Chapter 13: Room Nine

Devin stood on the cracked walkway with his shirt stuck to his chest and his hands open at his sides.

He didn't step toward the doorway.

"Say it," I told him.

He swallowed.

"The last week she was home, she made me write it down, so I'd get it right."

He pulled a folded paper from his back pocket and didn't look at it.

"She said: tell Kate I was a coward, and I'd do it again, and I'm sorry about the second part."

My throat went tight.

"She said: tell her I didn't hide it to spare her.

"I hid it so she'd walk into a house with something alive in it."

"That's not enough," I said.

"I know."

"She said that for her. It doesn't fix what you did."

"No."

"And?"

"And she said the boys were a gift, not a payment, and you can send us back if you don't want us."

I laughed, one ugly breath of it, and my eyes stung.

I looked at his mouth.

I was furious, and I was hungry, and the two had grown together somewhere around the third play of that recording.

"Come in," I said. "Shut the door."

He shut it.

I grabbed the front of his wet shirt and walked him backward until his shoulder blades hit the wood.

"Kate..."

"Out loud, Devin. What do you want?"

"You," he said, rough. "Any way you'll have me. Even angry."

"Good, because I'm angry."

I kissed him hard enough that our teeth clicked.

He made a sound low in his chest.

His hands came up into my hair, and he kissed me back.

I dragged his shirt over his head.

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