I couldn’t answer that so I kept walking.

AN EAR-PIERCING SCREAM jerked me awake, or at least, I thought it was a scream. There was nothing but silence in the loft now. I looked at the digital clock and realized I’d only been asleep for a few minutes. After I’d made sure Nora was settled, I’d tried to sleep, only I couldn’t. I’d lain in bed for an hour, staring at my ceiling, running our conversation and her insane list through my mind.

I heard another muffled yell. Fumbling around the floor, I found my shorts and pulled them back on wondering if this was round two with Nora. I walked out into the hall as Sebastian stumbled out of his room, squinting.

“Did you hear something?”

I nodded. “I think I heard Nora yell out.”

“Yeah, it sounded freaky whatever it . . .” A long wail interrupted him. “What the hell?” he said, looking at me with wide eyes.

“Must be a bad dream,” I said. “I had them after mom and dad died.”

“Yeah?”

I shrugged. “It passed after a few months.” It took two years.

Sebastian listened outside her door for a minute with a concerned look. He might act cocky sometimes, but he was a softie. “Hey, I think she might be crying. Should I go talk to her?” He shot me a quick look. “Unless you want to?”

I opened my mouth to tell him he could, but stopped. I wanted to check on her myself. “No, you get some rest. I’ll handle it.”

When Nora didn’t answer my knock, I entered the dark room and walked over to the bed where she was lying on her side facing me, her legs drawn up into a ball. Her hands covered her face, and she muttered incoherently.

I sat down on the bed and shook her shoulder.

She flinched away from me. “Stop! Get away from me! I hate you!” she cried out.

I reared back, surprised by the vehemence in her tone, wondering who she was dreaming about. “Nora, it’s time to wake-up,” I said using a quiet tone.

I kept saying her name until she stirred on the bed and blinked her eyes open. When she saw me, she scrambled away to huddle on the other side.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

She wrapped her arms around herself and rubbed hard, shivering in spite of the warm room. “I woke you up.”

“Not a big deal. Just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

She looked away, letting her tangled hair cover her face.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Her head jerked up. “No.”

“Do you want me to leave and let you get some sleep?”

She shook her head and asked nervously, “Did I say anything?”

“Nothing I could really understand.”

“Did I hit you?” she asked in a rush.

“No, but you were mad as hell at someone.”

She nodded. “My dreams . . . sometimes I hit. It’s a bitch at a sleepover,” she said, laughing a little. It sounded forced.

“Yeah? Guess it could be worse. When Sebastian was around ten, he would sleepwalk and do the funniest things. Well, I thought they were, but he’d be embarrassed,” I said with a little smile.

“Like what?”

“I’d hear him rattling around the house at night and get up and go look for him. Most times, I’d find him sitting naked on the kitchen floor eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He loved those things. The naked part . . . well, that I can’t explain.” I chuckled. “So see? It could be worse.”

“That’s a good story,” she said, gazing up at me with hesitant eyes, almost as if she were shy, not anything like the girl who’d stripped.

Without thinking it through, I said, “Tomorrow I’m cooking breakfast, and I’d like for you to hang around and eat. We can talk about payment for the Escalade.”

She gave me a surprised look. “You really don’t have to do that.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll talk more tomorrow,” I said, getting up from the bed to leave, but her voice stopped me. “Leo, I know I don’t deserve your help, but will you . . . will you stay for a while? If you talk to me for a bit, I think I can sleep.” Looking embarrassed, she glanced down again. Yeah, the drunken girl from the bathroom had vanished.

I battled with myself, because I wanted to stay with her, but my head knew it wasn’t a good idea. Feeling like it was a huge mistake, but unable to stop myself, I lay down beside her on top of the covers, careful to keep our bodies from touching.

She grasped my hand and intertwined our fingers, and my first reaction was to pull back, but I didn’t. I stared at our hands and, fuck, I couldn’t think straight. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d held a girl’s hand. Maybe high school?

“Tell me another happy story,” she said, her lips softly parted, like she couldn’t wait.

“Why don’t we share stories? I told you one, so it’s your turn now.”

“You don’t want to hear mine. They all suck.”

I raised my brows. “Come on, a girl like you who has everything? There has to be a couple.”

She tilted her head, like she was considering one. “Okay, but you can’t laugh at how stupid it is,” she warned me. And I think she was kinda teasing me.

I shrugged. “I’ll do my best.”

She said, “When I was fourteen, my parents decided I was overweight and had an eating disorder. So, that summer they sent me off to this camp for screwed up kids with rich parents. It was this super pretentious finishing school for fat girls. Don’t get me wrong, being called fat wasn’t fun, but it was in Paris, France, the most beautiful place in the world with its art museums and amazing architecture. I was sent there for eight precious weeks.” She sighed dreamily, like she was remembering something good. “Sometimes I’d sneak off to this place called Café Bonaparte to eat these hot, buttery croissants. And people watch, of course. It’s kind of a quirk of mine,” she said, sneaking a little glance.

“Yeah, I noticed.”

She smiled. “Your turn.”

I hesitated, surprised that I wanted to tell her about my parents. I’m not the kind of guy who just opens up to girls, especially one I barely knew. “You were right about my parents,” I told her anyway. “They’re dead, killed in a carjacking right outside our house. We didn’t live in the best neighborhood. They were shot point blank in the head by a druggie looking to fund his next fix. So at eighteen, I got a kid, a house, and an old gym. Shit that had taken my parents a lifetime to accumulate.” I sighed. “Sorry, guess I forgot we were supposed to tell happy stories.”

“You loved them,” she said with a bit of what sounded like wonder in her voice.

“Yeah. We never had much, but . . . yeah,” I said, picking at the blue bedding. “My dad taught me to play guitar, but after they died, I gave up being a musician.”

“Because of Sebastian?”

“Yeah. The road’s no place for a kid. Sebastian’s all I got now.”

“You were practically a kid yourself,” she said, squeezing our still clasped hands. “Do you miss music?”

I nodded. “We had a band in LA, and I started one here, too. But this gym was my dad’s dream and now it’s mine. It does well and I like it, but music is my first love.”

We faced each other on our pillows. “Sebastian’s lucky to have you,” she said, her green eyes searching my face. I gazed back, and I think for a second, my heart may have skipped a beat. She was beautiful. I’d been dead wrong at the open house when I’d thought she wasn’t. Her beauty was real and fresh, not manufactured by tanning beds or a plastic surgeon like some of the girls I’d dated. Still dated.

A lock of her sun-bleached hair fell over her eyes, and I reached over and smoothed it out of her face, not wanting to stop looking into her glittering eyes. I let my hand drift down her cheek, and my fingers didn’t want to leave her skin. As my hand fell away, I caught the scent of peaches, and it smelled good and sweet. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in and inhaling deeper. God, I loved peaches. The sticky juice, the tart taste, the firm texture against my tongue.