I suppose I should have thought of this earlier. But like Void, it never seemed real. And then Void became Calder, and it all got…fuzzy.
I glanced around at the huge bathroom. A copper tub, a red rock sink. Expensive. “Wait,” I said. “You’re not, like, a billionaire, right? Like the kind of criminal that guy Beryl Crowne was?”
Beryl Crowne was an infamous member of the billionaire Crowne family. As far as I was concerned, all billionaires were criminals, but hespecificallywent to jail.
When Calder spoke, there was something off about it. Guarded. “I stalked you. That’s breaking the law.”
“That’s all?” I asked.
“I think it’s my turn for a question.” A fizzy warmth filled my chest at the reference to the game we’d played. “Why do you want something casual?”
It was my turn to go quiet.
I played with the soapy bubbles.
“It’s not that I’m afraid to get hurt again,” I said. “I can get hurt. I’m used to pain. That’s…kind of all I knew for years.”
“Shay—”
“I don’t want to lose myself again. Now, my turn,” I said before he could comment on what I’d just said. “Why one night only, no names, no faces?”
He was quiet a moment, rubbing circles into my neck.
“It’s easier. My job moves me around.” Calder’s touch left me. I heard him reach for something, the clattering of maybe a bottle, and then his hands returned, rubbing a sweet-smelling oil into my neck and shoulders.
I closed my eyes.
“What do you mean you don’t want to lose yourself?” he asked.
I opened my eyes.
Fuck.
No getting away from the question, I guess.
I sat up and away from him, needing space as I answered. My arms hung over the opposite side of the tub, and I stared out at the snowy trees.
“I didn’t realize how bad things were with Graham until after,” I said. “When I ordered myself lunch and didn’t have to justify the expense. When I left the laundry for an extra day and no one yelled at me and called me worthless. I’m terrified of waking up one day and having that happen again. Where I’ve made a beautiful fantasy about you to justify the bruises.”
I thought back to the quiz I’d taken. I wasstilluncovering things from that relationship.
The silence was stiff and static. Poking. Buzzing. I could feel it at my back.
I refused to turn around.
Calder spoke, voice edged. “Is that what you meant when you said your ex wasn’t a nice person, or is there more?”
“It’s my turn,” I said. “Why the name Void?” I looked over my shoulder at him. Calder had leaned into the space I’d left, arms in the water, covered in bubbles up to his forearms.
“I didn’t choose it,” he said. “It’s because I’m so good at my job, documents disappear into a void. Come back.” He raised a wet hand out of the water, gesturing for me. I came to him,sinking back against the tub, caged between his arms. “Is that what you meant, Shay?”
“He never hit me,” I said.
Calder’s arms were still under the water. They snaked around my waist, dragging me tighter against the edge. His head resting on top of mine.
“I didn’t ask if he did.”
His voice had a controlled edge, a tension, as if he already knew what I was going to say. I felt the need to correct him.
