Page 64 of Just Come Over

“Once,” she said.

His hand was still on the key. He didn’t turn it. Instead, he turned his head to look at her. Slowly. “Pardon?”

“Tonight,” she said. “Because I want it so much. I know it’s the wrong thing, and I’m sure you do, too, but... I can’t help it. I’ve never been able to help it. Tonight, because I can’t do anything else. But we both know it’s wrong, and I can’t, anymore. I can’t, with the lying. So just tonight.”

A long moment, and he said, “No.”

“Rhys.” She tried to laugh, but it wouldn’t come out. “You know how to do one night. I know you do.”

“How?”

“Uh... Casey’s mum? Most of your life experiences? Dylan shared more than you may know.”

“And that’s the same as you and me?”

“Isn’t it?”

Two seconds. Three. “Judge me for the man I am,” he said. “Not the man I used to be.”

She hauled in a breath. “I want to. It’s all I want. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t live with wondering what’s true, and what’s a lie. But I need it tonight. Please.”

His chest lifted and fell with his breath, and the hiss of distant cars, the rustle of wind in the palms was the only sound in the dark night. “No,” he said, and picked up her hand, and she thought,Yes. Finally. Please.

He dropped the keys into her hand, curled her fingers around them, then turned and strode down the steps. Up the walk. Down the drive.

Gone.

She almost went after him. She didn’t. What would she say?

This was the right choice. She knew it. It just didn’t feel like it. She’d been so ready to do it. Or to be more exact: she’d felt like she couldn’t go another minute without doing it. She’d been so unwilling to say anything to slow it down. Which was exactly like every other time in her life, when her insistent body had overridden her cautious mind. She was supposed to be wiser now, though. She’d meant to be. Shehadbeen.

So why did it feel so bad?

She went into the house, turned on the kitchen light, and slipped her shoes off. She had to put her hand against the wall to do it. She wasn’t exactly drunk, but she wasn’t exactly sober, either.

The roof creaked, the refrigerator motor turned on with a click and a hum, the lino was cold under her bare feet, and she shivered in the night air. She got her phone out of her purse, texted Hayden,Help.And waited.

No answer. Monday night. Nine-forty-five. Why wasn’t he answering? She pressed the button to call him, thinking,Pick up. I need to talk to you. I can’t do this alone. Not anymore. Not again.

One ring. Two.

No. This was the wrong answer.

She pressed the button again, and the phone stopped ringing. She clicked on an app instead, then entered the address.

Wait time: 20 minutes.

She couldn’t wait twenty minutes. She couldn’t waitfiveminutes. But she’d had too much to drink. There was no way she could drive.

Judge me for the man I am, not the man I used to be.

She grabbed her keys, pulled her shoes on again, and slammed the door on her way out.

It was nine hundred meters between Zora’s house and his. His stride was close to a meter long. Call it a thousand steps. He took them fast, and then, when that wasn’t enough, he ran them.

He wasn’t thinking, or if he was, he wasn’t letting the hornet-buzz of thoughts land. He didn’t want to see them. He sure as hell didn’t want to listen to them.

Inside the house, he took off his shoes and socks, his movements jerky and savage, then stripped off his jacket and threw it across a kitchen chair on the way out to the deck.