John smiled and came over to set the mug on the coffee table next to the armchair. “I was waiting for you to put her down. She’s going through a sweeping-mugs-off-the-table phase.”
“Mmm,” I said, inhaling the scent of hazelnut. “Nice timing.” He’d put in a little milk, no sugar, just the way I like it.
“Charlie has me trained. She wakes up at six, so I wake up at six.” He glanced up at the clock. “I guess the extra ten minutes of sleep is her concession to last night’s adventures.”
I glanced at him warily. “Yeah, that was something.”
He shook his head in amazement. “I still don’t understand how it got in here. Must have left the back door open or something.”
“Mmm-hmm,” I said noncommittally.
“I’m just glad you got it out of here okay. Aren’t raccoons one of those animals that carry rabies? Ugh.” He winced. “You sure it didn’t scratch you or anything?”
“No raccoon scratches,” I said honestly. I took a long sip of the coffee. Part of me couldn’t believe this was actually working—John seemed to wholeheartedly believe the story Quinn had fed him. And Charlie was a baby; it wasn’t like she’d remember anything. The attack on the house, the 911 call, that frantic drive from the hospital to John’s house . . . to him it was like none of it had ever happened. In the early morning light, with my coffee in hand and my friend nearby, it seemed a lot easier to buy John’s new version of events than the bit about vampires and witches. I wondered if I could convince myself that the whole thing had been a dream.
I yawned, and the stitches in my back pulled with the movement. I must have winced, because John said worriedly, “Is your back really okay?”
“Yes,” I assured him. “I’m fine. Well, not fine, but I’ll be fine soon.” My head ached, and every part of my body felt unbearably sore. Kind of like the way I felt after the one time Sam had talked me into attending a ninety-minute hot yoga session.
I lifted an arm and tried to scratch my back where the stitches were irritating my skin, but I couldn’t reach. John put his coffee down and took a step toward me. “Here, do you need me to—”
“No,” I yelped, jumping out of the chair and backing away. John’s mouth dropped open, and even Charlie stared at me.
“I’m sorry,” I said, keeping my voice calm. “That was an overreaction.”
“No, I’m sorry. I thought . . . I mean, it’s been so long, and you’re like my sister . . . I should have realized it would be awkward.” Pacified, Charlie picked up a wooden spoon and began gravely beating it against the side of a toy dump truck like she was getting paid by the hour to do so.
I squeezed my eyes shut. John thought I was afraid of his seeing me naked because we had a fifteen-year-old history. And it wasn’t like I could tell him the truth.
I took a deep breath, which is when I realized that my scrubs stank of sweat and dried milk. “Do you have something I could wear home?” I asked.
John hesitated, and I opened my eyes. “I have a box of Sam’s stuff in the attic,” he began, but I shook my head quickly.
“Just some sweatpants or something would be great.”
John got me some of his athletic pants and another long-sleeved Luther Shoes T-shirt, which I took into the bathroom. I made the mistake of glancing in the mirror, and wrinkled my nose at my lanky-haired, red-eyed reflection. I could have been a coed who’d just gotten trashed at a frat party. I’ve always looked young for my age, at least in the face. In high school John used to call me Babyface when he wanted to tease me, and the guys in my platoon had had a field day with it when I was in the army. I made a face at the mirror and stripped out of the scrubs.
There was a metallic tinkling sound from the floor, and I glanced down. Staples. At least one of the injuries—for some reason I hated thinking of them as stab wounds—had been held shut with staples, and they’d forced themselves out of my skin as it healed. I turned and looked over my shoulder, trying to see my back in the mirror. Whoa. One of the wounds, a couple of inches below the army tattoo on my shoulder, was now just an angry pink line. That must have been the stapled one. The others still had the stitches, but the skin had grown together around them, and now it was bright red and irritated. Great. I reached back to try to touch one of the injuries, but there was no way I could reach. I sighed. The stitches needed to come out, which meant I’d now have to track down either Simon or Quinn, since I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone else what had happened. I’m not particularly shy, but that doesn’t mean I enjoy exposing my naked back to a strange man bearing scissors.
I put on the clothes, folding the scrubs to take them with me. Feeling something in the pants pocket, I reached in and pulled out a blank white card, the size and shape of a business card. Nothing was typed on it, but the words Just in case—Quinn were handwritten on one side, followed by a phone number. I didn’t know when he’d slipped the card into my pocket, but I found myself squeezing it a little to make sure it was real. The edges bit into my fingers.
Well, crap. It hadn’t been a dream.
John promised to drop me off on his way to work and went upstairs to get ready. After Sam died, John had decided to take my father up on his offer to come back to Boulder and work at Luther Shoes. He wanted to raise Charlie closer to his mom, and to Sam’s family—us. They’d worked out a whole system where my mom took care of Charlie three days a week so John could save on day care.