“Even though I didn’t answer your last question?”

“Oh that one’s still on the books. I’m just kind and generous and am willing to give you some time before I cash in.”

He laughs and shakes his head, and his cheek rubs against the inside of my thighs. The movement makes something warm curl low between my hips, but it’s doused seconds later when he asks his question.

“Fine. Why did you and Henry break up?”

I stiffen, but fair is fair. So I answer, “You’d have to ask him to know for sure, but he told me he just didn’t feel the same way about me anymore.”

“He broke up with you? Are you f**king kidding me?”

I shrug and pull on another vine.

“Well, I say good goddamn riddance.”

I can’t help my smile. “Bad Boy Rehab task number two—maybe try to cut back just a bit on the cussing.”

He draws a thumb down the side of my thigh into the sensitive hollow at the back of my knee.

“I’ve got a dirty mouth, babe. No changing that. You’ll just have to count it as part of my charm.”

Charm. I resist the urge to snort. Charm is smooth and subtle. Silas Moore is a force of nature. A freaking avalanche. He doesn’t have a subtle bone in his body.

I let the cussing go for now, and take my turn.

“Where are you from?”

“Nowhere that matters. Out in the middle of nowhere in West Texas.”

“Where?” I try again.

“You wouldn’t know it even if I told you. Between Odessa and Lubbock. The whole place is an ever-expanding pit of nothingness. Just dust and mesquite trees and deadbeats who always talk about leaving, but never do.”

I swear to God, even with this question quid pro quo, getting information out of this man is harder than finding the perfect pair of jeans.

“What’s the harm in just telling me where it is if I won’t know?”

“Because I got out, Dylan. I’m one of the few, and I’m not going to spend my time talking about it like I never left. I’d rather pretend it never existed.”

I swallow all the questions I still have and postpone them for another time. Asking questions doesn’t work with him . . . at least not yet. The more I ask, the more he fights back. I guess we’re kind of similar in that way. I don’t like answering questions, either.

I need him to trust me first.

I concentrate on the vines again, and I develop a system where I pull out and to the right, so if anything falls it doesn’t fall into his face. As I pull the vines away, they take the paint with them, leaving these patterns on the wood where the vines used to be. It looks almost like the vines are still there because every little leaf has left an imprint.

Silas might want to forget where he came from, but he’s just like this house. He can strip away the town, his past, his upbringing, but they all leave marks behind. And like we’ll do to this house when we’re done, Silas has painted over those marks, and he doesn’t want anyone else to know they’re there.

Another thing we have in common.

Though I’ve never exactly fit comfortably in my new life, I try not to acknowledge my old life, either. I was in foster care from three years old on, and I don’t remember anything before that. I suppose most people like me hit that stage in their teens or twenties when they’re filled with a desire to know where they came from, why they were dealt the hand they have. They go looking up their birth parents or other family.

There’s no point in that for me. Richard and Emily told me when they adopted me at nine years old. Even then, they’d treated me with a rational practicality, like I was an adult who just happened to be two feet shorter than them. They didn’t give me all the specifics of my birth mom’s death, but I think it was something messy. Drugs, maybe. Or suicide. If it were something like a medical issue or a car accident, they would have told me. I could ask now, and they would give me whatever information I want. But do I really want to know if it’s that bad? I don’t remember her. And it’s easier that way.

I work in silence for a while, and eventually I notice that Silas has started working below me, too. He still has one arm wrapped around my shins in case I were to lose my balance, but with his right hand, he’s pulling away vines and adding to my pile.

“There’s an extra pair of gloves, you know.”

He shrugs. With me on his shoulders. It’s like he doesn’t even feel me. “It will keep my calluses up until I get back to practice and back in the weight room.”

I don’t ask why he would want calluses. I just write it off as some sports thing that will never make sense to me.

“When do you go back?”

He blows out a breath. “Next week. As long as I’m certain I won’t lose my head and f**k things up even worse for myself.”

“How will you know you’re ready?”

“I was going to have you tell me.”

“Silas . . . I can’t do that. How could I possibly know what’s going on inside your head?” I leave off the implied unless you tell me.

“You’re the authority on having your shit together. I figured you’d be able to recognize when I got there, or when I was on my way or something.”

If only.

“Apparently I don’t have things as together as I thought.”

I’m working on a particularly strong vine. I tug hard, and my hand slips right out of the oversized glove I’m wearing. I swirl my arms, trying to right my balance, but it only makes it worse. I’m falling backward. We both are. I might scream something. Silas’s hands clamp down on my thighs like bands of iron, but I’m still teetering.

It occurs to me to protect my head, just as Silas pitches himself forward onto his knees. He hits hard, and the jolt unseats me from his shoulders, but thanks to him I’m closer to the ground. And with reflexes practically in superhero range, he even manages to snag my hand as I’m falling. His hold keeps me up just enough that my bottom hits first, followed by my lower back, but my head never goes down.

Even with Silas’s efforts, my tailbone hurts like a mother, and my lower back spasms painfully, so I let go of his hand and lay back against the grass. His knees have got to be hurting just as badly, but he still shifts to lean over me.

He blocks out the sun, and maybe it’s the pain or maybe it’s just him, but it feels like one of those rare total eclipses where you know you’re not supposed to look because it can destroy your eyes or something, but it’s so incredible that you can’t help it.