Page 72 (1/2)

I scoff at ave me a key to his place too, and left a key to one of his cars hanging on a hook by the garage If I think about howo to the kitchen and s for breakfast on the sleek black stove and fancy countertops

I haven’t quite worked up the nerve to poke around yet I’m sure there are security cameras around the house, and I don’t really want Marcus to think that the very first thing I did after he left was ransack his house

So I spend the first day doing exactly what he suggested I veg out and watch a couple of o back upstairs and take a bath in the side the shower, and by the tih, I’m pretty sure this was the best idea ever

Aside from the few days I barricaded uys were followingin a long-ass time

It’s nice

It feels strange sleeping in Marcus’s bed without him there, but the sheets still carry his addictive scent, and when I bury ht, my dreams don’t overwhelm me as violently as they usually do

By the second day, I work up the nerve to go snooping around Marcus’s house—soon the first floor and working my way up

The place really is massive, with several rooms I’m pretty sure he hardly ever uses The ones that see room, the kitchen, his bedroom, and the room with the pool table There’s also an office on the first floor, but all the drawers in the desk and filing cabinet are locked I do find a few pictures of the people I think are Marcus’s parents They’re both attractive people with serious faces, and I can see parts of their son in each of them His father runs an investment firm, apparently, which is the business Marcus will one day take over

Slipping the pictures back between the books where I found thee little thud-thud in e boy with eyes the color of earth and air

This had to have been taken at least six or seven years ago, maybe when he was sixteen or so There are traces of the man he is now in the boy’s face, a hardness around the eyes that seems to have existed even then But I can sense more of the hope that I see in Marcus from time to time in this picture

I want to see

My exploration of the house becoain confidence, and by the middle of the second day, I’ve poked around in every roo questions that still hover in my brain when it comes to Marcus, but I feel like I know his of his day-to-day life

Shit Is this what he felt like when he watched me all that time?

It feels strange to have the tables turned like this Now I’ that the answers I want most are hidden away inside Marcus’s heart His mind

Afterthe feeling of having nowhere to go and nothing pressing to do My skin is flushed and hen I get out and pad back into the bedroom with a torapped around myself