Serious Moonlight(88)

And I was doubly relieved that after he made his way back up the bed, he reached for his jeans—and that the condom he managed to pull out of his pocket, after three tries and a cry of anguish, was not glow-in-the-dark.

“Do you want to try my Nick and Nora Go Wild plan?” he asked.

“I thought we just did,” I said in a dreamy voice that didn’t sound like it belonged to me.

He chuckled, and it was the most erotic thing I’d ever heard. “There’s more.”

“Is that right?” Frankly, if he’d asked me to bomb a building, I’d have asked which one.

“We can stop now. . . .”

“No, thanks,” I said.

“No to stopping or no to continuing?”

“To stopping.”

“You sure?”

I’d never been so sure about anything.

It was slightly awkward and fumbling. Certainly not bad for a second try. But it was the third try a little later that was— Intense. Emotional.

Light-years away from what it was in the back seat of his car that first night. Those people were strangers. We were not. And what do you know? That made all the difference.

? ? ?

When we were done being wild, we lay side by side, all tangled up in each other. Daniel picked up my hand and placed it over his heart. Its powerful rhythm was unhurried and strong, pounding in time with mine. It felt like we were inside an invisible cocoon. As if everything we’d just done together somehow created a safe space that was just big enough for the two of us.

I exhaled a long breath and sank into the mattress.

“Hey, Birdie?”

“Yes?”

“Something fuzzy and purple is jammed between your headboard and the mattress. It has one eye, and it’s staring at me.”

I reached above his head and pulled out a stuffed animal. “It’s just Mr. Flops.”

“Mr. Flops is super creepy. Oh God, he only has the one eye.”

“He’s had a rough life,” I said. “I’ve had him since I was a kid.”

“Did your mom give him to you?”

I shook my head, petting the bunny’s ear.

“I’m sorry you don’t have a lot of good memories of your mother,” he said.

I sighed. “It’s okay. Mr. Flops is still a good memory. The Easter before my mom died was super rainy. My mom was gone—I can’t remember why. Maybe she was seeing someone, I don’t know. But I was upset about the rain because Mona was supposed to take me to an Easter egg hunt. Instead, Ms. Patty and Mona hid a bunch of clues around the diner in those pastel plastic eggs that break apart. Like, the first egg had a piece of paper inside that hinted where I could find the next one.”

“A treasure hunt for young Detective Birdie,” Daniel said, smiling. “A mystery hunt.”

I smiled back. “Exactly. And I loved every second. And at the end of the hunt was Mr. Flops and a crapload of candy. I felt like I’d won the lottery.”

“I love that,” he said, then told the bunny, “Sorry I called you a creep, Mr. Flops. You’re a fine bunny.”

I smiled, and then said, “Hey, Daniel?”

“Yes?”

“I just realized. We don’t have to work tonight.”

“Nope.”

“And we have the house to ourselves. Maybe you should just stay here.”

“All night?”

“You could just text your mom and tell her you’ll be home in the morning.”

“Oh, she’d love that.”

“Really?”

“That was sarcasm, Birdie.”

“But you’ll stay anyway, right? I’ll let you sleep on Columbo or Mr. Flops. Gentleman’s choice.”

“Well, then. How can I say no?”

I closed my eyes, completely blissed out.

“Hey, Birdie? Truth or Lie. Do you believe in second chances now?”

I ran my fingers through his hair. “I believe in us.”

“I do too,” he whispered back.





“Curious things, habits. People themselves never knew they had them.”

—Agatha Christie, “The Witness for the Prosecution” (1933)





27




* * *



“The video of Darke in the hotel!” I said as the tub drained, tightening a damp towel around my chest.

“Oh, shit.” He paused in the middle of a vigorous hair-drying. “I knew we forgot something.”

It was well past midnight. Over the past few hours, we’d napped—for real, this time—used up the rest of the condoms, listened to old jazz records, set off the kitchen’s fire alarm when we accidentally burned grilled cheese sandwiches, and now bathed. That two people could comfortably fit in our old claw-foot tub was news to me and possibly the best idea we’d had all night.

Honestly, it was a miracle I even remembered Raymond Darke.

“The woman who was with Darke in the hotel,” I said. “Can’t we grab a still from the video and run some kind of reverse-photo-scan thingy on it? See if we can search for her online?”

Daniel’s head popped out from a floral-print towel that had seen too many years. His dark hair was a chaotic mess. “Do you even know how to do any of that?”