It had taken her years, but she’d trained herself to live solely in the present, because the past and future were in competition for what frightened her more. But how fragile was her current reality if just the mention of a place—that place—could still make her feel like this? And what did she feel exactly? Unnerved. Unsettled. Unsafe. In New York, none of her friends ever spoke about Vegas; it was garish and vain, not up to their standards. Here in this rainy, cold state, it was paradise. People popped over there for sun and a nice stay in a hotel all the time. She told herself she was a drama queen, tried to brush off the feelings of doom that were making a playground of her mind, but in the end something bad had happened there. She was only human.

The pipes groaned upstairs as Grant turned off the shower; she opened the wine and carried it over to the table, splashing it into the glasses. The kitchen smelled of pepper and oregano.

The kitchen smelled of him.

No, it doesn’t, Rainy reminded herself. It smells fine. They’re just spices.

“So, what happened?” She jumped when he walked in, wearing pajama pants. Damp hair rested on the neck of his T-shirt as he bent to pull something out of the oven with her flamingo-patterned mitts.

“How do you know something happened?”

When he put the casserole dish on the table, he made a face that made her both angry and want to kiss him at the same time.

“You get a look on your face,” he said. “A panicked look in your eyes.”

She laughed without looking away. “A panicked look, huh?”

This time, he raised a lone eyebrow as he sat down, like, You gonna tell me or what?

“They invited me to Vegas. Their girls’ trip.” She picked up her fork and realized there was nothing on her plate.

“Oh?” He reached over to slide a piece of lasagna onto her plate.

Rainy didn’t answer. Instead, she took a sip of her wine and stared at her partner over the rim. Grant was one of the most chill men she’d ever met. It was why they worked. He thought she was reclusive because of her art. He’d spent a lot of time convincing her to hang out with his group at first.

“So, will you go?”

“To Vegas?” Rainy swallowed. “No, I hate that place.”

He looked crestfallen and she felt awful. Grant was a good man. It was her fault he didn’t understand.

Again, she lied easily, by omission, though it wasn’t without a price; the guilt settled in her throat and she tried to swallow it down. Grant was watching her carefully.

“What is it? What are you not saying?” he asked, frowning.

She was startled at how perceptive he was, and that she liked how he saw through her.