Annalise licked a drip from her ice cream cone, and my dick twitched—in the middle of fucking Disney.

“He lost the blue one in a duel with Darth Vader in Cloud City. There was a big uproar over the reason his light saber was green in Return of the Jedi. The original movie posters had him holding a blue saber. Some people say they changed the color because the fight scene background was a blue sky, while others think there’s a deeper meaning—like the filmmakers trying to show Luke had become his own man.”

I chuckled. “Ah, got it. So they wanted to sucker parents into buying more light sabers by changing the color.”

Lucas was fascinated with Annalise’s Star Wars trivia capability. Me, I didn’t mind sitting around just watching the two of them—as long as she kept licking that ice cream cone. I was damn happy we’d gotten those adjoining rooms now.

After we finished our dessert, we hit a few more rides before calling it quits for the night. It had been one long-ass day—sex twice this morning, a long run, driving up to L.A., then going on a shitload of rides when we got here. But while I was wiped, Lucas and Annalise seemed to still have plenty of energy.

“Can we go in the pool?” Lucas asked as we got off the tram at our hotel stop.

I looked at my watch. “It’s almost 9:30.”

“So?” He frowned.

“Annalise probably didn’t even bring a suit.”

She grinned. “Actually, I did.”

“Please?” Lucas shot me puppy-dog eyes.

“I can take him if you’re too tired.”

“No. It’s fine.” I pointed at Lucas. “A half hour. That’s it.”

“Okay!”

I grumbled to Annalise as Lucas ran ahead to the hotel’s front door. “It better at least be a bikini if I have to go into a Disney piss bucket.”

Her smile sparkled. “Complain all you want, but I see the truth in your eyes. You’d do anything that kid asked you to, and you love every minute of watching him enjoy himself.”

She wasn’t exactly wrong. Without thinking, I slid my hand into hers and finished the walk to the hotel lobby hand in hand. The screwed-up thing was, I had no idea I’d even done it. It just felt…right. Annalise didn’t seem to notice either, or if she did, she didn’t say anything.

Just the same, I let go to open the door and shoved my hands into my pockets after that.

***

“He’s a great kid.”

Annalise and I sat across from each other in the bubbling hot tub, twenty feet away from the pool. A bunch of kids had been organizing a water volleyball game when we came outside, and they’d asked Lucas to join in. So we’d gotten a reprieve from getting into the cold piss bucket and came to soak in the designated over-eighteen hot tub. Lights lit up the pool area, so we could still keep an eye out from a distance, yet we were far enough away to not look like we were babysitting him.

“Yeah. Despite the whack job who’s raising him, he’s turned out to be a really good kid. He’s got his head screwed on pretty well.”

“He really looks up to you.”

The hot tub had been helping to relax my muscles, but that comment made them tense again. “Yeah.”

Annalise went quiet, and I had an idea what she was pondering.

“Do you mind me asking how old he was when his mom died?”

“He was three.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“Was she…sick?”

I held her gaze. “Car accident.”

Her eyes dropped to my torso. She was smart enough to put two and two together. And I knew she was debating asking.

It was the last thing I wanted to talk about. I stood. “It’s getting late. Why don’t I grab us some towels?”

Lucas was snoring by the time I got out of the shower. The day had been pretty great, but the mention of the accident had brought my head down. I sat on the bed across from Lucas, watching him sleep. He looked just like his mother now. It was hard to imagine that in only a few more years, he’d be the same age she was when she’d given birth to him. Which made me think…I needed to have a talk about condoms and birth control with him. Fanny wasn’t going to do it. Hell, I’d had the talk with her daughter, too.

A lotta good that did.

My phone vibrated on the end table, so I swiped to check my messages.

Annalise: Sorry if I was being nosy. You got quiet after I asked about his mom. I didn’t mean to upset you.

I attempted to put her mind at ease.

Bennett: You didn’t. Just tired. The long day must’ve caught up to me.

I doubted she’d bought it, but at least she wouldn’t push.

Annalise: OK. Well thank you for letting me tag along today. I had a great time. Goodnight.

Bennett: Goodnight.

I tossed my phone back on the end table. In the eight years since that night, I had never spoken to anyone about the accident—except for the cops and the lawyers. Not even the shrink my mother had sent me to could pry that vault open. For a long time, I just figured the less I thought about it, the easier it would be to move on. Until recently.

Sophie’s journals had stirred up a lot of things inside me. I was starting to wonder if keeping it in had let me move on at all, or if maybe letting it out might be the only thing to set me free.

Chapter 34

* * *

January 1st

Dear Me,

We’re sad.

Bennett has been gone two months now. He’s only a few hours away at UCLA, but it might as well be halfway around the world. We miss him. A lot. He has a new girlfriend. Again. He said this one’s a marketing major, too, and they hang out all the time like we used to.

We’re still dating Ryan Langley, but sometimes when we’re kissing him, we think about Bennett. It’s really weird. I mean, he’s Bennett, right? Our best friend. But we can’t seem to stop it.

College isn’t so great. I thought it would be different. But it feels like just another year of high school when you live at home—only without Bennett here. There’s even a bunch of kids in my classes who were in my classes back at RFK High.

Everything is the same, yet so different.

We got a job at a hair salon answering the phones. The people there are really nice, and it pays pretty good. We’re hoping to save money and get our own place. Mom’s new boyfriend Aaron is a jerk and is always home.

This month’s poem is dedicated to no one.

She glances backward,

afraid to move forward now.

Why aren’t you here?

This letter will self-destruct in ten minutes.

Anonymously,

Sophie

Chapter 35

* * *

Bennett

How bad did I want the job?

Annalise had left for her weekly dinner with Madison a few hours ago. Since I had an early-morning appointment out of the office tomorrow, and my bed would be empty tonight, I’d stayed extra late to finish things for my full pitch to Star Studios, which was coming up soon. This week had been busy as hell, even though it was only Wednesday. And we still had dinner with douchebag’s sister on Friday.

I grabbed the key to Annalise’s office from Marina’s top drawer to leave some sketches on her desk. At lunch today, she’d mentioned she was stuck coming up with a logo for a kid’s magic marker company that was expanding into a line of professional artist markers. An idea had come to me while I worked on shading in a different project, and I thought it might work for her client.

Annalise had brought the account with her from Wren, so we weren’t in competition—I had no reason not to help.

Only when I went to put my drawings on her desk, I found the entire concept for her Star pitch laid out there: storyboards, 3D-logo models, and a thick, red expanding-file folder labeled RESEARCH. I stared at the banded folder—there had to be three inches of damn research. Way more than I’d done. What could she have in there? Shit that could give her an edge, that’s what.

I set my drawings on her seat and picked up the folder. The thing had weight.

Fuck.

I shouldn’t.

But what if I’ve missed something?

I knew two things with absolute certainty. One, it would be a pretty scummy thing to do. And two, if the shoe was on the other foot, and it were Annalise finding my desk with all this shit, she’d turn around and walk the hell out.

But there was no fucking way I could move to Texas.

I wouldn’t be doing it for myself. I’d be doing it for Lucas.

There was an exception for shitty behavior when the end justified the means, right?

What the hell could she have in here? Seriously, this thing had to weigh three pounds. Maybe there was a brick inside? Or a book? A hardcover of Marketing for Dummies? I could at least check that, couldn’t I? It might set my mind at ease to know I wasn’t missing research.

I pulled the red rubber band off the file folder.

God, I’m a fucking asshole.

Setting it down on the desk again, I stared at it some more.

What if this weren’t Annalise?

She’d said herself that she’d tried to take the person out of the equation when deciding how to act. A sixty-year-old, married man—I was pretty sure that’s who she pretended her competition was.