Page 44 of Born for Starlight

"Not him. He tried. He genuinely, constantly tried, he just didn't know how to build an off switch into that life, so that awful grind raised me in the gaps." His thumb moved along the side of his water glass. "The managers handled me like an asset. The publicists. There was no such thing as privacy, anywhere, ever. I enlisted at eighteen because it was the fastest way out the door. Sixteen years in the Army, intelligence work. My mother's Spanish turned out to be worth more than any language school. Once you have one, the next ones come easy. And now I do what I do."

And now I do what I do.

It went by so smoothly. It fit so neatly on the end of the sentence. And something in me paused on it, but after everything else he’d just said, I was too overwhelmed to give it much thought.

"He has a whole second family now," Matthew went on. "Wife named Presley, she's good for him. My half-brother, Wyatt. He's twelve." He looked wistful. "Same age I was. Except my father shows up for him. He actually does school pick-ups. Dad turns down tour dates. Wyatt's growing up with a different dad." He shook his head slowly. "I’m happy for the kid, but sometimes I ache a little, and I'm not proud of that."

"That part's human," I said. “You have that kind of self-knowledge, compassion for your father, and love for your brother, because of your mother.”

He looked at me for a long moment.

"She'd have liked you," he said. "She had no patience for people who put on a performance in real life. When it counts, you put down the mask and are real.”

Well, that finished me. That was simply the end of me.

I moved before I could think better of it and put my head on his shoulder. He went still for half a second, then his arm came around me like it had been waiting for the assignment.

"Tell me about El Paso," I said. “The times at your abuela’s."

So, he did. There was no hurry in his low voice. His thumb traced slow lines on my shoulder. Apparently the kitchen was where all the action happened. Same as at my Grandma Maureen’s house. Forty cousins, at least that’s how it seemed to him. Not so different from how I grew up.

There was a dog named Chuleta who answered only to Spanish and only when food was involved. The band's tour bus showing up once on that little street and every kid in the neighborhood lost their minds while Matthew died of embarrassment behind the screen door.

Somewhere in the middle of a story about cousin Rex, the wedding caught up with me all at once, and I yawned.

The last things I was aware of were the rumble of his voice under my ear and his heartbeat keeping slow time under my hand.

Chapter Fifteen

I'd been up since five-thirty because my body didn't know how to do anything else.

I'd carried her to bed around one. She never stirred. Not when I lifted her off the couch. Not when I unzipped the dress and worked it off her so she wouldn't wake up strangled by it. Not when I pulled the covers up over pale yellow lace I made a point of not looking at. I’d stood there one second in the dark. She slept with her hand curled under her cheek. I wanted to lie down beside her, just to hold her, nothing more. Instead, I’d made myself walk out.

The couch was too short. I slept on it anyway. Despite everything it was better than I'd slept in weeks.

By seven I'd familiarized myself with her kitchen. By seven-thirty, I made a call to the Down Home Diner, because I knew what I could cook, but I wasn’t sure it was right. I wanted it to be right.

"Down Home," Lettie answered.

"It's Matthew Grainger."

A pause. I could hear the smile in it. "Well, good morning."

"I need intel. Breakfast. Her favorite."

"Whose favorite?" Oh, she was good. Pure innocence. She was going to make me work for it.

"Angelica's."

"Oh, her.”

“Cut the crap, Lettie. What’s her favorite?”

“French toast with cinnamon. Real maple syrup, none of that pancake syrup garbage, she can tell." She paused. "And where might you be while you’re cooking this breakfast at seven-thirty in the morning?"

I rubbed the back of my neck. "I slept on the couch, Lettie."

"I didn't ask."