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Where the hell is Trap? What will I do if he’s gone forever?
I want to go to Leo. I want to say I get it now. If Crash can take away this terror, this pain, only a fool would pass it up.
There’s no way Leo will open the cottage door to me. I don’t dare use my freeport ID to force my way in. Leo knew what he said tonight would knife me to the core. He knew he’d destroy me. But he said it anyway, because it’s the truth. Because it’sme, in a way I couldn’t see.
1:42.
The plastic bag feels like satin beneath my fingers. Each piece of paper is a slip of lost dreams. I choose one at random. I stare at the little explosion, bracing myself for how it will detonate in my brain.
When I put it on my tongue, I expect an instant reaction. I brace for a flood of salt or maybe sour, for bitter or sickening sweet. I wait for my fingers to tingle, for my breath to come fast and shallow, for my heart to shift into overdrive.
But there’s nothing. Just a thicker gob of spit that slides down my aching throat.
Five minutes pass with no change, and I wonder if the Crash is even real. Maybe the papers are a joke, some twisted game the hospital orderly played on a vulnerable patient. Maybe Leo only thinks this bagmakes him right. The placebo effect—I know all about it from grad school.
I sit on the bed and open my nightstand drawer. There’s a nail file in there and a small pair of scissors. Hand lotion and a stray bookmark. A bottle of lube.
I shove the plastic bag all the way to the back. I’ll give it back to Leo tomorrow. Bring him a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup as a peace offering. See if we can start over. Again.
My fingers slip off the nightstand drawer as I try to close it. My hand has turned to lead; it’s almost too heavy for me to lift. I have to concentrate, using all my willpower to force the drawer closed.
I’m thirsty. I need a glass of water. My feet, though, are miles from the floor. The bathroom is a continent away.
I force myself to make the trek, holding on to furniture and the walls. The water is so cold it turns my bones to ice. My glass fills with music—something I’ve heard before, but I can’t remember where. It’s the soundtrack to a dream.
When I look in the mirror, my eyes are huge. They’re all pupil, all black; no one would ever know my driver’s license says they’re brown.
The water tastes like moonlight. I drink a full glass, and then another, and each sip frees a different note deep inside my brain.
I was worried about something, but I can’t remember what. I was afraid, but there was no reason. I need someone, no, something…
I need music. I run my fingers under the tap, splashing to make sounds I’ve never heard before. I hold my breath so I don’t miss a note.
The song weaves into my bones. It reshapes my organs. It turns me inside out, making every cell in my body a separate, perfect instrument.
I follow the notes back to the bed. The sheets play a secret concert against my skin. My pillow whispers a symphony. Every time I turn my head, I’m suspended on new sounds I can’t describe.
I turn off the light. I close my eyes. I hold my breath. And the music carries me deeper and deeper into my brain, until I can pluck individual neurons and lose myself in the music of my soul.
30
TRAP
* * *
Alix is sound asleep when I get home. I shouldn’t be surprised; it’s after three in the fucking morning, and that’s with Charles collecting a three-hundred-dollar speeding ticket on the goddamn Jersey Turnpike. The officer wanted to run us in for reckless driving, but a thousand bucks convinced him to write it down to thirty-nine above the posted limit.
The water is running in the bathroom, which is weird, but maybe Alix needed the white noise to help her fall asleep. I shuck off my clothes, adding them to the pile I left before I hit the road. I’m already reaching to spoon her when I climb into bed.
She’s throwing off heat like a campfire, which only makes me realize my hands and feet are blocks of ice. For one heartless second, I think about where I can plant them, to wake her up quick. I’m a fucking gentleman, though. I rub my palms together, using friction to thaw my fingers. I keep my toes to myself.
When I cup my hands around her gorgeous tits, her nipples peak at my first touch. She moans in her sleep, but she pushes back against me. My cock registers its approval.
I take the lobe of her ear between my teeth, biting just hard enough to make that gorgeous sound ripple from her throat again. Without opening her eyes, she says, “It sounds like starlight.”
She’s dreaming. I should let her sleep. But she’s pressing her back against me, and I’m so fucking wired, and the only way I can stop playing with her tits is to test the furnace between her legs.
She’s wet. Soaking. Like she just beat off minutes ago, and now she’s drifting in the afterglow.
