Cody glares at him. “Don’t forget, I’m your fucking progenitor. I could take you down right now, you little wanker.”

“In your condition?” Jay’s brown eyes widen innocently. “You really think so?”

“Come on, you insufferable ass. Let’s do this.” Cody struggles with the lever on the recliner, jerking it angrily and unsuccessfully until he gives up and collapses in a pale, sweaty mess. “I’ll beat you up later.”

“Looking forward to it, buddy.” Jay smirks, but when he turns to Nick, his expression is sober. “Watch over him for me.”

“I will,” Nick promises. “And you take good care of my Daisy girl.” He blows me a kiss as Jay and I head out the door.

“What kind of work do you have to do?” I ask him.

“Some emails and a website update. I’ll talk to Slagle again and see if his thirst has lessened at all. And Jordan texted me a few minutes ago, trying to find you. She wants to do a tribute song for George, and she wants you to sing it with her. Her follower count has dropped since his death, and she’s getting some pretty negative comments because he fell while she was scoping out a location. I think she’s hoping the tribute will help restore her image.”

“Jordan knows about Myrtle. I told her this morning.”

“Ah.” He starts the car, but he doesn’t back out of the driveway.

“You didn’t tell Cody.”

“I will, when he’s feeling better, and once I’m sure everything has been properly handled. Officer Sheetal, the woman you saw the other day, is one of ours. A vampire. She and her partner and the chief will cover the incident.”

“And Myrtle? How long can they keep her at the hospital under observation?”

“I don’t know. That’s one of the calls I have to make—to ensure they don’t let her out before she gets the help she needs.”

“She needs ongoing help, Jay. Grief counseling, therapy, maybe medication. And as much distance between her and Tom as possible.” I shudder over his name, and Jay notices.

“He’s a cruel guy.” He pulls backward out of the driveway in a swift, startling curve. “I don’t like the way he looks at you. Like he thinks he still owns you, even though I know he never did. You never loved him, and you should make sure he knows that. Maybe then he’ll back off.”

He doesn’t sound vindictive, only sad and matter-of-fact.

Something inside me shrinks from admitting the truth—that I did love Tom. I was addicted to him, the way I get addicted to candy corn at Halloween, because it’s pretty and sugary and chewy, and even though I know it’s bad for me and it’s going to make me sick, I just keep popping the little kernels in my mouth, one after another, and crushing them into sweet sediment between my teeth.

Part of me never wants Jay to know anything about my relationship with Tom. There were moments of sheer delight, and moments so dark I don’t like to think about them or analyze them too deeply. But if Jay and I are going to rebuild our mutual trust, I have to be honest. I have to tell him the uncomfortable things as well as the interesting or enjoyable things.

“I did love Tom,” I say in a very small voice.

A muscle pulses along Jay’s temple. He doesn’t reply.

“It wasn’t the same kind of love. If that helps.”

His eyebrows lower, and he says, between clenched teeth, “You slept with him.”

“Yeah, Jay. We were together for years.”

Jay’s face is pale and rigid. “But it wasn’t good for you. You didn’t enjoy it.”

“Sometimes I did.”

Jay winces, inhaling through his teeth as if I’m causing him actual physical pain.

“You’re upset.”

“No, it’s just…I always thought you and I, that I would be the one—”

My face roars with heat. “Seriously? You disappeared for eight years, Jay. Did you think I would just sit around and have exactly zero relationships until you showed up again? I thought you were out of my life for good, so yes, I moved on, and I had sex. Sue me.”

“But the first time is—”

I halt his words with a warning hand. “Don’t be one of the weirdos obsessed with taking a woman’s virginity! I’m not some freaking continent you didn’t get to plant your flag on!”

“I know!” He whips his head toward me, eyes burning. “I’m sorry, okay? It’s your body. Your choice. I just…imagined everything playing out differently in my mind.” He stares ahead again, his fingers clenched on the steering wheel.

“You’ve done it too, right?”

“A few times, with a couple of Cody’s friends. I always hated myself afterward. I felt like I was cheating on you.”

“But you weren’t. You were being a normal man with physical needs.” I lay my hand on his shoulder. “It doesn’t bother me at all.”

“So your thing with Tom shouldn’t bother me either. Is that what you’re saying? Emotions don’t work like that, Daisy. I feel what I feel. But I don’t blame you, of course. He deceived you, manipulated you into thinking you wanted him.”

“Stop trying to blame it all on Tom!” I snatch my hand from his shoulder. “I knew exactly what I was doing. Tom was the hottest guy in school—handsome, sexy—and he wanted me, and I made a choice, Jay. A conscious choice. Sure, he messed with my head later on—screwed with my confidence—but he didn’t force me to be his girlfriend.”

“And you…loved him.”

“In a way. But it wasn’t the same.”

He nods, quick and sharp. “I understand. I can deal.”

But it seems as if he really can’t, because he doesn’t say anything else, not even when we’ve parked at his place and we’re heading up the walk to his front door. Without all the people swirling in and out of the entrance, the massive doors look even more imposing—gleaming dark wood inset with crystal panes, furnished with ornate bronze handles. There’s a scrap of blue-gray shade across the sunbaked front step, thanks to the second-floor balcony.

“Do you want me to leave?” I nod to my car—which has been neatly reparked, probably by the fastidious Henry.

“No.” Jay stares at the door handle without touching it. “But I’ll be working, so if you’ll be bored—”

“There’s plenty to do at your house. And you said Jordan’s coming over, right?”

“Right.” He purses his lips.

“Jay, do you want me here?”

He looks at me, incredulous. “Of course I do.”

“Okay.”

“It’s just hard.” He focuses on the door again. “Knowing it wasn’t the same for you as it was for me.”

Knowing that I wasn’t entirely devoted to him during those eight years, as he obviously was to me. He knows it’s an irrational expectation, but he can’t talk himself out of his emotions because he’s an incurable romantic, as Cody said. He hoped that I would be just as incurably romantic.