Page 64 of Her Rival

I almost laughed for real that time. "I didn't say the sex was accepted. I said the apology was."

She dried herself off. "Ah, so the sex was terrible. Got it."

"Hartley."

"Yeah."

"The sex was not terrible."

"Hmm."

"Go to bed."

"Yours or mine."

"You don't have a mine. Get in the bed."

She walked back to the bedroom in the towel and the wet hair. I followed with both hands jammed into the towel at my hips so I wouldn't put them on her again. We climbed into the bed. I pulled the duvet up over us. The lamp was still on. She looked at it. I looked at it. Neither of us turned it off.

She rolled onto her side facing me.

I rolled onto mine facing her.

The room was still warm and yellow.

"Jett."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

"For what."

"For all of it. For the dinner. For the car. For the not-asking. For the apology accepted. For the shower. For the. all of it."

"You're welcome."

"I mean it."

"I know."

She was quiet a while.

Then she said, very small, "He used a belt. When I was eleven. The scars are from when I was eleven. I came home from a sleepover with my hair cut shorter than he liked. He thought I'd let a boy cut it. I hadn't."

I did not move.

I did not say anything.

I'd braced myself, in the shower, with my hands on her scars, for the moment she'd tell me. Braced for it with the same controlled attention I'd braced for everything in this house tonight. I'd told myself I wouldn't react too fast, the way I hadn't at the kitchen island on Friday with the photograph between us.

I did not react too fast.

I waited.

She watched me wait.

"Okay," I said.