Page 36 of The Love Scam
She turned to look at him and he felt a chill; her gaze wasn’t on him, not really. It was like she couldn’t see him, was looking past him, or through him. “I don’t…” she began in a low, halting voice unlike any she’d used before.
He pushed his blankets off and went to stand beside her, relieved that when she’d clomped toward the window like a cute Frankenstein, his penis, Mr. Roboto, had turned back intoFlaccido Domingo. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t know where I am,” she whispered, sounding young and lost. And damned if she didn’tlookyoung in the barely lit glow by the window.
She reached out as if she was going to touch the glass, then let her hand drift back to her side. The woman who’d laughed when he’d barfed and yelled when he’d bitched and called him on his entitled douchebaggery was afraid to touch a window, or raise her voice, or make eye contact.
“It’s always different, you know,” she murmured. “I don’t know where I am.”
“You’re in Venice,” he said, and nowhewas whispering. “It’s—it’s okay. I mean, you’re safe and everything. I’d never— No one’s going to hurt you.”
And God, the way her face lit up. That smile. Jesus. “Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“No one will come in? Unless I let them?”
“No one,” he promised through numb lips.Fuck. A nightmare that she’s sleepwalking in? Or sleepwalking during a nightmare? What is this?“It’s okay. You’re safe. You—you can go back to bed. If you want.”
“Bed?” And she flinched. Claire Fucking Delaney flinched.
“Well, you don’t have to. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
The smile again. The relief. “Really?”
“Really.”
“Okay,” she said, andbeamedat him. Then she turned around and walked back to her bed and climbed under the covers and flopped over on her side and twenty seconds later she was dead asleep again. He watched her for a while to make sure she was really out. Now he had a whole new thing to wonder about. Did that make him a good man, or just easily distracted? Both? Neither? And was he wondering about that so he wouldn’t think about how scary she had been, and sad, and afraid?
What the hell was that?
He waited until they were enjoying the modestly priced continental breakfast in one of the common rooms, the others, including Lillith, taking up the table across from them. They’d saved the last table for Delaney, and the two of them had it to themselves for the moment. It had been almost a celebration, his first day back on solids and out of the room. Certainly Delaney’s family had seemed happy he was mostly mended.
But the minute breakfast was over, he knew they were all going back to work and if he didn’t carpe the diem now, who knew when he’d get another chance?
“So.”Easy. Nice and casual. Nothing weird is going to come out of your mouth.“Do you remember last night?”
She looked up from her oatmeal, into which she’d ladled a mound of brown sugar and an astonishing amount of cream. She’d brought the laptop with her, of course. She never left it in the room, though there was a perfectly good safe in thecloset. It was always within arm’s reach; she’d brought it to dinner, too. Maybe she was a paranoid screenplay writer, and sold scripts to fund her charity work? If it was strictly to keep track of the charitable donations, she wouldn’t need the secrecy. Twenty-two letters in a password representing something she didn’t have to think about. Hmm. And the safe combo. Something else quick and easy. “Delaney? Remember?”
“Mostly, I remember your relentless whining about the cost of cell phones in this day and age,” she replied, grinning.
“Tim Cook and his corporate thugs should be ashamed of themselves. But I meant after that. Dammit! I mean I don’t whine. And after. In your sleep. You—”
She was waiting for him to finish, and hadn’t realized there was jam in the corner of her mouth that he definitely didn’t want to kiss away. She wasn’t tense, or embarrassed. Just patiently curious. Curiously patient? “I what, Rake?”
You walked and talked in your sleep. You were afraid. You didn’t know where you were, and when I said you were free to come and go, you were so happy. And who didn’t help you when it wasn’t Christmas, Delaney? Why do you hate careless, maybe twice-a-year charitable donations? What’s in the spreadsheets you won’t let anyone see?
“You— It’s no big deal.” He hadn’t thought of this, and he should have. He’d expected heated denial or embarrassment, not amnesia. “You talked in your sleep is all.”
“Oh yeah?” Still totally unconcerned. “What’d I say?”
“‘Go, Packers.’”
She laughed. “Now I know you’re lying. I don’t like football, but if I did, I’d never root for the Packers. That’s practically a violation of state law.”
Christ, she has no idea.
“Well, you mumbled something, I didn’t quite catch it, I was supertired because you’re such a goddamned slave driver.” He wasn’t sure why he wasn’t telling her everything. He didn’t want to embarrass her, that was part of it, but he also had the uneasy feeling that the Delaney who walked in her sleep wasn’tthisDelaney, the confident young woman who walked right up to a dripping, livid man who’d just been fished out of the canal, who’d tossed a kid into his life, ruthlessly put him to work to earn a cell phone, frequently told him to shut up already, stole the last piece of toast off his plate, and laughed when he complained.
