“There you go again, acting jealous.” I tried to keep my voice teasing in order to deflect how close he’d hit to home. “I thought you didn’t care who else I slept with.”

“I don’t. Just so long as you don’t like them better than me.”

I laughed and left that as my response, indicating how foolish a notion I thought it was. And yet, as we rode back in silence, I found myself hugging the book closer and closer.

Chapter 10

Dante promptly passed out after sex later that night, but I stayed awake for a while. Rolling over at last, I turned my back to him and stared at my bedside table. I’d set Seth’s book there, and now its spine stared out at me, like we were having a showdown to see who would look away first. Seth had given it to me as a gift, possibly a peace offering, yet I was afraid of it, afraid of how I might feel if I opened it.

After ten minutes of staring, I finally reached for the book and scooted closer to the bed’s edge so that I could get more light from my tiny reading lamp. Curling onto my side, I took a deep breath and opened up All Fools Night.

First came the title page, then the dedication: For my niece Brandy, who dreams of great things and will achieve greater ones still. It was embarrassing, but I had almost for a moment speculated whether he might have dedicated the book to me. He’d finished it right around the time we first started dating, but he’d been editing and making small changes right up until the time we broke up. It was vanity, I supposed, to think there might be some sign of my time with Seth in the book.

Yet, when I turned the page, I wondered. Before the first chapter, Seth always had a quote, something from a speech or possibly a verse from a poem that was relevant to the book. This was from a song:

And if I only could

I’d make a deal with God

And I’d get Him to swap our places

—“Running Up That Hill,” by Kate Bush

I read the lyrics a couple of times, wondering if there was more to them or if I just wanted there to be more to them. I’d heard the song a long time ago, and it had had that poppy synth feel so common to music in the 1980s. I didn’t recall this particular part. Finally, dragging my eyes away, I moved onto the heart of the book.

Before meeting Seth, I’d rationed myself while reading his novels. I would only read five pages a day because I’d wanted to prolong the sweetness of that first reading. When something was really good, it was easy to dive into it, and before you knew it, the moment was gone. You’d burned through it. I experienced that too frequently in my long existence, and a strict reading schedule was a weak attempt to slow things down. When I settled into this book, though, I didn’t really have a plan, and before long, I knew stopping at five pages was impossible.