“I don’t know what she wants. But she doesn’t want me there with her. She said so.”

“During a fight?” I glance at him. “Everybody says stupid stuff when they’re mad. I’m sure if you just talked to her—”

“She changed the locks.”

And I’ve got nothing. “Really?”

He nods slowly. Then he reaches over without looking, sliding his hand from my knee, along my inner thigh, between my legs, and my pulse is there, meeting his touch. I’ve learned so much, gotten so many answers, but somehow it comes back to this, the two of us, and I move into his gentle pressure. “I just want to be with you.” His voice is quiet.

I breathe out, trying to focus on the road. “Where can we go?” Not the woods. That’s cold estrangement to me now; we deserve better.

“I have a place.” He rests back, doesn’t move his hand. “You know how to get there.”

My stomach is churning by the time we reach the end of Lorimer and the little house. There’s no car in the drive this time. “You’re sure she won’t come home?”

“Not anytime soon. She works Saturdays.” He’s got my jeans unbuttoned, edging the zipper down.

“But the locks . . .”

“Only so many places to hide an extra key.”

The street is hushed, the daylight beginning to fade as we go inside together, Kincaid letting us in with the key he pulled out from the gap under the front steps, holding my hand the whole time. She didn’t leave any lamps on. We shouldn’t be here, I think, but don’t say. This is his home; and there’s nowhere else for us to go.

As we pass through the dim kitchen, I get a quick impression of the private nature of his mom’s life. Bare surfaces; a spoon rest by the electric kettle, a jar of instant coffee; small plate and fork in the dish rack. Faint odor of dust.

He leads me upstairs. He has a room, of sorts; a bed with a metal frame, a bureau and trunk, a few personal things left around like whoever once slept here has moved on, left for college or something. There’s a closet door by the window, a mosaic of treetops visible beyond the glass.

We don’t turn on the light. Our coats drop to the floor. He peels my jeans down over my hips, easing me back onto the bed, his lips finding my ear, kissing harder down my neck. The coverlet is cool beneath me, the mattress soft, broken in. I help him pull off his shirts—he wears three, two thermals under a T-shirt—and then mine falls beside them.

Twenty-One