Midnight Sommelier - Anne Malcom Page 0,60

had figured out I was sneaking out of the house nightly, creeping in before the sun came up. I was thankful for expensive eye creams and concealers to hide the lack of sleep I was getting. Then again, it wasn’t really showing up on my face. There was a kind of ... glow emanating from my pores. And I was aware of what a fucking cliché that was.

I had no idea why I asked the question I did. We didn’t do much talking. Everything we did was with our bodies. And they talked loud enough to say more than words ever did.

But we’d done a lot of talking before, over wine, and he’d told me things about his past that had me wondering whether he was a murderer.

His arms tightened around me. A minute passed before he answered. “Yes.”

That single word should’ve done something. Should’ve jerked me out of his arms, out of his life. But I stayed. I’d known that, hadn’t I?

He expected me to do that, too. “You’re not running from me.

“I didn’t discover what I could go through and still survive,” I said. “I didn’t survive. Not really. Parts of me, really big parts, died ugly, horrible deaths. Other parts only survived by the skin of their teeth. Those boys in there are the only thing keeping my heart beating, the only thing getting me up in the morning. The only reason I’m not sitting on the street clutching a liquor bottle in a paper bag. Things are changing, though. I’ve got more reasons.”

I didn’t say it. I didn’t need to. He knew what I was getting at. He knew things were becoming different, deeper every single day. Zeke was many things, but emotionally dense was not one of them. Beyond that, he may have had his hooks in me, but I had my hooks in him too. We were each other’s prisoners.

“This habit you’ve got of getting up before me ... it’s starting to freak me out,” Alexis said, reaching into the cupboard for the blender.

I grinned up from my laptop. “I’m sure it won’t last. However long it takes me to finish this” —I nodded down to my laptop— “at least. Once I’m done, and I’m talking about ten years down the road, I’ll go back to my sleeping past dawn ways.”

“Mhmmm,” she said.

She hadn’t gone anywhere. Hadn’t made any noises about leaving. Hadn’t spoken a word about the fact that her five-year plan said nowhere she should move in with her widowed older sister and her kids.

She had adapted to this new life like she’d adapted to everything, not showing me an ounce of resentment for the part I was playing.

And I was repaying her by lying.

I closed my laptop. “Zeke and I,” I said. “We’re...”

“Having sex?” Alexis finished for me.

I blinked at her. She did not seem to think such a thing was a shocking revelation.

“Oh, come on,” she said, cutting up a banana and throwing it into the blender. “I’m a woman. I’m smart. I also know what you’ve looked like for a year with no fire inside of you. No light. No life. You’re getting it back now. And I catch the looks you give him.” She scooped in protein powder. Moreover, I see his lingering, longing looks. Mr. Biker is nowhere near as stealth as he thinks he is. And he’s more than a little infatuated.”

She paused. “And so are you. And you know, you’re allowed to be.”

Alexis turned on the blender so I couldn’t argue, maybe so I could think on what she meant.

But I didn’t do either of those things. I opened my laptop and continued writing.

14

It was a regular day.

Nothing dramatic had happened.

No more late-night trips to the police station.

No more fights at homecoming games.

Nothing to prepare me for what was going to happen that day. Which was kind of the point, I guessed.

“Hi,” I said, opening the door wider on instinct to let Zeke in. Despite the rules of not seeing him in the daylight, I was glad he was here. The nights weren’t enough. He was becoming a drug. I wanted more of him. Too much.

Because of my relief, I didn’t notice something different about him until I’d closed the door and led him into the living room.

“Do you want coffee?” I asked, glancing up at the clock on the wall. “Or wine? It’s almost the socially appropriate time to begin serving it, and I’ve been listening to your recommendations so I think you might