Page 69 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

“That’s not what I’m asking for.”

“I know.”

“No more bruises, Harper.”

I looked at him. He held my gaze.

“I'll try.”

He let out a breath. “Okay.”

I turned back to the bag and kept working. He held it, adjusting the angle whenever I asked, and said nothing more about Tom. The silence between us was easy enough to fall into. Punch after punch, the earlier irritation burned off through my shoulders and arms.

When I finally stepped back to wipe my face, he held the towel out before I even reached for it.

“Have you had enough?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Come with me.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere quiet.”

I looked at him. He watched me back with quiet patience, not pressing, simply ready. I had come to the gym to outrun the noise in my head. The bag had taken some of it, but I wasn’t ready to go home and let the rest catch up.

“All right.”

I showered quickly in the locker room, changed, and met him outside. The night air had teeth. Jackson opened the passenger door of the SUV without a word and I slid in.

He drove east, away from town. The radio stayed off, and he didn’t try to fill the silence. The dark road stretched ahead of us, quiet and empty.

“Where are we going?” I asked after a while.

“A friend’s place,” he said. “It’s empty this weekend.”

I glanced at him. “And what’s the plan?”

“Heated pool,” he answered, the corner of his mouth curving. “Thought you might like to use it.”

“I don’t have a swimsuit.”

His voice dropped a notch. “You don’t need one.”

“You’re very confident.”

“A guy can dream.”

The road climbed steadily. After twenty minutes he turned off the main road, then again onto a paved drive that wound through the trees and ended at a wooden gate. He pulled a card from above the visor. The gate rolled open without a sound. Beyond it, a low timber house sat back among the trees. Dark windows. Deep porch.

He parked on the gravel and killed the engine.

“We won’t go inside. Pool’s around back.”

“Okay.”

We walked along the side of the house until the deck opened in front of us. It sat under a high wooden pergola, lanterns strung along the beams throwing warm light across the boards. The pool was set into the deck itself, steam rising slow and lazy into the cold October air. Underwater lights turned the water a clean pale blue. Beyond the edge the land dropped away into trees, and above them the sky was clear and crowded with stars.