I shrug, sipping my coffee. “It doesn’t matter.”

He surveys me intently as he finishes adding pieces of bacon to the plates, handing one to me. “It might make it hard to get a job in your line of work,” he says, aiming for casual but with a definite question behind his words. “After you leave, I mean.”

I almost choke on the piece of bacon I’ve swiped from my plate, my mouth full of delicious grease and salted meat.

“Let’s eat on the balcony,” he says, taking my plate back from me and walking over to the bank of glass windows that overlook Santa Monica bay.

He kicks open a sliding door with his foot and steps out to a terrace, large enough to hold a round table, two chairs, and a couple of potted plants.

I grab both coffees and go to walk, pain shooting up my leg. Jase hurries back to me and takes the coffees, setting them on the table with the food and zipping back to help me hobble to the table. With his help, I take a seat and breathe in the cool ocean air that drifts in from below us.

Jase eats quickly, almost demolishing his plate before I’ve even picked up my fork, and afterwards sips on his coffee, looking studiously to the horizon and the turquoise water beneath it.

“You like views,” I say, the words out of my mouth before I can edit them or stop myself. “The roof, this balcony—seems like you’re always looking to something else.”

A smile tugs at the corners of his wide, sensual mouth, and he tears his gaze away from the water to look at me. “I like looking at beautiful things,” he says, his gaze lingering on me so that I blush and look away. “It helps me forget the ugliness of my life.”

“Is your life really that ugly?” I ask, and more than anything in the world, I want him to say no. I want him to say that he’s happy. But I can see on his face and hear in his words that he is not.

He chooses not to answer, instead gesturing to the apartment behind us. “This place used to belong to Dornan’s last obsession,” he says, his eyes dark and troubled.

I don’t say anything; just stare at him, waiting for him to elaborate.

He places his coffee cup down and scratches his thumbnail across the rim absent-mindedly.

“She’s dead now,” he finishes, his voice thick with finality.

“What happened?” I ask, afraid to hear his version.

“She was faithful to him, and the club, for ten years. And then she tried to leave,” Jase’s voice cracks, “and he killed her.”

I swallow the enormous lump in my throat, not allowing myself to imagine what life we could have had if they had succeeded. If we had gotten out. It would have been glorious.

“She was from Columbia,” Jase says. “She’d been here for years by the time I got here, but she still had this really thick accent. At first I could hardly understand what she was saying.” He laughs without a sound, but his tale is not a happy one. For a moment I wonder if she was alive as Dornan cut her head off. I’d put all of my money on yes.

It suddenly occurs to me, as I’m staring at his lips move, that we haven’t spoken about what happened last night at the wake. That kiss, so brief, but full of so much feeling, my heart skips a beat just remembering it. I want to press him about it, but I’m scared he’ll run again, so I leave it.

“Does your father know I’m here?”

Jase’s expression becomes angry, his teeth gritted and jaw set stubbornly. “I don’t know. I haven’t spoken to him.”

I nod. “I should call him. He’ll be angry if he gets back and I’m not there.”

Jase just looks at me incredulously, his eyebrows raised as high as they’ll go.

“I was supposed to clean up all the blood,” I add by way of explanation.

His mouth drops open as he listens to me speak. “Are you fucking kidding me?” he asks, his hands becoming fists again. Fuck.

“Please don’t be like that,” I say. “You don’t understand.” You don’t understand, you don’t understand. Fuck, I still love you, after all these years and you just don’t understand.

He runs a hand through his short hair, a look of exasperation on his face.

“I understand perfectly,” he says in a measured tone. “I understand that you’re out of your goddamn mind.”

I swallow thickly. I want to respond but my brain suddenly feels like mushy soup. My leg is positively humming, and although I’m accustomed to pain, this feeling that quickly spreads over my body is something else entirely. My nerves are shot, hissing and screaming every time I take a ragged breath. I can feel sweat gathering on my forehead and I’m feeling kind of dizzy.


I open my mouth to say something, but I’m confused and no words come out. I close it again. I’m thirsty. I reach out to grab the glass of water that has miraculously materialized in front of me. It’s in my grasp for all of two seconds before it slides out of my fingers and shatters on the floor, water and shards of glass sloshing around my feet. I just stare. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do. Everything feels murky and thick, as if I’m trying to walk along the bottom of a muddy river.

Jase is talking to me but I can’t hear him above the angry buzzing in my ears. I need to close my eyes, just for a moment, and then I’ll be okay.

Then everything will be okay.

Eleven

This time, when I wake up, I’m in Jase’s bed again, but everything is different. I look down to see that my black dress is gone and I’m wearing a large black T-shirt and a pair of boxers. My cheeks burn as I realize someone had to undress me to redress me.

I see movement to my left and turn to see Jase, sitting in a chair he’s pulled into the bedroom, watching me intently. It is then I notice I’ve got an IV nestled in the crook of my arm, a clear plastic tube carrying blood from a bag into my vein.

I sit up with a start and fiddle with the cannula impaled snugly in my flesh, a piece of tape securing it.

“Hey,” Jase says, peeling my fingers off the cannula. “It’s a blood transfusion. The doctor just left.”

I stop fiddling for a moment. “A doctor?” I repeat. “How long was I out?”

Jase shrugs. “It’s almost seven.”

I think back to the morning. “But I woke up at seven,” I protest, confused and feeling pathetic and vulnerable.

“At night,” he clarifies.

“I slept for the whole day?” I ask, throwing the sheets off me.

“Yes,” he says slowly, as if I’m stupid.

“Why do I feel like I just injected a bunch of heroin?” I ask, too tired to get out of his bed. Instead, I slouch back against the soft pillows.

“The doctor gave you some morphine,” he said.

“What?” I’m struggling to remember the pain. It was bad, but it wasn’t that bad. Parts of my tattoo hurt more than the stab to my thigh. “Why?”

Jase raises his eyebrows and I can see him fighting off a smile. “I told him what a hero you were trying to be this morning. How you can’t stop, even for a minute. So he gave you something to let you get some rest.”

Now I’m the one who is angry. “You let someone drug me?” I ask incredulously. “Sedate me? What am I, a dog?”

“That’s how he treats you,” Jase mutters under his breath.

I sit up again and swing my legs out of the bed. I glance at the almost empty bag of blood sitting on the top of the mahogany bedhead above me, gravity ensuring a steady stream of the stuff into my veins. I reach my hand over to pull the IV out and Jase’s hand darts out, covering the cannula.

“Stop,” he says. “Just let the rest of it go in. You lost a lot of blood.”

I take my hand away reluctantly.

“What’s wrong?” he asks. “I’m just trying to help. You said no hospitals, so I got my dad’s doctor to check you out.”

I stiffen, wondering if the doctor undressed me. I look down at the boxer shorts and T-shirt, panicking. The tattoo is good, Elliot did an amazing job, but if the light is right…if someone was looking hard enough…the scars still remain.

“There was blood and glass all over you,” Jase says. “I didn’t look, I swear.”

I relax a little, detecting no animosity or suspicion in his voice. Then I hear a knock at the door and jump to my feet, the room whirling instantly around me. I grab the bedhead to steady myself, looking down at what I’m wearing. If Dornan sees me in his son’s underwear…

“Is that him?” I ask worriedly.

Jase sighs. “Sammi, for God’s sake, lay down, okay? It’s just the pizza guy bringing some dinner. Dornan’ll be back in a couple hours.” He points at the bed and waits for me to lie down again before he leaves the room. I smooth the covers over my lap as I wait, fiddling with a single loose thread of cotton. A whole day with Jase, and no Dornan. The thought makes me feel anxious, and delighted, and exhausted all at once..

He comes back in a few moments later, balancing boxes of pizza in one hand and a handful of dollar bills with the other. He shoves the money in his jeans pocket and brings the pizzas over to the bed, arranging the boxes on the empty side next to where I lay. The smell of tomato sauce and garlic invades my nostrils and I can feel my mouth watering.

“Pepperoni or cheese?” he asks me.

“Pepperoni, please,” I respond, and he hands me a napkin with a large slice of the best looking pizza I’ve ever laid eyes on resting on top. I take a massive bite and struggle to chew it, my mouth is so full. It tastes divine.

Jase eats slowly; he’s clearly eaten since breakfast. We don’t speak until I have downed four slices and am considering a fifth. Jase has finished and is sitting patiently in the chair beside me. I can feel him watching, waiting to broach something with me.