Breaking the Rules

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN



Izzy came, hard and fast. Without making a sound.

Which was a whole lot more difficult than he’d thought, but definitely doable.

Eden kissed him then, still laughing, because—as she nearly always was—she was on his wavelength, and she knew exactly what he was thinking. Yes, they would definitely be doing this again, later.

Her kiss was impossibly sweet and almost unbearably tender—the kind of kiss two soulmates share at the end of a movie about them finding each other again after ten years apart. It was the kind of kiss that would happen right before the credits rolled and the happy-ever-after was solidly in hand.

And as Eden pulled back to look at him in the dim light from the rental car’s dashboard, he saw tears in her beautiful eyes and he found himself—rather suddenly, as if he’d fallen out of his bunk onto the hard, cold, metal deck in the middle of a deep REM sleep—pulled out of what should have been the afterglow of a truly magnificent moment.

His body was still humming from his recent release. She was still warm and soft around him, and her breasts were still tantalizingly bare.

She was so f*cking beautiful. But Cynthia was beautiful, and Maria was beautiful, and Tracy had been beautiful, and Renee had been, too. Izzy had bumped into beautiful often enough in his life to know that mere beauty wasn’t enough. It was the brain clicking away in Eden’s gorgeous head that had brought him running back for more.

And when Danny’s credo popped into his mind—Is the f*cking you’re getting worth the f*cking you’re getting?—Izzy’s current answer was an immediate Hoo-yah, yeah.

But that didn’t make it hurt any less when she whispered, “You know, I never stopped loving you.”

And he knew how to play the game. He knew that was his cue to embrace the lie and to kiss her back with that same Hollywood tenderness while he murmured, “Ah, baby, you know, I still really love you, too.”

But he was tired of it—of her revisionist history. And even though he knew that in this moment she believed it was true, it goddamn wasn’t. If she’d really never stopped loving him—if she’d ever really loved him in the first place—she would’ve let that love give her strength and comfort when Pinkie died instead of running her ass away and hiding from him all those goddamned months.

So he hesitated and some of what he was thinking must’ve flickered in his eyes, because she got very still and asked, “Do you believe me?”

Of course I do. Izzy knew he should say it. It was his ticket to getting his rocks off again later tonight—which he already wanted to do, pretty freaking desperately.

But he was also filled with an overwhelming urge to be honest and just say no.

And in the end, he didn’t have to say anything, because she said it for him, as she pulled herself off of him, as there was nothing for him to do but lift himself over the parking brake and back into the driver’s seat.

“Of course you don’t believe me,” she said quietly as she pulled up the front of her dress and got her straps back into place. “I don’t blame you, I really don’t. And it’s okay. It is. I always do this—too much, too soon. It’s just … what I do. I get scared and …”

She shook her head and didn’t finish her sentence, and yet it was the most honest thing she’d said. She got scared. No shit, Sherlock. And when she was scared, she tried—any way that she could—to make her future less of an unknown and as secure as possible. And if she had to do that by making herself indispensible via copious amounts of sex …?

So be it.

“I’m going to be honest with you here,” Izzy said, just as quietly as he set to work cleaning himself up. The condom went in a plastic grocery bag because tossing it onto the pavement of the parking lot wasn’t merely nasty for poor Ferd Quertmansonton, who was going to be late for work tomorrow morning, and therefore he’d get stuck parking here in the distant reaches of the lot. Which meant he would be even later because he’d have to make the hike to the office building through the blistering heat, so he’d hurry and wouldn’t look where he was stepping as he got out of his car, which meant he’d skid on the used condom, which wouldn’t just gross him out, but would give him an excuse for his tardiness as he’d stop to make a call to security, who clearly wasn’t patrolling the lot as often as they should at night, the negligent bastards. And that—the potentially stepped-up security—would be très nasty for Izzy, who had already marked this location as a place to return for some desperately needed privacy, should the five-people-living-in-a-tiny-one-bedroom-apartment thing become temporarily permanent. Of course, that was also dependent upon Eden still wanting to continue getting jiggy after they had this conversation, in which he was going to be honest.

“But I want to start out with us both in the same place, okay?” Izzy continued. “So you have to be honest, too. Here it comes, ready?”

Eden wasn’t looking at him, and it was possible that she shook her head no.

He said it anyway. “The sex? Me and you? Is freaking unbelievable. I mean, I’m talking fan-f*cking-tastic.”

She smiled at that, but she still didn’t look at him. She was giving her full attention to turning her panties—white, but not at all virginal—right side out.

“Do you agree?” he pushed her, as he tucked himself in and zipped his shorts back up. “A simple yes or no will suffice.”

“Yes,” Eden conceded.

“Good,” Izzy said. “It’s now an established fact that we both think the sex is great. Let’s put another indisputable fact into our little world. Because I think we can probably also agree that you didn’t marry me because you loved me.”

“What if I did?” she said suddenly, turning to face him. “You don’t know what I was feeling.”

Eden could be pretty freaking convincing when she wanted to, but …

“Ah, come on,” Izzy said. “You still barely know me. I’m just some teammate of your brother’s that you collided with once, when you were having a really shitty night.”

And then, six months later, she’d made the mistake of implying that the not-entirely-shitty night she’d spent at Izzy’s place had resulted in her being six months pregnant. And instead of denying that it was impossible, that the baby couldn’t be his because they hadn’t had the kind of sex where essential baby-making body parts had connected, Izzy had gone with Dan, to see Eden, who was back with her mother and stepfather in Vegas. And he’d been so charmed by and enamored with her all over again that he’d offered to marry her—to give her health care for her pregnancy and delivery, and to give her someplace to live besides that crappy house with her f*cking lunatic stepfather—the same f*cking lunatic stepfather who was now breaking their balls about Ben.

It hadn’t been about sex—Izzy and Eden’s legal arrangement—or so he’d claimed. But they both knew that it had been about sex at least on some level, because Izzy’d been as hot for her then as he was now. Except back then, he’d kept his distance as much as he could, because he’d been stupid enough to believe that he was courting her. He’d stupidly believed that if he took his time and tamed her, like some wild animal, she would come to trust him, and maybe even love him, too.

“After that, we had what, one date?” Izzy reminded her now. “And then yeah, okay, I helped save your life, except I didn’t get there soon enough, did I? I didn’t get there in enough time to save Pinkie.”

And there it was, lying right there in the car between them. The real reason Eden had left. Even though the doctors had all agreed that her baby wouldn’t have survived to full term, regardless of whether she’d been kidnapped and manhandled by crazy people.

She hadn’t believed them.

Except now she was not only shaking her head, she was reaching for his hands. “Izzy, please, you can’t believe that—it’s not true. There was nothing you could have done.” Her voice shook and her eyes filled with tears. “There was nothing anyone could have done. Pinkie was already dead. Believe me, as soon as I was out of the hospital, I tried to find out what caused it, was it something that I did or didn’t do, something I ate? God, I was sure it was, but I did all this research and … No. It wasn’t your fault, and it wasn’t my fault. It wasn’t. It’s a miracle, you know, the way that an egg and sperm can grow into a perfect human being, and it makes sense that it doesn’t always happen right, not a hundred percent of the time. Some babies don’t get made properly—there are all these scientific words for what happens to them, but the bottom line is that they can’t live on their own, and they die. Most of them die in the first three months of a pregnancy, but some of them are stronger than they maybe should be, so they live a little bit longer with something really wrong with them, the way Pinkie did.”

Eden believed what she was saying—and not just for right now, either. Her conviction rang in her every word. And Izzy was glad for that—that she didn’t blame herself for something she couldn’t have prevented.

“But if you didn’t blame me,” he said, and goddamnit, he had to wipe his eyes because he, too, had tears in them, and his voice shook, too, because talking and thinking about Pinkie always broke his heart, “why did you leave?”

He’d shipped out, overseas on assignment with Team Sixteen, on the same day Eden had been released from the hospital. He’d come back several weeks later to find her gone, his apartment cold and empty.

“Because you didn’t believe me,” she said, her voice very small in the darkness. “I knew you thought I lied about who Pinkie’s father was.”

And Izzy couldn’t deny that.

She’d told him it was Richie, her ex-boyfriend Jerry’s low-life, drug-running boss, who’d gotten her pregnant—and not with her permission, either. She’d pissed Richie off when she’d tried to convince Jerry to get a real job, because working for Richie was likely to get him arrested. Richie’d warned Eden to back off, but when she persisted, he’d sent Jerry out of town, then wormed his way into her apartment, gave her roofies, and videoed himself having sex with her. Which, when Jerry saw that video, transformed him from boyfriend to ex.

Ironically, the a*shole had stayed tight with Richie, who claimed he’d made the recording only to show his buddy Jerry proof that Eden was regularly stepping out on him.

Izzy’d seen the video, and it was pretty damn obvious that Eden had been under the influence of some kind of chemical substance at the time it had been recorded.

“I was upset,” he said. “And I was wrong. As soon as I was thinking clearly? I knew what must’ve happened. Richie wasn’t alone with you when he made that tape. He couldn’t have been.”

And it was obvious—after Izzy’d had some time to think about it—that at least one other person had been there, with Richie, working the camera. And whoever that person was? He was Pinkie’s biological father.

Because Richie had been African-American, and Pinkie’s father had been white.

Which meant that Eden hadn’t merely been raped that night. She’d been the victim of a gang bang.

“Goddamnit,” Izzy said now. “Thinking about it makes me sick.”

“I don’t remember any of it,” she reminded him quietly.

Which was one of the reasons she’d been so open to the idea of bringing Pinkie into the world, and having him be part of her life. His had been a seemingly immaculate conception.

“You know that Jerry’s in jail,” Eden said now.

“I hadn’t heard that,” he said.

“And Richie was killed, along with most of his crew,” she said. “Some kind of meth lab explosion. At least that’s the story I heard.”

Izzy looked back at her steadily because there was an unasked question in her eyes. “I didn’t have anything to do with it. You asked me to stay away from him.”

Eden nodded. “The sex video’s also off the Internet,” she said.

“That I did,” he admitted. “With the help of a friend who’s a lawyer.”

“Maria?” she asked, with the most amazing amount of casualness.

Izzy had to laugh at that. “No,” he said. “I would never have asked her to … See, Jenn’s boss is also a New York State assemblywoman. I think she wants to be the president someday, and she wouldn’t have wanted to get anywhere near a video like that. No, I, um, got some help from a guy named Martell Griffin, who works for Troubleshooters Incorporated. You don’t know him, he’s from their Florida office.”

She nodded. “Thank you for doing that. And … Please thank Martell when you get the chance.”

Izzy nodded, too, and they sat for a moment in silence. And then he figured what the hell, so he kept going, said more. “You know, sometimes when you say … the things you say? Like before? That you never stopped loving me? It makes me feel like crap, like you’re trying to, I don’t know, play me or”—she looked up and over at him at that, her eyes practically flashing in the darkness—“or maybe just manipulate me into … doing I don’t know what, because I already told you I’d stay. And can I give you a hot tip, sweetheart?” He didn’t wait for her to respond, he just said it. “All you have to do is look me in the eye and say, Izzy, I’m glad that you’re sticking around. I appreciate that very much. And if there’s something else that you need from me? Something I’m not giving you? Damn it, just freaking ask already. Don’t make me have to guess. And don’t …” Take money from my wallet without asking. He didn’t finish the sentence because bringing that up right now would be dangerous.

“Don’t what?” Eden asked, but he just shook his head.

If he said, Hey, about that twenty-dollar bill you took from my wallet at some point last night …?

And she said, What twenty-dollar bill?

And he said, The one that was in my wallet after I went to the ATM and then bought that box of condoms, but wasn’t in my wallet when I bought that ice cream at the mall, even though I had my wallet with me at all times, except when I was sleeping last night, when you and I were alone in your apartment …?

And if she said, I didn’t take your money, then he’d have to say, There you go, f*cking lying to me again or I must be mistaken, even though he absolutely, positively knew that he wasn’t.

He also absolutely, positively had no idea why she should have taken a twenty from him when she was carrying around that freaking huge-large roll of tips from work, but he’d lived long enough to know that some people got off on stealing other people’s shit. And just as she didn’t really know him all that well, he really didn’t know Eden, either.

The solution wasn’t to get in her face about it, but instead to be more careful about safeguarding his cash. And he should probably include his heart along with his wallet, because as often as she said things like I never stopped loving you, he had to stay focused and remember that he hadn’t tamed her. And he never would. She was wild and, like the lyrics to that old Joni Mitchell song, wild things run fast.

Eden was going to leave again.

It didn’t matter what she said. He had to keep believing that her leaving was a given—another simple fact like the sex was great, and she hadn’t married him because she loved him—or his flipping heart was going to get trashed.

“Don’t what?” she asked again. “Because if there’s something you need from me, then you have to say it, too. Don’t make me guess, either.”

“I don’t want you to lie to me,” he said, going for a cryptic explanation. “I’d rather we just not talk about certain things.”

“Kind of the way you don’t want to talk about Maria?” she asked. “So you don’t have to lie to me?”

Izzy looked at her. “Are you actually jealous?”

She was. He could see it in her eyes, hear it in the way she said Maria’s name. She didn’t answer for a long time, and to her credit, when she finally did respond, she didn’t lie. She simply said, “I shouldn’t be.”

“Damn straight,” he said, because he, too, was unwilling to reveal the truth—that there was nothing for Eden to be jealous about, that he’d gone without sex for all those months, that he’d passed up some extremely golden opportunities to get laid, including with Maria, because he, in fact, had never stopped loving Eden. And yeah, he’d sooner cut his own heart from his chest and throw it on the floor for her to step on than tell her that. Let her think he and Maria Bonavita had screwed each other neon blue for all those days he’d been in New York City. Maybe it would make Eden stay with him a little bit longer.

“I’m not trying to play you,” she said quietly. “And I’m very glad that you said that you’d stay to help with Ben. I do appreciate that. Very much. I just … The sex is really great, I agree, and … I appreciate that, too.”

And okay. He was sitting here, getting thanked for having sex with the most desirable woman he’d ever known. And yeah, somehow during this little conversation, they’d switched from using her label—making love—to his. Having sex.

And that was probably better, too.

“I think,” Eden continued, “that I have this, I don’t know, estrogen-based thing inside of my head that creates … confusion. When I … have sex, like we have? Really great sex?”

And okay again, he really loved that she was saying that, with a huge emphasis on the great. His bullshit meter was silent, which meant either she was being honest, or that he was willing to be manipulated as long as she waxed poetic about how awesome it was when he banged her.

But she wasn’t done. She said, “I feel these, I don’t know, really huge, overwhelming feelings and … It feels a lot like love, but maybe it’s just … Maybe what I really should have said before was … that I never stopped wanting you.”

Oh, ding.

And maybe, in the cosmic scheme of things, that should have been just as difficult to believe as I never stopped loving you. But Izzy was happy to take this particular ride through MakeBelieveLand aboard the Eden-Wants-Him bus. And who knows? Maybe she was telling the truth.

Whatever the case, he could respond to her statement by being completely honest in return. So he did. “Same here,” he said. “And I’ll raise you one. I don’t think I’ll ever stop wanting you.”

She smiled at that, but it was a touch sadly. “That I don’t believe.”

“It’s a fact,” Izzy told her, “that I’m happy to have to keep proving to you.”

Now her smile was more genuine. “Well, good,” she said, but then her expression went back to serious as she added, “You know, I also left, the way I did after Pinkie died? Because I couldn’t breathe. Everything just hurt too much. I had to go somewhere, where you weren’t, and I’m so sorry if I hurt you, but I just … I don’t know. I guess I had to learn to just … be.”

He had nothing to say in response to that.

“You don’t have to believe me,” she whispered. “But I hope that you do.”

“I believe you,” Izzy conceded. “I know how hard it was for me, to lose Pinkie and … Still, I’m not going to say it’s okay, because it’s not. You did hurt me. Pretty f*cking badly. But I do accept your apology.”

“I’m glad,” she said quietly.

And when she looked at him like that, with the sorrow and regret in her eyes mixed together with something that looked a whole lot like hope, he had to look away. Because if he gazed back at her, it was too easy to pretend that this could be something that it wasn’t.

She was going to leave him. She was. It was just a matter of when.

But right now she was here, although it was definitely time to head all the way back to the real world, where Dan and Jenn were waiting for them, back in Eden’s crowded apartment.

Izzy powered down the window, reached out, and pulled what remained of the dangling mirror off the car. There were sharp pieces of glass still attached, so instead of tossing it into the backseat, he popped the trunk and got out of the car and stashed it back there.

As he climbed back in, Eden was now looking at him as if he were crazy, so he explained. “The broken mirror makes us easier to spot,” he said as he put the window back up. “Having it be missing altogether, well, we’re a little less easy to identify this way.”

“Do you think that … whoever he was, he’s still looking for us?” she asked.

“I think?” he said as he put the car into gear and headed out of the lot. “That first thing in the morning—I’m talking 0600—we need to head on back to the hospital to give your little brother a double dose of our very best what-the-f*ck faces.”

“There’s definitely something,” Eden agreed, “that Ben didn’t tell me. Something that this girl told him.”

“We’ll get him to talk,” Izzy promised her, turning his headlights on as he pulled out onto the road. “But first, we’ll bring him home.”

“Greg’s gonna—”

“Greg’s not going to be at the hospital,” he reassured her. “Not that early in the morning.”

“He might be,” she worried. “For some reason this is important to him. And if Danny doesn’t reach Ivette …”

“Greg’s not going to be there,” Izzy said. “I know this because I sent him a little present earlier this evening. A little let’s-be-friends gift from his relatively new stepson-in-law, with an implied apology for twisting his wrist.”

Eden was incredulous. “You want to be friends with Greg?”

“Hell, no,” he told her. “I just wanted him to get shitfaced drunk tonight so that he’d be guaranteed absent in the morning, when Ben is released. My present was a case of liquor from Ye Olde Wine Shoppe, where their motto is No party too large or small—we deliver to your door.”

Eden was laughing, but at the same time she ferociously wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands. “That’s unbelievably brilliant,” she said, her husky voice even thicker with emotion. “Thank God you’re here.”


Neesha puked.

Behind the huge garbage bin, out behind the steakhouse where the private party had been held.

A private party with an even more private back room.

Neesha and the blond-haired woman named Clarice had been kept busy for the full two hours.

Most of the men in the party had just wanted her to dance for them or sit on their laps while they touched her or slipped dollar bills into her sequined bra and panties. But she’d gone into the back room five separate and thankfully very short times.

All of the men paid Clarice upfront, and Neesha’d performed their requests in a daze as she realized how wealthy she would have been had she not been working all those years as a slave.

And even though most of the money the men had paid went to Clarice as her “commission for finding the gig,” Neesha now had five ten-dollar bills in her pocket. Fifty dollars. It was more money than she’d ever had in her entire life.

And with one more night like this one, she’d have the cash she needed to pay back Ben’s sister for the food and the clothes, and to pay for that ticket for the bus to L.A.

One more night, and she’d never have to do this, not ever again.

“You okay, there, hon?” Clarice said as she lit a cigarette and exhaled a long, large cloud of smoke.

Neesha nodded as she wiped her mouth.

“I gotta go. The babysitter’s gonna start calling me. I don’t want to piss her off.” Clarice took one last drag on her cigarette, then tossed it onto the pitted pavement, grinding it out with her pointy-toed high heel. “You need a ride back …?”

Neesha shook her head. No.

“We good for tomorrow?” Clarice asked.

Neesha nodded again.

“I’ll meet you at the same place,” she said. “At the Micky D’s.” She smiled but it didn’t soften the hardness of her once-pretty face. “Those good old boys sure do like you Asian gals. You are going to make us both rich.” She paused. “You got a place to stay tonight, hon?”

Neesha nodded again because she didn’t trust Clarice entirely, and didn’t want to get into her car with her again. It had been hard enough, driving over here with her, earlier.

“Six o’clock, then,” Clarice said as she clicked and clopped her way over to her car and beeped open the lock. “I know it’s early, and I used to think it was better to start later, to let those boys get good and drunk, but this is Las Vegas. They’re drinking hard at noon. Wait too long, and the older gents can’t get it up.”

“I’ll need more,” Neesha said, and Clarice turned to look at her in surprise. “Tomorrow night. I want half.”

“Well, aren’t you the greedy little bitch,” the older woman said, her musical laughter softening the harshness of her words. “I’ll give you forty.”

Neesha didn’t understand that. Clarice has already given her more than forty dollars, that couldn’t be what she meant. She shook her head and kept it simple. “Half of what they pay you.”

“Hmm, I don’t know, hon …”

Neesha turned to leave, even though her heart was pounding. Finding Clarice had been a lucky break. Not having to get into the client’s car and risk being recognized by someone who would drive her back to Todd or Mr. Nelson …? It was worth a lot to Neesha. Still …

She didn’t take more than a few steps before Clarice said, “Well, all right. I guess giving you half is fair enough. But I will expect you to chip in now and then to help pay for gas.”

But there wasn’t going to be a then. There would only be tomorrow night.

“Do we have a deal?” Clarice asked.

Neesha nodded.

“See you tomorrow at six,” Clarice said, and got into her car.

She started it with a roar and pulled out of the lot, leaving Neesha alone in the shadows.

One more night of hell, and she’d finally be free.


Jenn woke up to the sound of raised voices from the living room.

“What the hell is this?”

“Oh, my God, did you actually go through my things?”

Danny and Eden.

“Is this really how you get your money?” Dan asked his sister as Jenn scrambled to get out there. “By wearing this shit and selling yourself?”

The lights were blazing and Eden and Izzy were still in the little entryway, as if they’d just come back home from searching for Ben’s friend.

Even though the mall had to have closed several hours ago.

Dan was standing there, too, just inside the living room, at the edge of the air mattress Jenn had helped Izzy set up, back when they’d thought they’d be bringing Ben home with them tonight. Dan had taken some of the be-sequined costumes—if they could even be called costumes, they were so insubstantial—from the drawer in the bedroom. They lay glittering, on the floor, where he must’ve thrown them at Eden’s feet.

Oh, Danny. “I thought we decided we’d do this in the morning,” Jenn said, “when everyone wasn’t so tired …?”

But Dan didn’t even look at her—his full attention and his outrage were focused on his sister.

“I’m willing to do whatever I have to do,” Eden shot back at him as she bent down and picked up her things, her movements jerky with her anger. “To help Ben.”

“Oh, you do this for Ben,” Dan said. “I’m sure he’d be so proud.”

“It’s not like it’s illegal,” Eden pointed out, which was something Jenn and Dan had talked about extensively before they’d decided to go to bed and leave this discussion for the less murky light of day. Or rather, she’d decided that. And apparently she hadn’t noticed when Danny hadn’t agreed.

Earlier, Jenn had surfed the web, using the wireless from a nearby coffee shop to research Nevada’s laws that legalized prostitution. It was pretty mind-blowing.

She wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad thing—the fact that the sex trade in this state was regulated, and that there were rules that, at least on the surface, seemed to protect the women who rented out their bodies.

It also seemed pretty obvious to her that prostitution was going to exist, regardless of whether or not it was technically legal. The sale of sex flourished all around the world, even in countries where it was punishable by death—to the woman, that is. Men tended to get off with a much lighter penalty.

But in a society like the one here in Nevada, where prostitution was acknowledged and regulated—at least in some of the state’s counties—there were assurances that the women who did the work, who were normally exploited, would actually be paid a living wage.

Maybe.

Danny had seen the entire subject in a more definite black-and-white. He believed—absolutely—that it was wrong to pay or be paid for sex.

But the bottom line was that, in parts of Nevada, it wasn’t illegal for a woman to sell her body. Just as Eden had pointed out.

“But it should be,” Dan said now.

Izzy, meanwhile, was shaking his head as he stooped to help Eden. “It is pretty uncool, bro, to go through her things like that. Considering you’re a guest here …?”

“Why don’t you just stay the f*ck out of this, bro?”

Izzy straightened up to his full height and got in Dan’s face. “Why don’t you just dial it down, a*shole? It’s just not that big of a deal.”

“It’s a huge deal!” Dan was incredulous, and on that point, Jenn had to agree. “I can’t believe you actually knew about this, Zanella. And you didn’t fricking tell me? What the hell is wrong with you?”

He shoved Izzy, who bumped into Eden, nearly knocking her over.

“Hey!”

“Danny,” Jenn said, stepping forward.

He didn’t look at her, he just looked—briefly—toward her. “This doesn’t concern you, either,” he said tightly—ouch—before turning back to Izzy, who’d moved right back to where he was before Dan had shoved him.

“It’s none of your business,” Izzy told Dan, with an edge to his voice that Jenn had never heard before. Not to that degree. And it scared her. Both of these men were trained to kill with their hands, and she did not want this fight to become physical. “What your sister does, the choices that she makes. It has nothing to do with you. It never has.”

“Except she’s my sister,” Dan shot back. “And she’s doing … what she’s doing, and everyone knows that she’s Eden f*cking Gillman.”

“I use a stage name,” Eden said defensively, but then glanced over at Jenn and gave her the strangest, almost apologetic look. “Sort of.”

Stage name was a weird thing to call it. Jenn would have expected her to use the word alias. Except maybe Eden saw the whole thing as a performance, which it was, Jenn supposed, on a very basic, very disturbing level.

“I can’t believe you’re okay with this,” Dan lit into Izzy again. “Jesus, I expected you to have a meltdown when you found out. But no, you’re such a twisted son of a bitch, you probably like that she’s getting paid for—”

“I realize that this doesn’t concern me,” Jenn said loudly over him, “but I honestly believe this entire conversation will be far more productive if we have it in the morning.”

Izzy’s voice got even harder as he got into Dan’s face. “What I like or don’t like doesn’t play into it, because I don’t own your sister.”

“Obviously not.” Dan turned back to Eden. “What the hell are you going to say if we have to have an interview with Child Services? They’re going to ask you where you work. Do you just think they’re going to be like, Great, let’s just put the kid in the custody of the whore.”

“Don’t call her that,” Izzy warned.

“I have a second job,” Eden said. “At a coffee shop.”

“Am I even here?” Jenn asked. “Or am I invisible?”

“Of course you do,” Dan told his sister, speaking over Jenn. “Because there are two things that you’ve always been good at. Lying and being a whore.” He looked at Izzy. “Hard not to call her that, when that’s what she is. Starting back when you were, what? Fourteen. With John f*cking Franklin. Giving it up for a beer, in the back of his car.”

And, oh, dear God, he couldn’t have issued a more formal and direct invitation to be punched if he’d handed Izzy an engraved card saying Daniel Gillman the third requests the honor of your fist in his face.

The only thing that stopped Izzy was the fact that Jenn moved quickly and stepped in front of Dan. Apparently, she wasn’t invisible after all. At least not to Izzy, whose face now matched the scary edge to his voice. She wasn’t so sure that Dan could see her, though.

He was already egging Izzy on. “You want a piece of me, douchebag,” Dan said. “I’m right here. Come and get me.”

“Don’t do this,” Jenn said. “Please. Both of you just step back and take a deep breath.”

“Jenni, stay out of this,” Dan ordered her.

Eden, meanwhile, had recoiled as surely as if Dan had slapped her. But she immediately fought back. “So nice of you to just take John’s word for what happened—without even asking me! Of course, right, I was thirsty, and I figured why not trade my virginity for a beer. That’s exactly what every teenage girl dreams about!”

“I didn’t need to ask,” Dan shot back. “It was Sandy, all over again!” Sandy, their older sister, had become addicted to both alcohol and drugs at an insanely early age.

“No,” Eden shouted back, “it wasn’t! Because I’m not Sandy!”

“Yeah,” Dan said, his voice breaking with his frustration and anger, “you’re worse!”

Both Jenn and Izzy moved at that exact moment, both of them speaking simultaneously—Jenn saying, “Danny, stop it!” while Izzy went with, “Gillman, just shut the f*ck up!”

And it was then that it happened. And it happened so quickly, but despite that, Jenn knew exactly what went down. It was an accident. Completely. It was as much her fault as his. She turned toward Danny, whipping her head around to add, “right now,” just as he reached to physically pick her up and move her out from between himself and Izzy. He was going for her shoulders with both of his hands, but because she turned the way she did, his left hand connected, hard, with her face.

It sounded as if he’d slapped her, and God, the force of the contact actually made her ears ring and her teeth rattle, and shoot, she must’ve cut the inside of her lip because now she even tasted blood.

She staggered and stepped to steady herself, but the edge of the air mattress was right there against her ankle, and she tripped and went down. The mattress broke her fall, but they’d filled it a little too full, so she bounced and rolled off the other side onto the carpeted floor with a very loud thump.

Dan scrambled to help her, and she should have paid more attention to the look of absolute horror that was on his face, but her temper flared, because this was what happened when people had discussions about volatile topics when they were overtired, and he had agreed to wait until the morning but apparently he’d lied just to get her to shut up about it already, so she smacked at his hands as she pushed herself out of his reach saying, “Get away from me! Don’t touch me! You’ve done enough, Dan, just … don’t!”

Izzy and Eden were frozen there, shocked, but it was Eden who moved first, roughly pushing her brother out of the way as she came to help Jenn sit up.

Dan didn’t resist, he just let himself get shoved off the mattress and onto the floor with an equally loud thud.

Eden had tears in those eyes that were the same rich shade of brown as Danny’s, and as she looked at Jenn’s face, she caught her lower lip between her teeth. “Izzy, we could use some ice. There are dish towels in the drawer, second one down, left of the fridge …”

But Dan pushed himself to his feet. “I’ll get it,” he said in a voice that was so tight that Jenn barely recognized it. He swiftly went into the kitchen.

With him gone, Eden didn’t waste any time. “Has this happened before?” she asked Jenn almost silently, her words nearly hidden by the crunching sound of Dan grabbing some ice from the freezer.

“God, no,” Jenn said. Did she honestly think …? “Eden, really, it wasn’t … I got in his way.”

“Yeah, like that’s a new one.” Eden didn’t look convinced as Dan came back in with ice wrapped in a white-and-blue dish towel. He looked as if he were either going to cry or be sick. Or maybe both, simultaneously.

“It was an accident,” Jenn told her, told Dan, too, even as he spoke over her. “Jenni, I’m so sorry. I’m—”

“It all just comes sailing back around, doesn’t it?” Eden interrupted him as she took the ice from him and showed Jenn where to hold it against her cheekbone. “You try to break the cycle, but it’s harder than it looks, because we learn these terrible things when we’re children, and then, somehow, here we are, and it’s okay to hit your girlfriend as long as you cry convincingly enough when you say you’re sorry afterward.”

“Oh, my God,” Dan said. “Jesus, no, that’s not what happened. Jenni, Christ, I didn’t—”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to talk right now,” Eden cut him off.

“It was an accident,” Jenn said again, but Dan had already turned away, his hand over his eyes, because he actually had started to cry.

“It starts that way,” Eden told her grimly. “Daddy would cry and apologize, and maybe it was an accident at first. Maybe it started because he wasn’t careful. He moved too fast. He got too angry. His hand slipped. At first.”

“Yeah, well, this is not going to happen again.” Dan was adamant.

“He’d say that, too,” Eden said.

“How could you possibly remember that?” Dan asked. “You were a baby when he left.”

“Sandy told me,” she informed him. “Back when she was still talking to me. And I do remember some of it. All these mysterious uncles who’d come over to pick Ivette up to go out for dinner while Daddy was overseas? It’s amazing that Ben’s the only one of us who doesn’t share the same father. And Daddy would come back and he’d find out, because she really didn’t give a shit, because it all started because he didn’t keep his pants zipped. He slept with her best friend. He told me that. While I was living with him, in Germany, last year. It was right after they got married, when Ivette was pregnant with Sandy. And she was too young and stupid to know that was it. Game over. He wasn’t going to change. He wanted to own her without giving up his own freedom. And she said she still loved him, so she stayed, but I really just think she didn’t have anywhere else to go. And even if she did love him? She also hated him, so hello Uncle Mike and Uncle Steve and Uncle George. And then Daddy’d come home and get drunk and call her names. Bitch and slut and whore. And that’s like hitting, too, you know, Dan.” Her voice shook. “That’s abuse. And you didn’t break that cycle, at least not with me, so if I were you, I’d be thinking long and hard about the fact that it’s highly probable that you didn’t break the other one, either.”

Jenn couldn’t stay silent any longer. “I disagree. What happened here was an accident”—she pushed herself up so that she was standing—“that absolutely came about because Dan was being an idiot. But he’s not a girlfriend-beating idiot. I know him.” She dropped the towel with the ice and put her arms around Dan, but it was like holding a statue or hugging a tree. He didn’t respond at all, as if he were afraid to touch her in return.

“Danny, I know you,” she told him. “I know you would never intentionally hit me. And you know this, too. You’re not your father. You’ll never be your father …”

He broke away from her, bolting for the bathroom.

And when Jenn started after him, Izzy, who’d been uncharacteristically silent all this time, stopped her. “Let me,” he said.

“It was an accident,” Jenn said again.

Izzy looked from her to Eden and back as he nodded. “I know that,” he said. “But I think he’s going to have a little trouble believing it from you.”