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  He turns us a little so I can watch as he sticks his tongue out and licks even further upward. Watching him like this is…

  Now I know why people film themselves having sex.

  He licks me slowly and my leg nearly buckles. I have to reach my hands out and put them on the wall to balance myself.

  “Keep watching, Haze.”

  I do.

  I watch as he licks me and then strokes me with his fingers, alternating both until I can barely hold myself up. Fortunately, if I fall, he’ll sort of catch me.

  He blows on me and I convulse, nearly taking him out. He chuckles and takes my leg off his shoulder.

  “We’ll have to work on that one, gorgeous,” he says as he picks me up and carries me to the bed and lays me down. I can no longer see both of us in the mirror, but the memory of it is still making me burn.

  Javi resumes his position between my legs and with lips and tongue and fingers he finishes me off and the climax rockets through me, going on and on and on. Javier knows my body enough to know how to keep it going. He’s… incredible. Just incredible.

  “Did you like that?” he asks, laying his head on my stomach.

  “That was new.”

  “I thought you might want to see what I see. I know it gets me off.” He grins and I run my fingers through his hair.

  “For a guy who seems like a pig, you certainly know how to push all the right buttons.” I shiver with a little aftershock as Javi kisses right below my navel.

  “Pleasuring you gets me off. So it’s not as altruistic as it seems.”

  “Still. I love it.”

  He grins at me again and I pull his face up so I can kiss him as I reach down to stroke him through his pants. He hasn’t even taken his shoes off.

  “My turn.” I hook my legs around him and flip us over so I’m on top. I laugh as I start unbuttoning his shirt.

  “You know, if you want to have sex with me every day, all you have to do is wear this outfit. Because yeah. It’s fucking hot.”

  “Really?” Javi says, putting his hands behind his bed as if he’s relaxing. “Well, I shall have to add more dress shirts to my wardrobe. Would a suit earn me two rounds?”

  “Three and an extra blow job,” say. He raises one eyebrow as I open the shirt to reveal his white tank top underneath. The thing is so thin I can see the black ink of his tattoos bleeding through it, like ink paper.

  I move back so he can sit up as I pull the shirt over his head. His shoes are the next victims and then his pants.

  I finally have him the way I really want him, although the undressing part was kind of fun.

  “You don’t have to,” he says as I kiss my way over his chest and down south.

  “I get off on it too,” I say before licking him at the tip. I wish he could see what I see when I go down on him. The control I have when he’s in my mouth, or inside me is so erotic, and sometimes I reach my hand between my legs and get myself off at the same time.

  “Oh, fuck, Hazel.” His fingers twist in my hair and pull a little, but I like it like that. A little bit of pain never hurt anyone.

  I go to town on him and this time he comes in my mouth. It’s not my favorite thing in the world, but it’s tit for tat. Or dick for clit. Something like that.

  “Thank you,” he pants as I smile up at him.

  “You’re welcome, Javier.”

  “Haze?” Javi says when we’re both satiated and I’m half-asleep. My body is heavy from the food and the beer and the sex. It’s pretty much the best combination ever. Better than Thanksgiving.

  “Yeah?” I open my eyes and look up at him.

  “Thank you for tonight. For listening.”

  “You’re welcome. And thank you for telling me. I know that can’t have been easy.” He sighs and kisses my hair.

  “It wasn’t. But I’m glad it was you I told. I’d rather be here with you right now than anywhere else.” I trace the lines of his tattoos with one finger.

  “Not even Vegas?” I ask.

  “Not even Vegas. That’s not really my scene anyway. I prefer New York.” I sit up so I can see his eyes through the darkness.

  “New York City?”

  He nods.

  “Yeah. I love New York. I wanted to live there, but I chose Maine because Mimi said she always wanted to live here.”

  “Mimi?”

  “That was what I called my grandmother.”

  “Tell me about her.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  “What was she like?”

  He chuckles and looks away from me, like he’s watching a movie of his past that I can’t see.

  “She cursed like a fucking sailor for one thing. And she didn’t trust anyone. And she kept a gun under her bed, just in case. She used to carry one under her knitting when she had to ride the bus.”

  “She sounds like a total badass.”

  He laughs again and wipes his eyes, like he’s wiping away tears.

  “She would love to hear you say that. I know she would have liked you.” He tells me more about her, how she didn’t put up with shit from anyone, and pinched her pennies so much that she was able to save a small amount to send Javi to college, which he only found out about after she died.

  “The money I have? The money for the bed and for my education and all that? It’s from my family.” Oh. There it is. The question I’ve had since he started buying us groceries.

  “I used to just ignore it, but then I decided that if I had it, I might as well use it for something. Use it for good.” That explains a lot. “Most of it has gone to charities or people who were there for me and helped me out when I was young and Mimi couldn’t afford to feed us. Soup kitchens and church charities and so forth. I use some of it for my education and now I’m using some of it on you.” He’s using crime money on me?

  “Javi?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You said your family killed people.”

  “They do. They have.”

  “So that money has blood on it.”

  “Would it be any better if they were part of an oil company that destroyed the environment? Or used child labor? Most money is dirty. And I’ve learned you don’t get a lot of money unless you get pretty dirty.” He has a point, but I’m sure there are plenty of people who have money who didn’t have to kill anyone to get it, or do something else equally awful.

  “That doesn’t mean you have to take it.” He makes a sound of frustration.

  “Look, all the things you’re thinking right now? I’ve thought before. I’ve spent my whole life being haunted by this money. Being sick at the thought of it. And I finally decided that this money is going to exist, no matter what I do with it. And once I take it away from my family and use it for something good, it takes away a little bit of their power over me. Over my life. It’s my subtle way of getting back at them.”

  I think about that for a little while, listening to the beat of his heart. It’s fast.

  “I guess. It is your money. Why did they give it to you? They must know what you’re doing with it.” His fingers start moving up and down my spine in slow circles. It’s very soothing, despite the intensity of what we’re talking about.

  “Would they ever come after you?” I whisper.

  He shakes his head.

  “No. They’ve given up on me. And the money was mine when I was born. It’s mine to do with what I want. They live by a set of rules that doesn’t make sense to most people, but it’s ironclad. No matter what I do, the money is mine.” That is strange, but he’s the one who lives it. He should know. Still, I’m going to look over my shoulder. I guess you never know about people.

  “Where are you from?” He hadn’t mentioned this during the initial questioning.

  “We moved around a lot. I was born in New York, but lived most of my life in Texas.” Huh. He didn’t have an accent. Someone else would probably say he had one, but to me he didn’t.

  “Did you like it?”

  “Ther
e were good times. It was definitely warmer down there, which was nice. I’m not a huge fan of winter.” Me neither.

  “I’ve never lived outside of Maine. I’ve never even been out of the state,” I admit. This is one of those things I don’t tell a whole lot of people. Only Shannon knows.

  “Really? You’ve never been anywhere else?” I keep tracing his tattoos. They’re quite remarkable.

  “No. I always wanted to. My plan was to get the hell out of this state, but then the lure of a scholarship made me stay.”

  “Well, I think we should definitely plan a road trip. I’ll take you to New York. I think you’d love it. We’ll do Times Square and Central Park and all the standard places, but I’ll take you to other places too. There’s some beautiful spots if you’re willing to search just a little bit.” The idea of New York City overwhelms me, but I don’t tell Javi that.

  “I think I’d be okay with that. Maybe this summer?” I’m breaking my own rule about not talking about the future.

  “Sure. We’ll do a road trip, just the two of us. Or we could invite Shannon and Jett if you want.” I’m not sure, this summer is still a long way off. But I like the idea of having plans with Javi a few months from now.

  “Sounds perfect,” I say and close my eyes. “You don’t have to talk about yourself anymore. Unless you want to.” I yawn.

  “No, go to sleep. I can be done for tonight. And we have tomorrow to talk. And hopefully the next day, if we play our cards right.” I nod and rest my head against his chest.

  “Goodnight, Javier.”

  “Goodnight, Hazel.”

  My head spins for the next few days, thinking about Javier’s life. To be honest, it sounds like something out of a movie, or a sensational novel. But it isn’t. It’s real and it’s his life.

  “Do you know how to use a knife?” I ask while we’re making dinner the next night. He looks at me like I’m crazy. “What? I’ve been thinking of all these weird questions now that I know about your past and all.”

  “Okay. I’m not going to try and follow the weird logic your brain follows. Um, no, I don’t know how to use a knife in the way you’re suggesting. I can chop and I guess if I had to defend my life or someone else’s, I could hold my own. Maybe. I don’t know. I never tried.”

  He stirs the vegetables in the bottom of the brand new soup pot he brought over.

  “But if you’d stayed with your family would you know how to use it for things other than chopping?” He stares into the pot.

  “Probably. I’d know a lot of other things. How to shoot, how to fight with my fists, how to pick pockets.” I look at him with an objective eye, but I can’t see him as anything other than my Javier. The guy who broke my bed, but who makes me dinner every night and was there for my best friend when I wasn’t.

  He’s just my Javier. I can’t pinpoint the exact moment when I decided to call him mine, to claim him so no one else could have him, but I can’t un-think it.

  “We don’t have to talk about it,” I say softly, putting my arm around his waist. He puts his arm around me and holds me close.

  “It’s okay. You’re curious. It’s not a sin in my book.” I close my eyes and inhale his scent.

  “Are you smelling me?” he asks, ruining the moment.

  “No. I was just… Okay. So what? I was smelling you. You smell really good. I can’t help it.”

  “You smell good too, gorgeous.” He used to have sort of a snarky tone when he called me that. But now it’s… it’s a term of endearment.

  “Good. I’d hate to smell bad to you.”

  “Never. Not even if you rolled in garbage.”

  Gross.

  Shannon and Jett walk through the door, which ends the smelly discussion.

  Neither of them looks pleased.

  “Everything okay?” I say, sharing a look with Javi. He puts his cooking utensils down and goes to the fridge to get both of them a beer. There’s also a bottle of whiskey in there that I don’t remember buying.

  “Yeah,” Shannon says, sitting down in her usual chair and putting her head in her hands.

  “Fine,” Jett agrees, heading to the bathroom. Whoa. I’ve never seen them quite like this before. Usually when they fight you can tell how much they want to make up and stop being mad at each other.

  “What’s wrong?” I say, going to Shannon and sitting down next to her.

  “We had a fight, that’s all. He asked me to move in with him.” Her face is blotchy and starting to get red. It’s clear she’s been crying.

  “I think I’m going to go and be wherever Jett is,” Javi says, pulling the bottle of whiskey out of the fridge and grabbing two glasses from the dish drainer. Typical Javi.

  I reach out and put my arm around Shannon.

  “Tell me what happened.”

  Shit, she looks absolutely miserable.

  “It’s just what I said. He asked me to move in with him and I was a bitch and now everything is fucked up.” She starts to cry and I grab a napkin and hand it to her.

  “How is it fucked up? Did you say yes?”

  “Obviously not. I said no. I mean, shit, we’ve barely been dating and I’m already living with you. And I hate his apartment.” She wails the last part and then totally breaks down.

  “It’s so gross and I’m always afraid I’m going to fall through the floor and the pipes make weird noises at night and his creepy neighbor is always staring at me,” she says in between sniffing and wiping her eyes.

  “So you could get a new place. Or maybe Jett could move in here.” I don’t mean to suggest that, since it’s already crowded with just me and Shannon and since Javi’s here too, it would be really tight quarters.

  “I don’t know. I just… He got mad when I said I didn’t want to move to his place and then I said all the reasons I didn’t think it was a good idea and now he’s mad at me.” She looks up at me with her red-rimmed eyes and I just want to hug her, so I do.

  “You haven’t broken anything beyond fixing, Shan. Jett loves you and you love him. People fight all the time. That’s all this is. A fight. You’ll talk and get everything out in the open and then have some mind-blowing make-up sex and then it will be fine. Trust my Hazel senses. Okay?” She nods and wipes her nose.

  A bad smell reaches my nose and I realize Javi left the stove on too high and now the vegetables are burning.

  “Shit!” I get up and turn the pan off, waving my arms to clear the smell and the smoke that’s starting to pour from the open pot. The smoke detector chooses that moment to start going off as Shannon and I flail our arms near it to make it stop.

  The guys rush out. Javi still has the whiskey bottle clutched in his fist.

  “What happened?” he yells over the awful beeping.

  “Your soup burned!” I yell back as the beeping finally stops.

  The kitchen is still pretty smoky so Shannon opens the front door. It’s chilly outside, but at least some of the smell will be gone.

  “Shit, that’s my bad. I should have turned the pot off. Good thing I bought extra just in case of an emergency like this.” He dumps the burned veggies into the trash, washes out the pot and then starts the soup over.

  Jett is staring at Shannon and she’s staring back at him, her hand on the doorknob.

  “Shan,” Jett says. “I’m so sorry. I freaked out. I shouldn’t have sprung that on you and I shouldn’t have flipped when you didn’t immediately agree. I’m so sorry, princess.” Shannon sniffs and closes the door. I push her toward Jett and she takes his hand and leads him into her bedroom and shuts the door.

  “Good. Hopefully that will get things worked out,” I say, trying not to listen to what’s going on behind the closed door.

  “Oh, I think they’ll be fine. Love has a way of working out when it’s meant to be.” I stare at Javi.

  “Wow. That was really romantic.” He smiles.

  “Yeah?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He shrugs.

  “Guess I�
��m just… inspired lately.”

  I walk toward him.

  “I hope I have something to do with it.”

  He turns away from the stove and faces me.

  “You have everything to do with it.

  Shannon and Jett don’t emerge from her bedroom until the soup is well under way. Javi is trying out the bouillabaisse and there’s a fortune’s worth of seafood in the pot. I had no idea how expensive it would be or else I wouldn’t have asked him to make it.

  When the couple does return, Shannon’s eyes are still red, but dry and her hair is disheveled. Jett’s mohawk looks like it’s had fingers in it and his lips are swollen.

  “So,” I say, looking them up and down. “Everything okay now?”

  They nod in unison.

  “Yeah,” they both say and then take their chairs at the table.

  “What’s the verdict?” I ask. “Moving in yes or moving in no?”

  They exchange a glance.

  “We’ve decided to shelve the idea for now,” Jett says. “One of us was a little too eager and might have jumped the gun. One of us named Jett.” He laughs and takes Shannon’s hand.

  “And one of us named Shannon decided that she should probably think before she freaks out about things and starts letting her mouth run.” I’ll believe that when I see it. Shannon hasn’t had a filter as long as I’ve known her. It’s one of her adorable quirks.

  “Good. I’m glad things worked out,” I say and Javi agrees.

  “The whiskey helped too,” Jett adds. “I’m pretty fucking buzzed right now.”

  “Why do you always think shots are the way to fix things, Javi?” Shannon says.

  He wipes his hands on a dishtowel and takes his attention away from the steaming pot.

  “Because alcohol has a way of making things clearer sometimes.” And sometimes it made you do things you would never do sober.

  Javi gets some shot glasses down from the cabinet and pours shots for me, himself and Shannon.

  “Bottoms up,” he says, clinking his glass to mine before downing it in one swallow. I down mine as well while Shannon sips at hers.

  “That was fucking hot,” Javi says, licking his lips.