Say You’ll Remember Me

16 Samantha

16

SAMANTHA

W E WERE SITTING on the beach on two Barbie towels we bought at a souvenir shop. We had our shoes off. The sun set an hour ago. We’d done all the things. Took scooters to Venice Beach, got ice cream on the Third Street Promenade, did the pier, shared some calamari at a seafood place, and then walked along the surf.

I liked talking to Xavier. I liked hanging out with him. I liked the contemplative gazes, the little upturned corner of his mouth when I said something funny. I liked how reflective he was. How he didn’t speak until he had something thoughtful to say. He was observant.

But mostly I liked that he felt turned toward me. Like I was the only thing interesting in this place full of interesting landmarks and people and things. He never once pulled out his phone for anything other than taking pictures. I told him I loved shells and he spent our walk along the water looking for ocean jewels to hand me like it was his new job. I preferred his ice cream more than mine and he switched with me, he wouldn’t take no for an answer. When it got windy on the beach, he wrapped me in his towel.

I felt courted.

It was weird, but there was no other word to describe it. I had obviously never been properly courted before because now that I was, I was giving those other guys some serious side eye. Damn if Xavier wasn’t ruining me for all other men while he was here.

My phone vibrated in my pocket. Jeneva messaging me.

“Sorry, I have to get it. She wants to know how to take Mom’s makeup off,” I said, texting her to tell her where the makeup wipes are.

I’d done Mom’s face for the first time this morning. It hadn’t come out great. I needed to find some old photos or something to see how she used to do it because when I finished, she looked like a caricature of herself. When I showed Tristan he’d rolled his eyes and asked me if I’d ever heard of blending. Then he kicked me out of the bathroom and finished it himself. I would have handed him the torch indefinitely if he woke up early enough to take it from me.

I hit send and tucked my phone away.

“Can I ask you a question?” Xavier asked.

“Sure.”

“When did you first notice?”

“The dementia?”

“Yes.”

I played with the sand in front of me. “Mom’s had a lot of concussions. She cheered in high school. She was a flyer. You know, the one they toss in the air?”

“Yeah…”

“She bumped her head a lot. I guess that can cause problems later in life. She had a bad car accident ten years ago and then another one a few years after that. She never recovered from the last one. Her memory was never the same. It just got worse and worse and now…”

I lay back to look at the sky, wrapped in the towel, and he laid down with me. When he took my hand, my heart did a flip.

It flipped every time he touched me. It flipped every time he looked at me with those sharp blue eyes.

I think I was trying to convince myself all this was less than it was. I wasn’t falling for him. I wasn’t more attracted to him than anyone I’d ever been attracted to in my life. He wasn’t perfect, it was just that I remembered him that way and it was coloring how I felt now. Memories were like that, sometimes they bent reality.

Only the reality felt real. This day was perfect. All of it. Like a dream.

I closed my eyes and drew the air into my lungs.

I loved the smell of the ocean. I’d forgotten how much. The relentless sound of the waves crashing and the feel of the lumpy sand under a towel. We came here so often as kids, mostly with Mom. We’d go to Subway and get to pick a sandwich to eat when we got here. We’d have bottles of Snapple and sunblock that smelled like coconut and we’d lug our blankets and beach chairs to the water and just be here all day next to a tiny radio we could barely hear over the surf.

But being here at night was different. Familiar but not. Like being at school on the weekend or the power going out in the grocery store while you shop. Wrong somehow and discomforting.

I’d never been to the beach at night. Too murdery. But Xavier neutralized the danger of it. Made it feel fun and adventurous and safe . There is no way in a million years I’d be out here without him.

Maybe it was just him, or the trauma bond formed in the belly of the UFO, but I was convinced that nothing and nobody would ever make me feel as comforted and protected as being near him. Everything about him calmed me. His tone of voice, his smell, the warmth of his body.

He had imprinted on me.

Years worth of conditioning, set in stone over one night in an escape room.

I wondered if he felt the same way.

“I can’t believe you’ve never gone to the beach before,” I said. “It feels like a birthright.”

“My parents didn’t do that kind of thing. We never went on trips. Or anywhere, really.”

I lolled my head to look at him. “What were they like? I mean, I know they sucked. But why?”

He stared back at the sky. It took him a long time to answer.

“My dad was military. Very strict, a disciplinarian and an alcoholic. Mom was detached. There’s no other way to put it. She didn’t have a single motherly bone in her body. They should never have had kids. To be fair, I don’t think they wanted me. They definitely didn’t like me.” He looked at me. “What’s your favorite memory with your mom?” he asked. Probably to change the subject, but I could understand why.

I puffed out my cheeks. “God, so many. This, the beach. Going to swim at her best friend’s house when she wasn’t home and accidentally setting off the alarm and having to explain it to the cops. Getting these cakes shaped as monster faces from the grocery store? They were buttercream and I’d pick out the perfect one and we’d take them for picnics at Brand Park. Going up to the cabin in Big Bear and making fairy houses in the backyard and getting fresh strawberry pies to take home from this bakery we liked. Sleeping under her desk at the office on days when I was home sick and eating chicken and stars soup through a straw. Disneyland. Going to Porto’s and getting their guava cheese strudels. I could go on and on. Laughing with her about her food.” I smiled a little. “She was a terrible cook. Really, really bad. But you know, considering everything else she was good at, it was probably for the best. She would have been too powerful.”

He smiled.

“I wish you could have met her,” I said, almost to myself.

“I’d like to.”

I felt my smile fade. “Even if you do, you never will.”

We went quiet, looking at the light saturated sky. No stars. Just the city illumination reflected off the clouds in a foggy gray.

“Do you have any happy memories with your parents?” I asked, looking at him. “Or was it all bad?”

He thought about it. “Mom took me to ride horses sometimes. She had a friend with a stable. Sometimes she’d help me get my chores done before Dad got home and saw it. But that was probably more for her than me. He wasn’t exactly nice to her either. But mostly she ignored me. Acted like I was a burden or an inconvenience. The worst part was when she ignored what he did. I didn’t have anyone on my side or anyone to protect me.”

Huh. I wondered if that’s why he was a protector now.

I shifted to my side and propped myself up on my elbow. “What’s the Winnie story?” I asked.

He looked back at the sky. “You don’t want to hear it.”

“You said it was second date stuff. It’s our second date.”

He made me wait a moment. Then he let out a little resigned breath. “Winnie was my childhood dog. She wasn’t fixed. My parents wouldn’t spend the money—in fact looking back, I don’t think she ever went to the vet. She kept getting pregnant. She’d have a litter and…”

He stopped.

“And what?”

“And he would drown them.”

I gaped in horror.

“This happened, four, maybe five times?” he said. “So after the last time I took her and walked her to this vet clinic I’d seen by the grocery store we went to. I remember it was cold. Probably March. It was two, three miles, in the snow. And when I got there, I begged the woman at the front desk to let me talk to the doctor. I waited a half an hour and when he finally came out, I told him everything. Everything. I told him what would happen to me if my parents knew I was there, I told him I had nothing to give him. I begged him to help me, I was crying. And he did. He took her and he spayed her. He gave her all her shots.” He laughed a little. “He even cleaned her teeth and cut her nails when she was out. He let her recover there, while I told my parents Winnie ran away. She did that a lot. And a week later I came and I got my dog.”

He went quiet.

“She was the only thing that made living in that house tolerable. That man was a hero to me. I wanted to do that. I wanted to be that for someone else’s Winnie. That was my moment of inception.”

My mouth was still open. “How old were you?”

“Twelve? Thirteen?”

“Oh my God…” I breathed. “I don’t know how you’re not a supervillain. And your dad? Seriously, fuck that guy. I hope when he sees the word doctor in front of your name he punches holes in his own walls.”

He snorted.

The waves crashed and we lay there, looking at each other. Me wrapped in his towel, and him, holding my hand between our bodies.

He cleared his throat. “So, have you connected with any old friends since you got home?”

“My friends?” I shrugged. “A few. I went to high school here so as soon as I landed they were calling me.”

“Have you hung out with any of them?”

“Yeah, we went to dinner last week.”

“And were the high school friends from dinner the other night all girlfriends?”

I drew my brows down. “What do you mean?”

“Were there any guys there or…?

“You mean like, ex-boyfriends or something?”

He gave me his expressionless expression.

I sat up on my elbows. “Are you asking me if I’m talking to my exes?”

Poker face.

Oh my God. He was worried about it.

I grinned. “No. I am not talking to my exes,” I said. “What about you? Have you asked out any of your patients’ moms recently?”

He sat up. “No.”

I laughed. “Good.” I shook my head. “That was a terrible transition by the way.”

“What do you mean?” He smiled.

“Just sliding that question in all nonchalantly.”

“I was just curious…”

“Uh-huh. Would you be jealous if I was talking to my exes?”

Mask.

I gasped. “You would! You’re obsessed with me, Xavier.”

He looked down, humor around his eyes. When he looked back up, his gaze had gone a touch serious. “I like it when you say my name.”

I smiled. “Xavier,” I whispered. “Xavier. Xavi—” He leaned forward and kissed me.

I didn’t expect it. I did, but I didn’t.

It took my breath away.

I was hoping I’d hate kissing him. One last-ditch effort at not falling completely head over heels for a man I could not have. But the second his lips touched mine I was a goner. It was everything.

I don’t know how I fell in so deep already. It didn’t make sense. It was too soon, too impractical, too inconvenient. And my heart simply couldn’t care less.

We could have been kissing by a dumpster in an alley. Making out in a Porta Potty, it wouldn’t have mattered. The kiss was all I was afraid it was going to be. It was perfect.

A hand slipped under my jaw and he shifted and lowered me onto the towel, fingers curling around my ear. He parted my lips and his tongue gently brushed mine and all I could think was that he flew two thousand miles to kiss me. And I liked it. All of it. The effort. The feel of him half on top of me and the lumps of sand under my back. I liked the way he smelled and how strong and gentle he was pressed into me.

Normally my first time kissing someone I’d be nervous, but there was something so calming about him. Steady. Like he was safe. Predictable. Which was funny because I had no idea what he was going to do. It was sort of like a really experienced trainer calming an anxious horse—and I probably needed to think a little more on that. He was a vet, maybe he really did know how to calm anxious horses? But he hooked the back of my knee and wrapped my leg around his waist and I forgot what Google search I was planning.

“Whaaaat are we doing?” I breathed.

“I don’t know…” he whispered into my mouth.

But we kept doing it.

Two hours later I unlocked my apartment while he ravaged the side of my neck from behind and his hands wandered up the bottom of my shirt. The bolt clicked and we spilled inside. I didn’t flick on the light. He spun me and pressed me into the closed door.

“I think some of the things we did on that beach were illegal…” he whispered, peeling my shirt off me.

“I liked doing crimes with you.”

He laughed huskily and reached around and unhooked my bra.

We’d had fun in Santa Monica but nothing that included either of us being naked—and that’s not because I was being the voice of reason, believe me. He didn’t want to put me in a compromising situation. The whole making out in the sand had been one long edging session and I was officially ready to be compromised.

I pulled him to my lips by the cuff of his shirt.

“Xavier…” I whispered.

“Samantha…” he whispered back, smiling against my mouth.

He was right. The name thing was hot.

“Bed,” I managed. I nodded in the general direction and he lifted me against him by my ass and carried me through the apartment. When he set me down, I crawled across the comforter on my hands and knees and he followed, grabbing me by the hips and pressing into me from behind. He dragged my hair over my shoulder and his lips came down on the side of my neck. “This is an air mattress,” he said.

I had to laugh at the matter-of-fact delivery.

“And?” I panted.

“And what if we break it?” He grinded into me.

“Are you going to take my underwear off? Or do you want to talk about the furniture?”

He flipped me over and glided on top of me, still fully dressed, and crushed his lips to mine.

I could make out with this guy forever. He was really good at it.

He was so careful and deliberate. Like every nibble or caress was being measured to see how it made me respond. He made me feel like kissing me wasn’t about him, it was about me. Like he wouldn’t like it if I didn’t like it.

A palm traveled up my chest, over my collarbone, and to my throat. When he had my jaw in his hand, he tipped my head to the side and put his lips to the bare skin of my neck. I could feel his erection through his pants.

“You need to take everything off…” I said. “ Now. ”

He sat back and started unbuttoning his shirt, looking at me like he was going to eat me.

Pooter appeared. She scaled the side of the bed and did quick zoomies between us while he peeled his shirt off. We both laughed as he tossed his shirt over his shoulder. I was about to wiggle out of my pants—I had my thumbs hooked in my waistband—when I heard the hiss of air leaving what had to be a baseball-sized hole somewhere on my mattress. The bed almost immediately started to deflate.

We rode the rapidly flattening balloon down to the floor.

“You have got to be kidding me…” he breathed, as the bed folded around us.

This had to be sabotage. Tristan probably.

I collapsed against my pillow and Xavier plopped down next to me in the dwindling puff.

I groaned and dragged a blanket over my body.

He started to laugh.

“Well, you were right,” I said. “We broke it. Ugh, we have no bed now,” I said, my butt hitting the ground.

He leaned over and snuggled up next to me and pulled me into a hug. “We can go to my hotel,” he said, nuzzling me. “I paid for it.”

He started kissing my face. Gentle pecks, like I was some delicate, precious thing. I closed my eyes and let him. I wanted to kiss him back, give him the affectionate little pecks. But when I tried, he turned into it and kissed me on the mouth instead. Two seconds later we were right back in it, right on the floor.

This man made me dissolve. I was cotton candy in his mouth.

This was bad. Bad, bad, bad . I needed this too much.

A small part of me hoped the chemistry would be terrible. Something to give me a reason to fall out of like.

There were no reasons. Only reasons to fall in love.

The kissing took on a serious tone and I was about to suggest that we didn’t really need a mattress with air in it to continue what we’d started, but something cut into the silence. A long, mournful keening.

I broke away. “Did you hear that?” I asked, out of breath.

He paused to listen.

“Is that a cat?” I asked.

“No. It sounds like a person…”

I froze.

“Oh my God, get up, get up!” I shouted.

I scrambled off my flat mattress and grabbed my clothes. I was dressed and out the door in thirty seconds with Xavier right behind me.

I followed the crying to the blackest part of the backyard and found Mom thrashing and tangled in the decrepit pinata hanging from the avocado tree.

“Mom, oh my God, what are you doing out here?!”

She was barefoot and in her pajamas.

She flailed against the tattered whatever it used to be and I grabbed her arms and tried to keep her from getting more entwined in the rope. “Mom, stop!”

“I got it,” Xavier said calmly, coming up next to me with some pruning shears. He cut her loose and she tumbled to the floor. Then she scrambled back to her feet and came at me swinging like I was trying to kill her. “You can’t take me! Kidnapper!”

“MOM!”

She didn’t recognize me. She had no idea who I was.

She plowed toward me, windmilling her arms and I managed to grab one wrist, but she pulled my earring off with the other hand.

She was completely hysterical. I had never seen terror in someone’s eyes until this moment. She was petrified, a cornered animal.

Xavier came up behind her and pinned her arms down in a bear hug. “Hey, shhhhhhhhhhhh. You’re okay, Lisa,” he said. “We got you, you’re out. Shhhhhhhh. It’s okay.”

She struggled against him for a few seconds, her wide eyes darting back and forth. Then I watched her power down.

She panted in his arms, her wild hair stuck to her wet cheeks, and he soothed her while I leaned forward on my knees gasping for breath.

What the fuck …

The light in Jeneva’s room flicked on and a window opened.

“Who’s out there?” she shouted.

“It’s me,” I called. “Mom got out.” My voice was shaky.

“ Shit ,” I heard her mutter. The window closed.

I pressed the back of my hand to my earlobe and came away with blood.

Xavier let Mom out of the bear hug and was holding her gently by the elbow. “We’re going to go inside now, okay?” he said softly. She nodded and let him lead her toward the house, still crying and trying to catch her breath. She was limping and when we got close enough to see in the floodlight, I saw her pajamas were torn and her knees were bleeding.

Jeneva burst from the back door. “Oh my God, Mom!”

My sister jogged down the steps and met them, taking Mom’s other elbow.

“How did she get out?” Jeneva said, walking Mom to the house.

We were all so good about locking the door and setting the alarm.

All of us except Tristan . My sister seemed to realize the answer to her question the same time I did, I saw it on her face.

I stomped to the outside basement entry, keyed the code into the lock, let myself in, and stormed to Tristan’s room.

“Hey!” I threw the door open.

He bolted up in bed. “What the—”

“You left the back door unlocked and Mom got out, you dipshit!”

He looked confused. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean Mom was in the yard, Tristan. She was out there sundowning, wailing like a ghost on the moors while you fucking slept on CBD gummies.” I grabbed a throw pillow from the floor and chucked it at him.

He knocked it out of the way. “I didn’t leave the fucking door unlocked.”

“Yes, you did. And the least you can do is own up to it.”

“I didn’t do it! I wasn’t even the last one up there!”

“Sure. Right. And thanks for poking a hole in my bed too, asshole. Why did you even come home? You’re just giving us one more person to take care of. Thanks for nothing.”

I watched the words hit him and I slammed the door.

I was furious.

The adrenaline was flooding my system now. I was starting to shake. My ear stung, there was blood on my shirt. By the time I got to the top of the steps, I was pinching tears from my eyes.

What was that? Who was that?

She’d been so scared.

What that must have been like for her. Like a living nightmare. Wandering lost through the dark, not knowing where you are, not recognizing the people coming to help you.

I was so grateful Xavier had been there. And I was embarrassed too. I didn’t want him to see this side of us. I didn’t want anyone to see it.

I wanted it to not exist.

Jeneva and Xavier had Mom sitting on a stool in the kitchen when I dragged myself in. Red rivulets were running down her shins, her clothes were dirty, she had avocado leaves in her hair.

“Where’s Dad?” Jeneva said, putting a paper towel under the faucet.

“I don’t know.” I sniffed.

Xavier had a hand on Mom’s arm. He was still keeping her calm. He made eye contact with me and even that brief connection made me feel better too.

“Samantha, why don’t you go find your dad,” he said, calmly.

I nodded, grateful to be told what to do when I was too flustered to think for myself. I turned for upstairs.

Dad wasn’t in their room. He wasn’t in their bathroom either. I popped my head into the boys’ and Grandma’s rooms, all of who were still asleep, thank God.

He wasn’t here and his car was gone.

Where was he?

I jogged back downstairs. Tristan was in the kitchen, hugging his arms around himself and looking wounded. Jeneva had cleaned up Mom’s legs and Xavier had gloves on now, dabbing her knees with a cotton ball.

“Dad’s not here…” I said.

Everyone looked at me.

“What do you mean?” Jeneva asked.

“He’s not here. His car’s gone. I don’t have my phone—” She didn’t even need me to finish, she was already dialing.

We watched her face while it rang. He didn’t pick up.

“Dad? Where are you? Mom was out in the yard, call me back.” She hung up and looked at me. “Do you think he had an emergency? Why would he leave?”

Mom started crying again.

“It’s okay,” Xavier said, setting down the cotton ball to squeeze her hand. “You’re all right.”

“This was completely avoidable,” I said, giving Tristan a cutting look.

He glared at me. “Just so you know, I didn’t leave the door unlocked.”

“Well then who did?” I snapped.

“I don’t know, maybe Dad, who’s like, wherever the fuck he is?” He cocked his head at me.

I looked at my sister. I didn’t even think of that…

“Also, your raggedy-ass air mattress was flat when I came in to get my headboard. I found the hole and put duct tape on it and filled it back up for you. Not my fault you two humped it into the carpet.”

Shiiiit.

“Tristan,” I stuttered, “I’m—I’m sorry—”

“No, seriously? Fuck you, Sam. You’re a bitch for that.”

His chin quivered and he spun and went back to the basement.

I closed my eyes and let out a tight breath. How was I supposed to think Dad could’ve left the door unlocked? Tristan was the chronically irresponsible one, and my brother liked to be petty, it only made sense…

I slumped.

Xavier worked on Mom without looking up.

I put my palms to my eyeballs. Then I went to wash my ear. I had to stick a square of toilet paper to the hole to stanch the bleeding and I came out wearing it instead of waiting until the bleeding stopped because I didn’t want to leave Xavier alone with my unpredictable family.

Xavier finished with Mom and put Band-Aids on her scrapes.

“She might be sore,” he said, peeling off his gloves. “Will she take pills?”

Jeneva let out a long breath. “It’s hard.”

“Do you have anything liquid? Children’s Motrin?” he asked.

“For the boys, yeah.”

“Okay, let’s give her that.”

Mom swatted at it when we tried to hand it to her. Absolutely refused to take it.

“Could we mix it into a drink maybe?” I asked.

“She’s not really good about drinking,” Jeneva said. “It’s a struggle every time. She mostly drinks at meals, but only because she’s used to it.”

Xavier stood there with a hand under his chin. “What if we put it in a shot glass?”

We both turned to look at him.

“We all take shots with her, only hers has the medicine in it,” he said. “She might do it as a reflex.”

Jeneva was nodding. “That could work…”

I filled three shot glasses with apple juice from the fridge and put the Motrin in the last one.

We stood in a circle around Mom and handed her the Motrin.

I raised my glass. “To Dad. Who has a lot of explaining to do.”

Jeneva scoffed. We clinked with each other, Mom included, who followed the prompt, and we all threw back our drinks.

It worked. Mom swallowed the whole thing.

“Genius…” I breathed.

“Huzzah!” Mom yelled, holding up her glass. She was smiling.

I looked at her, wearily.

A tiny glimpse of the old her, brought to the surface by the familiar routine of pounding a shot in the kitchen.

Mom used to be really fun. The life of the party. The last one on the dance floor at the wedding, the first one to get up when the live band started playing in a restaurant.

Now these things about her were lost. All we got now were occasional sparks when neurons fired. And it broke my heart every time I saw it and every time I didn’t.

Jeneva took Mom upstairs and put her to sleep, and Xavier and I went back to my apartment.

I stared at my deflated bed while he closed the door behind us.

He turned me toward him and put my face in his hands. “Let’s look at you,” he said, gently, brushing my hair back. He took off my bloody toilet paper and studied the hole in my ear. “It’s superficial,” he said, running a knuckle along my jaw. “It didn’t tear all the way through, it’ll be healed in a few days.”

He leaned down and kissed me softly. “You okay?”

“Not really.” I sniffed. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“That.” I nodded to the house.

He rubbed my arms.

“I feel so bad about Tristan,” I said.

“He’ll calm down. Apologize again tomorrow.”

Pooter appeared and started scaling Xavier’s pant leg. He pulled her off and held her to his chest without ever taking his eyes from my face. She went into instant purring.

I totally knew why Mom had calmed down with him. The gentle, tender steadiness about him. It felt like he was unchangeable. Like this is who he had always been, like he came out of the womb this way, a static flat line, and he would stay that way until the day he died. This kind of person was instantly recognizable, even to someone who recognized nothing.

I couldn’t picture this man ever yelling. He was contained and self-regulated.

And I was the kind of impulsive asshole who blamed her innocent brother without even bothering to ask the question first.

I bet Xavier would have asked the question.

If he had, and the person had done the bad thing they were suspected of doing, he wouldn’t throw a pillow at them. He’d say something like, “That is very disappointing.” And it would somehow be worse than if he screamed and cursed at them.

He made me want to be a better human. As it was, I didn’t feel like I even deserved the way he was looking at me.

“Where are we going to sleep?” I said, turning from his gaze.

“Let’s go to my hotel.”

I let out a sigh.

We could sleep in the empty upstairs bedroom. It would be closer. But the hotel would be private. Probably quieter too. It was already almost 1:00 a.m. The boys were up and running around by 8:00. We wouldn’t get any sleep.

“Okay. Let me grab some stuff.”

Xavier offered to drive since I was still shaking.

There was a drug deal going down in the hotel parking lot when we pulled up. They weren’t even trying to hide it.

Xavier looked at the building from the driver’s seat. “I don’t think the pictures on the website were current.”

“What about the pictures on the reviews?”

“I didn’t check the reviews. I just took whatever was cheapest on the discount travel site.”

I pulled out my phone and googled it.

“Oh my God. This place has one and a half stars.” I turned the screen to him. “We’re gonna get scabies here.”

He frowned. “Let me see if I can get my money back. Come with me, I’m not leaving you in the car.”

I followed him in.

I was about a hundred percent sure the Dart would be missing when we came out.

The burly balding guy at the counter wouldn’t give him his money back.

We stepped away from the desk to converse.

“What do you want to do?” I whispered.

“We could get a different hotel,” he said.

“If we do, I’m paying for it.”

He shook his head. “No, I don’t want you paying for it. This was my idea to come here, you shouldn’t have to pay for anything.”

“So you pay on two places in one night? I reject that on principle.”

He dragged a hand down his mouth. “We could get another air mattress.”

“It’s after one a.m. There’s not going to be anywhere open.”

I let out a sigh. I was exhausted now. The tired had been accelerated by the drama. And it was 3:00 a.m. his time—he looked beat too. He’d worked and flown to California today—yesterday.

“Why don’t we just get the key and see what the room looks like,” I said. “You paid for it, might as well. Maybe it’s not that bad?”

He contemplated the idea for a moment. Then I think exhaustion won out. “Okay.”

We asked for a room on the bottom floor so we could park the car right next to the window and hopefully hear if someone messed with it.

He unlocked the room and the door swung in with a creak.

It had cheap 1980s-looking furniture, a generic geometric bedspread in browns and reds, a lamp with no shade, and a Bible on the nightstand. It smelled faintly of cigarettes.

“You check for bedbugs and I’ll check for cameras,” I said.

We shut the door behind us, put on the bolt lock and chain, and put our bags in the bathtub while we divided and conquered.

No hidden cameras and no bedbugs.

We did find three condom wrappers under the bed though. All different brands and sizes. At least we didn’t find the condoms.

The towels were beyond thin and scratchy and the toilet ran. I checked for two-way mirrors. Negative.

He pulled the bedspread back. The sheets looked clean.

“Let’s not use this,” I said, dragging the bedspread off with two fingers and kicking it into a corner. “They don’t get washed. We can ask the guy for more sheets. At least we know those get bleached.”

Xavier left and came back with an armful of sheets and an extra blanket. We put it on the bed and stood on our respective sides looking at it.

“I think this will work,” I said.

“Good.”

He started to get undressed.

This was not a sexy getting undressed, this was an I’m going to pass out the second I get in this bed undressing, and he didn’t even need to say it, it was mutually understood.

I’d changed into pajamas before we left, so I got in under the covers while he folded his clothes and set them on the dresser. Then he jumped into gray sweatpants—which momentarily reignited the flames in my loins, but then quickly went out when I remembered that I had a bloody Band-Aid on my ear.

He climbed in and drew me into his arms.

“When I took my shoes off, the carpet felt a little moist,” I whispered.

“There’s questionable white stains on the curtains,” he said.

“There were dead cockroaches on the windowsill.”

“You are very brave,” he whispered.

“It’s not brave if you’re not scared.”

His laugh rumbled against me and he pulled me tighter. We lay there, holding each other in the silence.

“You didn’t remember to forget me,” I said, quietly.

“No,” he said. “I did not.”

I hoped he was getting as much out of all this as me.

He put his nose into my hair and breathed out a contented sigh.

Maybe he was…