He uncaps the whiskey and pours us each a glass. When he looks up, his expression is unrecognizable.

And again, dimly, I remember the rumors: some trouble in high school, something Condor did.

“It’s all right,” he says with a shrug. “I’m still angry about it, I guess. Hannah’s the best kid in the world, and her mother wants nothing to do with her. Drugs,” he clarifies, in answer to a question I haven’t asked. “She had an accident and then got hooked on the pain pills. She’s in Indianapolis. Or she was. Went through rehab a few years ago. Still has visitation rights.” Condor frowns into his glass.

“Sorry. For asking.” Again, it isn’t quite the right thing to say.

“I bet you are.” Condor’s crooked smile is back. I want to tell him that isn’t how I meant it, but I can’t—what’s the point, anyway? “It’s better now that Hannah’s old enough to understand. I’m very honest. She knows her mom’s an addict, that she’s sick, that it’s not Hannah’s fault.” He looks away. “Ah, well. Mistakes of our youth, you know? You never really outrun them.”

“I hope that isn’t true,” I say, which makes him laugh.

“What about you?” he asks, settling back again in the sofa. “What’s it like coming home after all this time?”

“I’m not really coming home,” I say, as if he’s accused me of something. “I’m just here for a job.”

“Still. Must be weird to see how things have changed…”

“And how they haven’t,” I say, and he raises his eyebrows. I’m more than a little drunk now, and it feels great. All the doubts and uncertainties are drowning. Condor is here and we both know how this goes, and until then there’s nothing to do but keep going.

Condor sets down his glass. In the silence, he fingers the scar over his lip.

“What happened there?” I ask.

Condor just shrugs again. “Another childhood mistake.”

I lift up my glass. “To childhood mistakes, then.”

Slowly, he smiles. “And grown-up ones,” Condor says.

“Sure,” I say. “To grown-up ones, too.”

He tastes like whiskey when he leans in to kiss me, and long after he leaves, my skin continues burning.

Chapter Ten

My sleep is restless, full of nightmares that feel more like memories, one bleeding into the other. Now I’m shivering yet drenched in sweat. All my life I’ve been like this—too hot or too cold, too conspicuous or too plain, too tall or too thin or too something. My mother used to say I was like Goldilocks, trying out Big Bear’s and Little Bear’s things. She used to call it “Middle Bear” when something was just right. I wake up and for a second the smell of my mother, her lotion, her hands, seems to float through the room.

In the bathroom I touch my lower lip, as if Condor might have left an impression. Instead, the Bordeaux has left a black stain. Weak spots. The words float suddenly to my mind. He kisses just how I thought he would, as if he needs it.