“And no book of verse,” I continued, liking my contrary role. Then I reconsidered. “Although, I did finish All Fools Night.”

Seth’s expression immediately grew serious. “And?”

“You already know. It was beautiful.”

“No, I don’t. It’s a mystery every time—no pun intended. The words come out, but in the end . . .” He shrugged. “You never know how they’ll be received, what people will think. I’m always kind of surprised.”

“What did the opening quote mean? The Kate Bush lyrics about making a deal with God?”

“You should hear the cover of that song that Placebo did. It’ll blow you away.” Seth gave me a knowing look. “You think there’s some hidden meaning?”

“There’s always a hidden meaning. You added it in after you met me, didn’t you?”

“Yeah . . . I mean, it relates to the book obviously . . . to O’Neill’s revelation at the end. But I guess it relates to us too.” His eyes drifted away, lost in the vista around us. “I don’t know. We’ve had to deal with so many complications. We’re still dealing with them. And what can we do? Nothing—well, unless we take your side’s point of view and make deals with the devil. But why? Why can’t we make deals with God?”

“People do all the time. ‘God, if you do this for me, I promise to be good.’ Stuff like that.”

“Yeah, but I don’t see any contracts like you guys have. No hard evidence that it works.” If I wasn’t mistaken, there was a little bitterness in his voice. “How come we can only get the things we want by being bad? Why can’t we get them by being good?”

“I’ll ask Carter the next time I see him,” I said dryly. “But I have a feeling he’d say goodness is its own reward.”

We’d picked over the tapenade by now but hardly touched the wine. His claims aside, I wasn’t sure Seth had even sipped his. He turned back toward me.

“You and I aren’t being very good, are we?” he asked. That was an understatement.

“You and I are the victims of unfortunate timing.” I paused. “And a lot of other unfortunate things.”

“Would have been a lot simpler if this stasis thing had happened when we were dating. Or if we’d just given in then.”

“No,” I said. “No way. I don’t care if this is a mess. It’s worth it that I didn’t end up hurting you.” You spared him physical pain, a nasty voice inside me taunted. But what about Maddie? Pain isn’t always physical, you of all people know that. What about the heartache you’ve caused her? I ignored the voice.