Page 102 of Sorrow & Strangers

“Not the stalker guy . . .” Rafe says, and I blink at him. “Connor told me,” he says, by way of explanation.

“He . . . did?”

Rafe nods. “After you came here for something. He told me about your ‘friend,’ ” he says, using air quotes.

“Why do you say it like that?”

Rafe shrugs. “That’s what he called him.”

“Friend with quotation marks?” I ask, and my heart sinks. Was Connor more worried about the stranger than he let on? Did he sense I was keeping more from him?

“Well, no, I added those.”

“What else did he say?” I ask, my stomach knotting. I’m not sure I want to know, but I need the whole truth if I am ever going to get past this pervasive guilt.

“He asked what I thought,” Rafe says, and I hold my breath. “I said that you were obsessed with him to the point of revulsion.”

“He was worried?” I ask on a harsh exhale, releasing the breath I only realized I was holding.

Rafe shakes his head. “Not how I think you mean. He was more asking me if I thought he should be concerned about a guy following you around while a killer was on the loose.”

I lean back against the headboard. Connor was always such a good guy. He trusted me implicitly, and I didn’t deserve him. Even when I drunkenly found the stranger’s voice sexy, and I admitted it to him, he only ended up comforting me. He cast no blame, and we both knew he would have been within his rights to do so.

“Back to Hell,” Rafe prompts.

“He was with me. We took precautions.” Gods, why does that sound so dirty?

Rafe rubs his face. “How good is he?”

“What?” I ask, blinking at him.

“At precautions. This is Hell we’re talking about. You think he’s good enough to fool my uncle in his own kingdom?”

“I do, actually,” I say with complete confidence. The stranger is a powerful being, and his mind is second to none. Plus, I know he would never put me at risk.

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then how do you know that?” Rafe asks, and I can see that he is unconvinced.

“I just do,” I say again with complete confidence.

“Yeah, I’m going to need more than that to trust him with you.”

“I don’t have more to give you. You just have to trust me.”

Rafe narrows his eyes at me. “No more trips to Hell. I mean it, Sum.”

I cross my arms over my chest. “No more being an asshole to people who are only trying to help you.”

“You first.”

I blink. “What did I do?”

Rafe rolls his eyes. “You are that self-sacrificing asshole at the end of every movie, the one who thinks it all depends on them . . . blah blah blah.” I glare at him. “You are. You and Connor both.”

My frown deepens. How can he think that? “Have I ever told you about it?” About the worst day of my life, how I failed to sacrifice myself for the only good thing in my life. I don’t remember telling him, but I couldn’t tell you what happened in those first few days after it happened. I’m almost certain I didn’t see any of the Morningstars, but you never know. If any of them had come to try to understand what happened, it would have been Rafe. It’s how he processes things. It’s how I process them too, and it’s another reason I manufacture the dreams.