just a teenager dragged there against her will.

That was my fucking mother.