He laughed, but it was a laugh that didn’t express happiness—the opposite, actually. She looked at him. His face was so handsome in the moonlight, she thought, all sharp bones and hollow cheeks, strong square jaw, liquid brown eyes. Saliva shone silver on his lower lip. “Nothing’s ever over and done, Alice. I used to believe things ended. Now I know they don’t. They don’t end even in . . .”

He was about to say death, Alice was sure of it, thinking of Camilla and his love for her, still alive and strong after she no longer was. But he stopped himself at the last second, trailed off.

Why did she do it? Alice wanted to ask him. All she’d have to do is say the word why and he’d know exactly what she meant, no puzzled looks or cocked heads, no misunderstandings of any kind, she could feel it. Just as she was about to, though, she shivered, once, a mixture of fear and excitement rippling through her body.

Thinking she was cold, Tommy immediately unzipped his windbreaker, draped it over her. It was slipping off one shoulder, and as she reached up to catch it, her hand brushed his, and then he was sliding his fingers through hers. She turned her face up, and for a long moment he looked down at her, his mouth so close to hers that she was breathing his breaths. But the moment passed, and he didn’t kiss her as she was hoping. Instead he pulled her to him, against his side. And they sat like that, her head on his shoulder, his arm wrapped around her waist, until the sky lightened and night turned to day.

Chapter Nine

Chapter

• NINE •