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She laughs. “Precisely.”

Sloane was wrong about her. Maybe my feelings for her are messy, but she isn’t. She’s a tiny little fighter, resilient and perfect just as she is.

It doesn’t take long, with my breath against her hair and rain lashing the tent, for her to fall asleep. But I lie awake for a long time.

I will never forgive my brother for this. I’m going to stay calm tomorrow, until I get her home, and I’ll probably put a good face on things for my mother’s sake. But I’m never going to fucking let this go.

28

DREW

January 31st

There’s a warm, hard body snuggled up against my back and an erection the size of the Washington Monument pressed against my ass.

It wakes me. Because I know what it feels like to be nestled against Six, and that is not Six. Jesus Christ, that’s not Six.

There is obviously no longer a safe distance between us, and Josh’s arm is tight around me, his hand pressed flat to my stomach, his breathing still slow and even in sleep. I never would have assumed he was a cuddler. I would have assumed he had a sizable appendage if I’d thought about it, simply because, well, he’s a big guy.

Who am I kidding? I’ve thought about it.

But how do I proceed now? I don’t want to wake him because then we both have to deal with the awkwardness of this. How do you make an erection die? Other than talking about my feelings, nothing comes to mind.

I know when he wakes because for half a second he curls closer, and then I hear him say “shit” far too close to my ear and feel him roll away.

I suppose I could pretend to be asleep but that’s really not me. “Happy to see me this morning?” I ask instead.

“Don’t get too flattered,” he says moodily. “I just need to pee.”

“I wasn’t flattered. I assumed it was one of your robotic parts malfunctioning. Though I find the idea of a malfunctioning sex robot weirdly titillating.”

“Drew,” he says between his teeth, “that really isn’t helping.”

I like the idea of Josh with a raging erection he can’t get rid of slightly too much, but he was nice to me last night so I decide to be a decent human being for once. “What would help change the mood?”

“You seem to enjoy talking about death,” he says. “That should do it.”

“Hmmm,” I say, trying to think of something death related. “I really only enjoyed discussing Sloane’s death, to be honest, but let me think. Oh, got it. When was your first funeral?”

“My grandmother,” he says. “When I was ten. She didn’t look real. Yours?”

“My dad, when I was eleven.” I stare at the top of the tent, at the beads of water all over its surface. “It was a closed casket. I think that’s part of what made it so hard to accept.”

He glances at me over his shoulder. “Why was it a closed casket?”

“You and your sexy questions,” I say, poking him. He’s such a doctor. “Suicide, so it was too messy. Brains everywhere, apparently. Is this still turning you on? Because that wouldn’t surprise me about you.”

He gives a short, low laugh. “No.”

“So anyway, I convinced myself he wasn’t really in there. For that first year I kept thinking he was going to come back for me, and I pictured him, like, climbing through my window, or pulling up in front of our apartment in his Jeep and laying on the horn. And then on the anniversary of his death, I woke up and I finally realized nothing was going to change.”

I had been shocked, and I was also old enough to know how stupid it was that I was shocked. And when my mother said What’s wrong with you? in that tone she had, as if she was already mad at me before I’d answered, I didn’t dare tell her why.

He’s rolled toward me over the course of this fun trip down memory lane. “Jesus,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

“It was fifteen years ago. I’m over it. How’s your dick?”

“It’s great,” he says with a quarter smile. “Thanks for asking.”