Page 67

The shower is not quick, and no water is saved.

We manage, eventually. I wash his hair. He washes mine. He runs his fingers over the mark on my throat and winces.

“That’s going to be visible.”

“You should have thought about that.”

“You didn’t stop me.”

“No, I did not.”

He shakes his head and kisses the mark like he’s apologizing to it. Then he steps out and grabs a towel.

I dress in what I have. Which is last night’s clothes because all my clothes are at the farm. Finn goes into his closet and comes back with a dark-blue sweater.

“Try this.”

I pull it over my head. It’s slightly too tight across the shoulders and the sleeves stop half an inch too short. I look in the mirror.

“You have shorter arms than me,” I say.

“You have gorilla arms.”

“I have proportional arms.”

“You have gorilla arms. But it’ll do.” He kisses me on the cheek on his way past.

We eat toast standing in the kitchen and drink coffee from his pod machine because there’s no time for the usual good coffee.

We get in the car. Finn buckles and puts the key in the ignition but doesn’t start it.

He’s staring at the steering wheel.

“Fox? How are we going to explain this?”

“Explain what?”

“Us. Arriving together at the farm after you supposedly slept in the guestroom last night after I supposedly dropped you off.”

I hadn’t thought about that.

The sky is doing the gray-white thing that means it might snow again by lunchtime. I think about it for a second.

“Maybe we can say I saw you coming down the road and jumped in for the last stretch. The site is right off the farm road, right?”

“Yes.”

“We’re going to be a little late, so we can say I overslept and missed everyone. Then I saw your car, flagged you down, and got in.”

Finn stares at the steering wheel.

“Don’t worry. No one’s going to suspect anything because we’ve never given them a reason to look our way.”

His shoulders sag. “Fox.”

“What?”

“The lies are getting out of hand.”