The Lucky Ones(24)

“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice softer, almost a whisper. She could believe then he’d been a monk. Such a voice surely had God’s ear.

“More mad than sad,” she said. “It’s not fair, you know. I should have grown up in this house.” She turned away from Roland and went to the north-facing window.

The windowsill did double duty as a bookshelf. Old books lined the ledge, novels they’d read in school, tattered paperbacks with pencil markings and yellow highlighting on the pages. Flowers for Algernon, The Island of Dr. Moreau, Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. All of Deacon’s twisted sci-fi favorites.

“You think you get used to it, to losing people you love. I lost my mom,” she said. “Lost you all. Lost my...”

“What?”

“My aunt,” she said hastily. “She died a year after I started college.”

Roland nodded but the skeptical look remained.

“You should get used to it,” Allison said. “But you never do.”

“I don’t think you should get used to it,” Roland said. “You’d have to be pretty heartless to get used to something like that.”

“I wish I were heartless some days.”

“Don’t,” he said, and he said it so sternly and sharply she looked up at him in surprise. “Don’t ever wish that.”

He held her gaze and didn’t look away, didn’t let her look away. She couldn’t remember ever seeing him so serious, so solemn.

“You have a good heart,” he said. “A lot of people don’t. You shouldn’t wish a good heart away.”

“You’re such a monk. I was being jaded. Ignore me.”

“Twenty-five is too young to be jaded.”

“I have my reasons.”

Roland waited, sitting on the windowsill. He didn’t need to ask—she didn’t want him to. And yet she suddenly felt the urge to reveal everything.

“I got dumped,” Allison said. “Two days ago.”

Roland’s eyes widened.

“Two days?”

She shrugged. “It happens.”

“How long were you together?”

“Six years.”

Roland looked equal parts amazed and horrified. “Six? That’s longer than a lot of marriages.”

“This was nothing like a marriage.”

“It wasn’t serious?”

“It was very serious,” she said. “Hard to explain. But, if you’re glad to see me, you should be grateful to him. I wouldn’t have been able to come out here if he hadn’t ended things.”

“Well, I am glad.”

She threw a pillow at him.

He caught it deftly and tossed it back onto the bed.

“I mean—I’m not glad you got dumped. That’s brutal. Especially after six years. But definitely glad it brought you here. And you have a free pass to be as jaded and bitter as you want to be.”

“Thank you. I’ll take it,” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m on Kentucky time, which means it’s two hours past my bedtime.”

“Tired?”

“A little.”

“Tired tired or tired of me?” he asked.

“Definitely not tired of you. But I am tired. And if I keep talking I’ll talk about things I don’t want to talk about.”

“Then I’ll let you sleep. I’ll crash in Deacon’s room tonight since Dad’s not here. It’s the one right across the hall. If you need anything, knock.”

“Same here.”

They said their good-nights and Allison took a quick shower to get rid of the last of the sand before putting on her pajamas. They were cotton—white shorts and a camisole top—and covered enough skin she wouldn’t feel strange walking around the house in them. She lay in bed and turned off the light—a milk glass lamp with a blue glass shade—and tried to sleep. While her body was exhausted from the time difference and the travel, her mind wouldn’t shut off. Roland a monk. Dr. Capello dying. Kendra and Oliver long gone. McQueen living his new life with his new lady and the baby on the way. Her brain spun like a roulette wheel, and no matter what number it landed on, she lost.

After half an hour, she switched on the lamp again and went to her suitcase to look for a book to read. None of the ones she brought made for good bedtime reading. They were too serious, too scholarly. She needed a comfort read. She got out the copy of A Wrinkle in Time Roland had sent her and started reading it again for the second time that day. She didn’t get very far, two whole pages, when she heard a soft tapping on her door.

“Come in?” Allison said.

“Someone wants to see you,” Roland said, pushing the door open. He was in his pajamas, too. Plaid pants, bare feet, sleeveless T-shirt. He’d shaved, the lack of stubble making him look five years younger. And in his arms he held a cream-colored cat.

“No way,” she said. “Is that Potatoes O’Brien?”

“It’s just Brien now,” Roland said. “We dropped the Potatoes O. I caught him lurking outside your door like a creeper.”

Roland carried the cat over to the bed and sat down with him.

“Can I pet him?” she asked. “Or will he scratch me?”