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“I’m worried about him,” I said as I shucked my jacket, then my tee. (This one had the Atari logo against a green grid.) I heeled off my Mexico 66s and dropped my jeans. Then, standing there in nothing but my Bowser boxers, I shivered and started picking through a drawer. “No one’s heard from him.”

After the encounter with Millie and Louis—not to mention Keme running off—we’d limped through another half hour of the town’s festivities before calling it quits. We’d come back to Hemlock House, and we’d each found our own ways of spending the rest of the day. I, for example, had taken a perverse pleasure in slowly deleting each letter of the chapter I’d written that morning.

Sitting on our bed, Bobby was already down to a pair of white boxers, and he was tugging on a sleep shirt. As the fabric passed over his head, he said, “He’ll be okay.”

“I don’t know about that, actually.” My search for pajamas forgotten, I wrapped my arms around myself and leaned against the drawer. “Bobby, you saw his face. He was heartbroken. Scratch that, he was devastated.”

Bobby’s head popped free of the shirt. He finished pulling it on, and then he smoothed his hair. The movement was automatic, and it was such a Bobby movement that I could have drawn it in my sleep. (If I’d had any artistic talent. Which I don’t.) He seemed to consider my statement for a moment. And then he nodded.

“And where is he?” I asked.

“Do you want to go look for him?” Bobby asked.

“I don’t know. Should we?”

Bobby’s pause was longer this time. “Keme knows where we are. If he wanted to be with us, he’d be here. I think he needs some time alone.”

“But he’s not thinking clearly. He’s hurt. And I know he’s eighteen now, but he’s basically still a kid, and he’s out there, and it’s cold—” I couldn’t say any more. And even though Hemlock House was snug and warm—well, as snug and warm as a Class V haunted mansion could be—I shivered as goose bumps broke out up my arms and across my shoulders.

Bobby stood and came across the room. He wrapped me in a hug. He was warm. He was solid. His breath tickled my neck. As he rubbed my back, I slowly relaxed into his embrace.

“Keme’s going to be okay,” he said again. “You’re right—this is going to be hard for him. But he’ll get over it.”

I shook my head. I didn’t say anything because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to put into words what I was feeling. I knew it was more than a crush that hadn’t worked out. I knew it meant more to Keme than that. But I didn’t know how to explain it, so I settled for that simple, silent shake of my head.

“Everybody goes through their first heartbreak,” Bobby said. One of his hands settled at the small of my back, above the elastic waistband of my boxers. “We all make it to the other side.”

The only thing I could think to say was “He loves her.”

“And he knows she loves him too,” Bobby said. “But not in the same way.”

He was referring to the night of Keme’s eighteenth birthday, when Bobby and I had accidentally witnessed the moment when Keme overheard Millie describe him to her friends using the words: like my little brother . At the time, I’d thought maybe that would put an end—however painful—to Keme’s unrequited feelings. But in the months since, Keme hadn’t changed his behavior around Millie, and it was obvious to everyone (or at least to me) that Keme had decided to keep hoping and trying.

Until today.

That half-formed thought floated up again, but since I still couldn’t put it into words, I settled for an unhappy sigh.

“If you want me to go look for him,” Bobby said, and he kissed my cheek, “I will.”

After several long seconds, I shook my head. “If he knew I sent you after him, he’d kill me.”

Bobby pulled me closer. He rubbed one hand up and down my back, then sideways, then up and down again. The fingers of his other hand curled around my waistband.

“I know you’re going to think I’m making this up,” I said. “But I swear one time I saw his eyes turn red.”

Bobby kissed my shoulder.

“Like the Terminator,” I said.

“Dash?”

“Hm?”

“Pay attention,” he said and kissed the spot where my neck joined my shoulder.

The thing about sex with Bobby was that it was just so good . I mean, I don’t want to go on and on about it. (See above, about my inner thirteen-year-old.) But it was so easy, and everything felt natural. Sometimes, it was playful—Bobby, for all his stoicism and reserve and iron self-control, seemed to find an outlet for all those bottled-up emotions when we were together like this. And sometimes it was slower, sweeter, like drop after drop of honey filling me up. And sometimes it was fast and frantic because a certain deputy had needs and also wanted to be at work on time. (I’m not complaining.)

Tonight, it was slow. Bobby guided me over to the bed, kissing his way up my neck to my jaw, then to my mouth. He eased my glasses off, lowered me onto the mattress, and crawled up next to me, still kissing me, his hand sliding up my belly, following my chest, curving along my arm. Exploring me by touch first. And then his mouth followed. The front of his T-shirt hung down, pulled by gravity, and it was easy to slip my hand up there and find the densely compact muscle. I mean, my God, he had abs. Louis who?

“I love you,” Bobby whispered as he nuzzled my ear. His tongue darted out, and I made a sound you can’t make in church.

My own voice was decidedly breathy as I said, “I love you too.”

Bobby hesitated, and then he said, “I love you so much, Dash. I’m so happy with you.”

Until then, my eyes had been half-closed as I focused on letting myself feel the attention Bobby was lavishing on me. Now I opened them.

By his own admission, Bobby had never been good at talking about his feelings. And he’d told me enough, dropped enough hints, that I figured a lot of it had to do with his parents, and with how he’d been brought up. One of the things he’d been working on—we’d been working on—was putting those feelings into words. So, for him to say it again, and to say more, was Bobby taking a risk. And I had to blink to clear my eyes.

“I love you too,” I said. It came out scratchy, but it was the best I could do. “I love you more than anyone I’ve ever known.”

He smiled. Only a hint of a tremble at the edges. His hands stroked slowly up and down my thighs. “You’re so beautiful. Sometimes I look at you, and I can’t understand how I got so lucky. Everything about you turns me on. I was going crazy today, watching you, thinking about how long I had to wait until I got to touch you like this.” He bent and kissed my knee. “I want to keep you in bed all day and kiss every inch of you.”

My first, automatic reaction was to laugh. Somehow—barely—I swallowed it. For a few seconds, the volume on my inner monologue went all the way up. I’m not beautiful. I’m skinny, except where I’m not. I’ve got a bunch of moles. My skin is pasty white—blindingly white, as a matter of fact, when I take my shirt off. My hair alternates between angry hedgehog and the junior lesbian guild. And in contrast to all of that, Bobby is, well, perfect—the perfect body, the perfect hair, the rich, earthy bronze of those eyes. I swear to God, in the year plus that I’d known him, Bobby had never once had so much as a blemish.

After a few deep breaths, though, I cranked the volume down. I smiled up at Bobby. This was about him, I told myself. This was really about him. Because he was being so brave. I mean, he was always more communicative when we were intimate, but this was clearly Bobby stretching himself, working at putting into words the things he wanted to tell me.

But the urge rose up inside me to laugh—or to say something silly that would defuse the tension, a joke, something that would box up everything he’d said into nice, conveniently disposable packages. Something like I guess I’m lucky you’re into zombie chic . Or better, If you like this, y ou should see me with my shirt on .

I didn’t, though. I let the urge pass through me. And then I gave a wobbly smile. I sat up, kissed Bobby, and said, “You’re perfect. Did you know that?”

He opened his mouth to say something, but I kissed him again, turned him out of his shirt, and—

Well, the rest, as they say, is history.

One of the perks of being an author (and there aren’t many) is that you get to set your own hours. Which means you get to set your own schedule. Which means nobody can tell you that one o’clock in the afternoon is an irresponsible wake-up time because you are an author, and your schedule is dictated by the muse. (It’s also dictated by how many episodes of Below Deck you stream before Netflix self-destructs.)

All of which is to say that I woke up a little past noon. (One o’clock is only a tiny bit past.) Bobby was already long gone to work, and the house was quiet. I showered and dressed—joggers and a Dungeons Tripple had taken an indecent amount of pleasure in embarrassing me about my crush on Bobby before we’d started dating. Oh, and you know the other thing? His scalp. I mean, it wasn’t a problem that he was bald. But his scalp was disturbingly loose on his skull and the whole wrinkle situation got weird —and fast. (I mean, it was like crepe paper.)

Bobby’s face was so serious it was almost stone. Tripple looked like he was about to smile.

“Bobby?” I looked past them, but all I saw was their cruiser. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“Is Keme home?” Bobby asked.

“No. Why? Did something happen?”

“Did he come home last night?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so?” Tripple asked.

“It’s a big house. I was asleep. What—”

“So, he might be here right now?”

“No, he’s not here right now. I already told you that.”

“Why don’t we have a look?”

That shocked me out of my daze. I stared at Tripple. At the almost smile. And I said, “Do you have a warrant?”

“Dash,” Bobby said.

“You’re not searching this house for Keme—for anything—until you tell me what’s going on.”

The tightness in Bobby’s jaw should have told me, but all he said was “We just need to talk to him.”

And then Tripple grinned: sharp, narrow teeth yellowing at the gumline. “About a murder.”