And I needed to think about what I wanted to get out of the conversation that night with Snapper because I’d let stupid, dreamer, happy Rosalie get the better of me last night and I’d used him to cuddle with and sleep with and make myself feel safe.

But now I needed to decide where my head was at because he didn’t deserve me playing with his heart.

I went to the bedroom, made the bed, padded down the stairs and inspected the kitchen, doing the minimal cleanup of the donuts Snap and I had dragged on last night’s clothes and went out to get, that we’d brought back and eaten standing up at the counter before he took off. This being crunching up the donut bag and tossing it into the built-in trash drawer.

I poured myself another cup of coffee and sipped at it, opening and closing cupboards, finding the women had done me right in more ways than I already knew. They set me up perfectly.

I took the coffee with me as I wandered and found, through the other door on the wall down from the powder room, there was a nicely outfitted laundry room with washer and dryer, soaking sink, shelves and wall-mounted dryer racks.

I mean, seriously.

I could live here the rest of my life and be happy.

Though it wouldn’t fit any Travises or Nashes.

Or Hermiones.

Just me.

A man and me.

I heard my phone ring and I moved out of the laundry room to the table by the door where it was sitting, deciding next up was the goodness I knew I’d discover digging through the Sephora bag that was still there.

I set my coffee down and picked up my phone.

The screen said Snap and seeing it my heart felt happy that he could finally be displayed on my phone for anyone to see that he was in my life and thus belonged in my phone.

But my head felt full of ominous gray clouds.

“Hey,” I greeted after I took the call.

“Hey to you,” he replied. “You good?”

I closed my eyes, opened them, and stared at the long stretch of lawn that led to the street.

There were bushes down either side of the property. I couldn’t begin to know what they were, just that they were cut low for the winter.

I wondered if Snap provided lawn maintenance for his tenants, and if he did, if he did that himself or if he expected them to do it as part of the rental agreement.

“Rosalie,” he called, his tone sharper.

Not sharper.

Worried.

“I’m good,” I told him, though I wasn’t sure I was considering how it felt that he’d been gone maybe a little over an hour and he was already calling me, checking on me.

That should feel good.

It was just my head was so messed up, I wouldn’t let it.

“You don’t sound good,” he noted.

“The stitches all fell out,” I shared.

“Noticed,” he murmured.

Of course he had.

“I’m gonna have scars,” I told him.

There was a beat of silence before he declared, “I’m comin’ back.”

“Snap, don’t.”

“Babe, you went from bein’ cute in bed and smiling eating a donut to whatever the fuck you sound like now and talking about scars. You’ve fallen into your head, it’s not a good place to be, so I’m comin’ back.”

“I need to sort this stuff out for myself, Snapper.”

“Why?” he asked.

Suddenly, the big yard in front of me was blurry.

“Sorry?” I asked back.

“Why do you have to do it yourself?”

I…

Didn’t know.

I told him what I did know.

“I’ve relied on a man all my life, Snap.”

“Okay, so?”

My head jerked.

“That’s not very strong,” I pointed out.

“Have I ever told you why I joined Chaos?” he queried.

I felt my shoulders straighten because he hadn’t, I knew something big was coming, and last, I bucked up so I could be prepared because I wanted so badly to know that something big.

Precisely…why he’d joined Chaos.

“No,” I told him.

“I’m a quiet guy. I’ve always been that guy. First thing I did when I got my driver’s license was go to a movie by myself,” he shared.

There was something immensely cool about that.

There was also something immensely Snapper about that.

Then again, it was kinda one and the same thing.

“Was the first I did that,” he went on. “Wasn’t the last. My brother and sister, they got big personalities. They’re almost pathologically social. Just like my mom and dad. My sister, she’s crazy. Lovable, but crazy. Always getting into trouble. Fightin’ with Mom. Then lovin’ on her. My brother was the big man, sports star. Soccer. Really good at it. Earned a scholarship on it. I played tennis.”

I felt a sudden, inappropriate-at-that-juncture giggle welling up in me and choked it back.

But I couldn’t quite hide the disbelief in my, “You played tennis?”

“That’s all about me. The court. The racket. The ball. My game. My strategy. It isn’t even about my opponent. He was just someone who, if he could, lobbed the ball back at me, and it was up to me to get a bead on his strategy. You are totally in your own space. You are totally in your own head. Win or lose, it’s all on you.”