His nostrils flare. Dark emotion flashes through his eyes. “She’s already lost her parents, because of me. Because of me. I’m not going to make her do a fucking butterfly just so I can give myself a pat on the back about her goddamn education.”

I blink, taken aback by his outburst. It’s maybe the first real thing he’s ever said to me. I realize this is not only about her grief. It’s about his. “Why would you say it’s because of you?”

He tosses the papers back at me, and I have to jump quickly to catch them before they fly around the room. “Do the work,” he mutters. “Make her do it. Make the crows outside do it. See if I fucking care who does the worksheet, but get her to pass first grade—or get on a plane back to Houston and say goodbye to your salary.”

CHAPTER NINE

I wake suddenly, sitting up in the dark, sweating.

Something happened. A dream? I can’t remember anything. Only blackness.

The moon hangs high in my window. I peek at my phone. Two thirty a.m. There are a couple unread texts from Noah from our last conversion. Don’t do it, he says. It’s a fucking trap. The rich people trap. They get people like us to do their work for them.

It’s not like that, I type back with a swipe of my finger. It’s not about money.

He should be asleep, especially with an early shift at the grocery store tomorrow morning. But he replies back right away. It’s always about money.

I lie back down, wondering what woke me up. I keep my phone on silent, so it wasn’t his texts. The ocean rumbles outside, beating against the cliffside like a drum. It’s a soothing noise. Nothing that would startle me.

A sound comes, a sharp cry.

I sit up again and slide my feet to the freezing cold wooden floor.

By the time the sound comes again I’m already stepping into the hallway. A light comes on a few doors away, and I take a small step back. Mr. Rochester emerges from his room looking rumpled and sleepy and somehow more human than ever before. He’s wearing a plain white T-shirt that hugs muscles I’ve already seen. The plaid flannel pajama pants hang low.

He enters Paige’s room, and her crying quiets.

I’m not sure why I don’t just enter the room and announce myself, but I find myself creeping forward. Maybe I want to see what they’re like together, without me in the middle. Or maybe I want to give him a chance to build a rapport with her. He may have been fighting with her tooth and nail before I arrived, over Pop-Tarts and sweaters, but at least he had a relationship.

Now he mostly manages to avoid her.