“Your turn,” he said.

She moved her hand from between his legs, and he touched her hair, her temples, the bridge of her nose. Now he touched her chin, ran a finger over her lips. He caressed her throat and her clavicle bones and her shoulders. Ran a finger down the inner flesh of her arm to her wrist, so that she prickled all over. He laid a palm flat on her belly. The desire writhed, then.

Now he was lifting her T-shirt, gently exposing her breasts. His other hand moved toward her jeans, tugged at the waistband, tugged them off of her without unbuttoning them—she’d lost that much weight in the last few weeks. Izzy had a brief thought—she was glad she’d stolen the underwear—before Ever’s fingers slid beneath the waistband of the lace covered with tight, satin knots of pink roses.

Meet ze Monsta

Izzy heard a key in a lock and opened her eyes, trying to remember where she was. Light poured in through a panel of glass in the beamed roof. Dog had jumped up and managed to fit himself against the curve of her back, his legs dangling off the side of the couch. He lifted his head heavily and blinked sideways at the door.

Ever eased in with a canvas bag of groceries in one arm, and Dog unfolded himself and ran to Ever, tail wagging. “You okay?” Ever asked her. “Know where you are?”

She sat up, rubbing her eyes and trying to nod her head, but her neck and back were so stiff. Where was she? She was with him, this man she had just met.

He began to take the food from the bag—eggs, butter, cheese, spinach, onions, berries. “Omelet?”

Eggs comforted her. “Thank you,” she said.

“I make a cruel omelet.”

“Cruel?”

“Sorry. Bad old joke. So old I don’t even notice when I say it.”

She got up and pulled on her underpants and jeans. The small stone woman she’d stolen from the retreat center had fallen to the floor, and she put it on the coffee table and went into the kitchen with Trout now at her side, coiling his tail around her ankles. Ever had shaved, and she could see the smooth line of his jaw, could smell—when he kissed her cheek, so naturally, as if they had done this many times before—the sandalwood of his soap mixed with the nag champa and coffee.

Izzy put on her shoes and went out to the truck for the extra food she’d stashed there for Dog. While she fed him, Ever took out some onions, heated oil in a pan.

“I’ll chop the onions,” Izzy said. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d felt like cooking. Yes, she could. On Halloween.

After they’d eaten, mostly in a gentle silence, Dog waiting patiently at their feet for scraps, the sun through the skylight catching afire dust motes in the air, Ever asked if she wanted to shower.

“I need one,” she said. When had she last showered?