In the Unlikely Event by L.J. Shen

Present

Rory

Rory: Are you sitting down?

Summer: Bitch, what kind of question is that? Who’s standing up for no reason? This is the 21st century. We sit down unless we’re in the gym or in line for Jamba Juice.

Rory: Mal is a widower.

Summer: ???

Rory: What part didn’t you understand?

Summer: The one where you’re being short and snappy with me for no apparent reason, in fact.

Rory: Sorry. Sorry. I’m just shocked. Kathleen died some time ago. He wouldn’t give me the details. I’m shattered, Summer. She was my sister.

Summer: Half-sister. And as you should be. But don’t forget she wasn’t a saint to you.

Rory: Still. What do I do?

Summer: You pack a bag and say goodbye to Cillian Murphy Junior. This has trouble written all over it. He is officially available and after your ass.

Rory: A. We’re working together, and B. He looks NOTHING like Cillian Murphy.

Summer: A. I don’t care, and B. Shame, huh?

Rory: Seriously, what do I do?

Summer: Mal. You are about to do Mal.

Rory: How could you be so callous about her death?

Summer: After the things she told you before you left, how could you NOT?

Rory: I need to tell you something else.

Summer: I knew it would get worse. I knew it. Tell me.

Rory: He kept the napkin.

Summer: How do you know?!?!

Rory: He left it on my nightstand last night.

Summer: $#%$%&^^*#%#!!%%^&^%&%^

Rory: After he told me he wanted us to surrender to our promises to each other.

Summer: <GIF of J. Alexander, America’s Next Top Model judge, looking scandalized>

Rory: I can’t believe you’re making fun of the situation. This is serious.

Summer: It’s serious that he is a widower. It’s serious that I told you this wasn’t a good idea. It is NOT serious that you’re about to live on a cloud of orgasms for the next few weeks, which will cost you your perfect boyfriend.

Rory: I’m not going to cheat on Callum.

Summer: Mark my words. By the end of today, you are naked in his bed.

A NOTE FROM SUMMER

I have a confession to make, but guys, it’s going to be an awful one.

It’s not that I’m an awful person. It’s that I’m real. I wish I could be less real. I wish I could be a bubbly TV or book character who is always helpful and nice and loyal. But I’m not.

We all have baggage, and mine landed me in hot water a few months ago.

All I want you to know at this point is that I love my best friend very, very much and always will.

But love comes in different sizes and shapes, and it’s not always the full range of positive feelings you imagine when you think about it.

I love Rory, but sometimes I want her to snap out of it.

She is so naïve, so self-centered, so clueless.

Who goes to Ireland to work with the love of her life for two months, leaving a boyfriend she clearly doesn’t love behind?

She does.

This is going to end in tears.

I just hope I’ll be there to wipe them.

Oh, and as for the confession? You’ll see.

Present

Rory

I wake the next morning when the scent of freshly baked cake wafts into my nose, and I follow it like a cartoon character, practically floating to the living room. Cocoa and sugar and warm, crisp goodness. I find Mal in the kitchen with his back to me. His damp, ruffled hair suggests he is freshly showered, and a dark gray sweater clings to his lithe body and dark jeans. He moves around in his dirty Blundstones, the cake cooling on the counter beside him. The minute our eyes meet, my smile drops.

He looks like shit.

His bronze skin is pale, his eyes droopy and watery, his nose red, and he looks flat-out drained. There’s a mist of cold sweat coating his face and neck. He places the cake in the breakfast nook to cool, then produces a small gift bag from behind the nook, putting it on the counter.

“I’m off,” he says flatly.

His gruff voice is extra gravelly, extra throaty, extra different. Something happened between last night and now, and I’m hunting through my brain to try to figure out what it was.

“You’re sick.” I ignore the birthday stuff. I don’t care who’s celebrating, getting out of the house in his state is a bad idea. “Stay.”

He shakes his head. “It’s important.”

“Whose birthday?” I ask.

“Please don’t ask.” He touches his eyebrow, looking down.

An odd response, but then again, Mal is an odd person. Then I remember my presence here is largely unwelcome, and maybe he’s going to celebrate someone’s birthday and doesn’t want to invite me. The thought pierces my heart with shame and pain, but I let it go.

“Where is Ashton?” I ask, mainly to drown my grumbling stomach with my voice.

“Eh.” He flashes me a tired smile, traces of Fun Mal appearing in his crinkled, smiling eyes. “Our fine lad took off in the middle of the night, while we were sleeping. TMC reported he got on his private jet at Dublin Airport and took off to Thailand to ride elephants.”

“You’re kidding me.” I can practically feel my eyes bulging out of their sockets.

Mal shakes his head, then coughs. It’s dry and loud and almost makes him pop a shoulder. “Ryner just called to give me the gist of it.”

“He must be freaking out.”

Mal shrugs. “That’s what you get for signing a forty-million-dollar contract with a heroin-shooting, coke-snorting, LSD-enthusiast rock star and expecting him to be holed up in Ireland for two months. Here. Look at this.”

He turns his open laptop to me and hits a TMC link. Ashton is sitting on an elephant, swinging his arms back and forth, sandwiched between a guide and a gorgeous woman who can’t be much older than eighteen.

“Elephants, motherfuckers! The biggest force of nature since dinosaurs! Woo-hoo!” he bellows.

I cover my mouth, struggling not to smile.

“Actually, you’re thinking of blue whales. They’re the biggest animals on Earth,” his assistant, the chick who gave Mal her number, mutters from beside the elephant as she walks with the rest of Ashton’s entourage.

“Yeah, but I mean, like, mammals,” Ashton huffs.

“Whales are mammals.”

Ashton lets out a piercing scream. “Well, that’s just fucking great. Get me down from this stinking asshole right now. They all look like wrinkly, purple balls, anyway.”

I click the X icon to close the video, trying not to let the two million views and counting on the sidebar freak me out.

I turn to Mal. “You look like death.”

I decide to cut him some slack about the napkin and bring it up later. He doesn’t seem eager to discuss it at the moment. My first priority is to make sure he doesn’t walk out this door anytime soon. Lightning booms outside, the rain beating down hard on the roof. The light flickers off for a second.

Again with this supernatural nonsense.

“Cheers.” He lifts his tea mug in the air, taking a sip.

I round the breakfast nook and press my palm against his forehead. He is burning.

“You’re not leaving,” I whisper.

“I’m afraid I’m not asking for permission, Rory.”

“You’re not,” I insist, wiping the sweat off his forehead. “You’ll die out there. And then I’ll be all alone here, which would suck.”

I meant it as a joke, but I forgot about Kath. It’s a foot-in-mouth moment. How did she die? Was she sick? Did you take care of her? Until I find out, I should be more careful with my words.

“You’re not alone.” He gives me a friendly peck on the forehead. “There are mice in the attic.”

“Mal,” I warn, following his gaze and looking at the car keys between us. I shake my head. “Promise me you won’t leave.”

“What did I say about promises, Rory? I only make them if I intend to keep them. What about you?” More coughs.

There is only one place he needs to be right now. In bed.

Mal was right. The living room is not a place to sleep, and it’s my fault he’s in this condition. I should’ve given in to the sleeping bag in his heated room. Yet, I insisted we not share space. Now he’s sick as a dog because he tried to please me.

I scoop up his keys, turn around, and run to Ashton’s room, locking myself inside. Mal is at my heel, and after I slam the door, he slaps his palm over it with a growl.

“Rory!”

“Get into bed!” I yell back.

“I need to go.”

“Not in this state. I don’t care who it is, Mal. You’re not going. If you want, I can call and make an excuse for you.”

I hear his forehead sliding along the wooden door as he squats down, probably too exhausted to stand. He chuckles bitterly. “I very much doubt they’d like to hear from you.”

Ouch. And there’s the jerk again.

“Who is it?” I ask, trying to sound unaffected. My voice is frayed around the edges, though, cracking mid-sentence.

“Rory, darlin’, this is not a joke.”

“You can’t leave the house, Mal, unless you’re going to urgent care—in which case I’m driving.”

There’s silence from the other end. The first minute, I’m guessing he’s contemplating my offer. The second minute, I suspect he might’ve fainted. I open the door timidly, looking left and right, but he isn’t there.

I step outside, frowning.

“Mal?”

I stride into the living room. The front door is slightly ajar. Surely, he didn’t…

The keys are in my hand, and it’s raining hail, so there’s no chance he just left. My eyes dart to the breakfast nook. The cake is gone. The little gift bag, too.

Jesus.

I jump into the car, still in my pajamas, and drive down the road. I catch him walking on the shoulder, cake wrapped in a plastic bag in his hands. He is soaking wet. I slow and roll down the window.

“Mal!” I yell.

His hair drips water into his face. His eyebrows are crinkled in determination. He is also a very unnatural shade of blue. “Get in! I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”

“No, thank you.”

“Mal!”

“Go back home, Rory.”

“Please. I didn’t know…”

“Home.” He stops, turns around, and stares me down.

The finality of the word strikes me somewhere deep. Wherever he is going, I really am not welcome there.

“You can’t come with me, and I’m going no matter the cost. So your best option is to wait for me at home, really. You’re just wasting my time, and every minute I’m out in the pouring rain trying to convince you to stop following me is a minute I am still, in fact, standing in the rain, my condition worsening. Follow my logic here?”

Why is he so harsh? So broken? So…mad? He was completely different yesterday, and I refuse to believe this is all due to the fact he woke up with the flu.

But I’m confused, and furious, and a little forlorn over the way things have progressed this morning, so I throw an accusing finger his way.

“Keep walking, but I’m ordering you a cab, and you better be home by one o’clock or I swear to God I’ll find your mom and grandfather’s numbers and call them.”

I smash the gas pedal with my foot, leaving him there, with a soggy cake, a gift bag, and that invisible cord between us he seems to tug whenever I wander too far away for his liking.

I’d let him have the car, but he is in no condition to drive, and I’m scared he’ll black out on the steering wheel.

At the next stop sign, I call a taxi company on the outskirts of Tolka and urge them to pick up Mal where I left him. I tell them I’ll Venmo them a hundred euros if it happens within the next five minutes. Then I continue my journey to Main Street and park in front of the newsagents, shaking with a humiliation I cannot fully explain.

Truly, I have no idea what I’m doing. I just know I have at least a few hours to burn before Mal comes back from his mysterious birthday bash. I open the glove compartment and find fifty euros. Considering I just spent more than that hauling Mal’s ass to his date, I think I’m okay to borrow it. I slip out of the car and get into the store, grabbing a small basket and throwing in flu medicine, herbal tea, a fancy Cadbury chocolate bar, chips, and a triangle-shaped sandwich to calm my grumbling stomach. When I hand the beautiful, dark cashier the note, she flips it and shakes her head, handing it back to me with an apologetic smile.

“I can’t accept it. The money is ruined.”

“Ruined how?” I blink, confused. I’m starting to think everyone just flat-out hates me in this town. They won’t even take my money now?

“Someone wrote all over it.”

I take the note and flip it. Sure enough, I see my name on it, and a date.

The date I threw it into Mal’s guitar case.

He kept it. For good luck. For fate. For whatever reason, he kept it and the napkin, and what does that even mean?

Heart pounding like a restless, caged animal, I tuck the note back into my pajama pocket.

Did you feel the same way I did, Mal?Did you walk around with a hole in your chest?

But if he had, he wouldn’t have married Kathleen. I’m reading into things. Not the first time I’ve done that. Besides, Callum. I love like Callum.

Callum, Callum, Callum.

“Look, it’s the only money I have. I stay right up Main Street, in the Doherty cottage. Is it okay if I come back in a few hours with the money? I’m starving. Also, my host is sick, and I—”

“I know who you are.” The woman lowers her voice, her eyes softening. She has this weird mix of Irish and Indian accents, sweet and round and warm, like spices and honey.

“You do?” I let out an audible sigh.

News sure travels fast in small villages. I wonder if that’s why people feel so strongly about country life. Because it defines you so profoundly, it’s a part of your identity. Then again, I did have a show-off with Maeve and Heather here not even forty-eight hours ago.

She starts shoving my things into a stripy, nylon white and blue bag. “I arrived in Tolka three years after your mother left. They told me how you got the scar. I’m so sorry, Aurora.”

“Huh?” I look up at her, no longer smiling.

My mom wasn’t here to begin with—she said she never set foot in Ireland—so how could she possibly leave? And I was born with this birthmark. That’s what she said. This is not some Harry Potter scenario where the scar has deeper meaning. It is what it is: a birthmark. Knowing me, I probably punched myself in her uterus by accident.

The cashier hands me my bag.

“On the house. I’m just glad you survived.” She shakes her head a little, her long side braid moving back and forth.

“Survived what?” I’m trying not to lose patience. “What did you hear about me? About my mom?”

The bell above the door chimes, and someone walks into the shop. The light flickers, just for a second. On. Off. The universe is trying to tell me something. The universe can also go screw itself. It hasn’t helped at all so far. It just messes with me.

As soon as the woman sees who it is, her eyes widen and her mouth clamps shut. I turn around. It’s Father Doherty, and he’s already holding a bottle of wine, obviously in a hurry to pay and leave.

Fancy everyone having a party and not inviting the Wicked Witch of the West.

I wish I could say I am happy to see him, but more than anything, it’s panic that washes over me. I’m panicked about Mal being sick and walking around in the rain, panicked I’m losing grip on what I have with Callum, but most of all, I’m terrified that there’s some big secret about me I’m not privy to.

And all the answers are around me, in a demonic circle, dancing ritually and laughing. Only they’re invisible, and I can’t see them.

“Rory,” Father Doherty gasps, stumbling backwards. His back hits the magazine shelf.

I raise an eyebrow. There’s no way his grandson didn’t tell him I was here.

“I’ve been meaning to come up and say hello.” He clears his throat, mustering an embarrassed smile.

He looks even more ancient than he did eight years ago. Weaker, too. Tragedy has a way of painting your face in a different shade. You can always spot people who are grieving before they open their mouths.

“I’m sure you have.” I smile patiently, knowing there’s no point in confronting him.

“I wanted to give you time to settle. How have you been?”

“Oh, you know.” I wrap the bag handle around my fist. “This nice lady over here was in the middle of telling me a story, weren’t you, Ms…”

I turn around and watch her watch him with pure terror in her eyes.

What the hell is going on?

“Patel,” she says. “Divya Patel. Actually, I…I…” She looks at me, smiling apologetically. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I mixed you up with someone else. It’s all a bit of a blur. A lot happened when I first came to Tolka.”

I look between them. Unbelievable. He just silenced her without more than a look.

Father Doherty knows something I don’t. Divya, too.

“Please.” I drop the polite charade, turning back to her. “I deserve to know how I got my scar.”

She looks between me and Father Doherty. There’s a scream lodged in my throat. She’s asking him for permission. He has no right. She shakes her head and grabs the bottle of wine he’s handing her.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice is quiet.

I storm out of the store, ignoring the sting in my eyes. I drive around for a while, trying to piece together everything, see if Mom ever mentioned anything about being in Tolka. But if she had, I would certainly remember. She never talked about Tolka. When it’s late lunchtime, I finally decide to come back to the cottage. But instead of eating, I dump the bag with the food onto the counter and call her.

“Rory!” She picks up on the first ring. “Gosh, I knew you’d call at four in the morning. I’ve been trying to reach you for days. Text messages don’t cut it, young lady. What about your mom? You knew I had those injections two days ago.”

“It’s Botox, not bone marrow. This, too, shall pass,” I bite flatly. After six months or so, depending on where you got it.

“You’re too sarcastic for your own good, Daughter.”

“No such thing, Mother.”

“How’s Ireland? How’s your wretched half-sister?”

Dead,I want to scream. I’m in the Twilight Zone, and I’m not talking glittery vampires. Since breaking the news about Kathleen would only make her ask a trillion more questions I’m not prepared to answer, I keep this piece of information to myself.

Instead, I say, “Have you ever been to Tolka, Mom?”

“Hmm, what?”

“You heard me.”

“Where is this coming from?”

“It’s a simple question. Its origin is of no importance. Have you or have you not visited Tolka?”

“Your father used to live there for a hot minute, you know.” I hear her flicking the lighter and inhaling the first drag of a cigarette. “When your half-sister was younger.”

Of course. Of course, she would never call Kathleen by her name. Of course, she’s hostile toward Dad, even when he moved closer to his kid and tried to be a decent father.

“You’re not answering my question.”

I want to punch a wall. I think I just might. But I’m afraid a trip to the hospital will result in more revelations. Maybe they’ll run some tests and find out I’m half-leprechaun. Who knows?

“No,” she says finally. “No, I haven’t. Are you sleeping with that infuriating Irishman yet? You’ve always had a weakness for the ones who are irreparable.”

“He doesn’t need repairing.”

“He is broken.”

“Everyone is broken. Some show it more than others.”

I made the mistake of telling Mom how I felt about Mal when I came back from Ireland—the first and last time I opened up to her about a boy. She threw a fit, especially after she found the rolled-up sanitary pads in my bathroom trashcan and asked how come my period was so early. Then I had to tell her about the morning-after pill I took, and she flipped and dragged me by the arm to get tested for STDs.

I’ve never felt more like an idiotic child than I did then, and I haven’t shared much with her about anything since.

“I have a boyfriend, so, obviously, no. I haven’t slept with him, nor am I planning on it.”

“You never know. You and I, we’re made of the same self-destructive material. When I met Glen, I had a boyfriend, too.”

“You did?” I ask mildly.

I don’t really care. I’m not her.

It doesn’t even matter if Callum and I break up down the road. I still won’t do this to him, for the simple reason that I won’t do it to me. I’m not a cheater.

“Yup.” She pops the P, taking another drag. “Good Italian boy. Went to the police academy. Could’ve had a good life, Aurora. Instead, here I am, cutting coupons for soap and working double shifts at Hussey’s Pizza. Pretty darn sure the Lord chose it as my workplace to remind me what I did to Tony.”

I’m about to ask her about my scar when I hear a loud thud coming from behind the front door.

Hoof.

“Talk later, Mom.”

“Wait! I need to talk to you about—”

I kill the conversation and boomerang the phone across the breakfast nook. Padding toward the door, I wonder what inspired me to put the phone down when I heard a strange, foreign, scary sound from behind the door of this deserted cottage. If photography doesn’t pan out, I sure could be an extra in the first five minutes of a B-grade scary movie. Then again, staying on the phone wouldn’t have helped.

I wouldn’t trust my mom with my wallet, let alone my life.

Please be Callum, surprising me to whisk me off to England, and not an axe murderer.

I fling the door open, only to find the usual fields, gray sky, and endless rain. I look left, then right, and still—nothing. I’m about to close the door when I hear a low, gritty groan at my feet. My eyes slide down. Mal is lying on the ground, soaked to the bone, looking positively green.

I gasp, clutching the collar of his jacket and dragging him inside. He is heavy as hell and ice cold to the touch. I can only get him to the middle of the living room before I start taking off his drenched clothes. He’s limp, and mostly unconscious under my hands. I don’t ask him why he decided to walk instead of calling a cab or—God forbid—me. I don’t ask where he’s been. My main concern is keeping him alive right now.

After I manage to strip him down to his briefs, I throw his heavy arm over my shoulder and pull him up, using all the strength I possess. My quads burn under his weight as I lead him to his bedroom. We bump into things on the way, but I don’t think he is conscious enough to notice. He is freezing, and he is always so hot. It terrifies me.

Once he’s in bed, I turn the radiator on and jog to the bathroom, coming back with a towel. I start to pat him dry everywhere, then tuck him under the duvet like a burrito, wrapping him like a mummy.

“Tea and flu medicine are on their way. Don’t go anywhere,” I joke—because he’s unconscious and can’t hear a thing—running off to the kitchen like a headless chicken.

I flick the kettle on, unscrew the bottles, then turn the kettle on. (Again? Again!) I head back to the bedroom with a glass of water, waiting for the water in the kitchen to boil.

“Heat up, heat up, heat up,” I chant to myself as I run my palm close to the radiator to check for warmth. Nothing.

“Electricity is down in the entire village.” Mal coughs, rolling in bed. His voice is so weak I can barely hear him. “Don’t bother.”

This is why the kettle didn’t work. I shove the pills and water in his face, trying not to appear as frazzled as I feel.

“Drink.”

He perches himself against the headboard and dutifully swallows the pills, not bothering with the water. Did I mention he is green? Yes. Because he is. He is shaking, too. And I, the girl who is always cold, am responsible for making him an icicle. He gave me his jacket in the pouring rain when I felt like running away spontaneously—barefoot and underdressed in the middle of the night. He slept in the living room for me, with nothing to shield him from the cold.

“We need to get you to the hospital.”

“In this storm? Fat chance, Rory. It’s probably overcrowded, anyway. Christmas fecks all the drunks up, and winter does the rest.”

“Why did you have to leave?” I seethe, trying to gain control of my temper. “What kind of stupid asshole wakes up in the morning sick as a dog and decides to take a long-ass stroll in the rain?”

My New Jersey-based bad cop is slipping into my speech, and I bare my teeth at him. I tuck the edges of his blanket under the mattress, again caging him to the bed.

He doesn’t answer, just presses his eyes shut. His chest is barely moving. I stand up and go to Richards’ bedroom to grab another quilt for him.

When I come back, he looks:

1. Ashen
2. Dead

I run a finger under his nostrils. He is still breathing, but barely. Cold mist covers his skin. My entire body turns rigid.

Be okay. I can’t lose you, too.

“Fuck you.” I feel the tears prickling my eyes as I begin to undress.

He needs body heat. He needs body heat, and for the first time in a long time, I am actually not cold. My blood is boiling with fury at what he did to himself. At what I did to him. I dump my clothes by his bed, leaving on only my white cotton panties—I never bothered to wear a bra or brush my teeth, things were too hectic today—and slide in next to him.

I think he is out of it enough that he doesn’t even realize when I roll him to his side and clasp my arm and leg over him. His heart beats against mine, dull and weak, struggling to keep up with the rest of his body. Hot tears run down my cheeks.

Everything is falling apart. Summer was right. I am naked in bed with him—only not for the reason she thinks. I can’t let him die in the name of loyalty to Callum. Richards is a runaway, my boyfriend is in another country, Mal is a widower (and possibly bipolar?)—plus, surprise! He kept the napkin—and there’s this huge secret hovering over my head, but I can’t seem to untangle it from the cloud of lies and deceit that follows my every step in Ireland.

I rub the length of his bulging arms, up and down, up and down. I press my forehead to his lips to check his breath and temperature. His pulse is slow, his breathing labored. I wonder if I should take his phone and call someone.

I sing him a lullaby my mother sang to me when I was a kid to help me fall asleep. Honestly. It was the only beautiful thing she ever did for me. It always soothed me and calmed me down.

“Oh blow the winds o’er the ocean/ and the trees, and the seas/ and the little pigeon, that never sleeps.”

Mal groans, his eyes still closed. A sign of life.

“Rory.”

“Yes?” I ask hopefully.

“You’re terrible, darlin’. Please stop.”

Then he is completely out of it, leaving me to shake with laughter next to him, so entwined I can feel him everywhere on my body.

“You’re a total pain in the ass, Doherty,” I mumble into his chest.

Goosebumps rise along his smooth, bronze flesh, and I smile. I doubt he can hear me, but I know the gooseflesh is him responding to what I’m saying.

“You make everything so hard.” I sigh, and as I say it, I realize he is hard.

One of my legs is thrown over his, and his penis is pressed against my groin. It’s hot and velvety and swollen, even behind his briefs. I shudder, closing my eyes, feeling the delicious clench inside of me. I open my eyes again to glance at him. But he’s not pretending. He really is dead to the world.

And he is getting warmer. Because of me. The ice queen.

“Of course, you would be hard when I say that. You always had the sense of humor of a cabbage,” I add as an afterthought.

He lets out a soft snore, his body tilting away from me, heavy with sleep, but I’m not ready to let go. I press my thigh harder against him, tightening my grip.

“Please get better, Mal. Please, please, so I can sing you lullabies you hate and read your songs and give you shit about the napkin and ask you a million questions.”

I don’t know why I’m talking. It’s obvious Mal is not going to answer. Somehow, I manage to doze off in his arms, too tired now to eat the food I left on the counter.

I wake up a couple hours later. The winter blankets the sky, dim and black, but it’s still not nighttime. I glance at Mal’s face. He seems to be sleeping peacefully, and some of the color has returned to his face. One good thing is that he is very, very hot and sweaty against me. He is fighting the fever off, his hair sticking to his forehead and the nape of his neck.

His dick is still wonderfully erect. Okay, time to untangle, call Callum, and tell him I’m coming to England. No way I’m staying here when Ashton is a continent away and Mal is hard and beautiful and available and kept the napkin. Mom might be a handful, but that doesn’t mean she’s not right. Mal is trouble, and I’m not a huge fan of trouble anymore.

I try to withdraw from his body, only to find he’s now the one with his arm clasped over me, and not vice versa. I slide to the edge of the bed, but Mal clasps my arm. I gasp and turn to look at him.

He smirks, his eyes still closed.

Bastard.

“Going somewhere fancy?” he inquires, his voice deep and rich and gravelly.

Pouty, broken-boy charm has always been my kryptonite, and when he is Imperfect Mal, the urge to love him overwhelms me.

Food for thought, though: Kryptonite also has the power to completely destroy Superman.

“Yeah,” I say. “England. To meet my boyfriend’s parents.”

These plans have been brewing in my head for a while, but I’ve yet to do anything about them. Now something tells me it’s time I should. Must, if I want to save my relationship.

His eyes are still closed, his smile widening.

Did he listen to what I just said? Maybe he woke up with brain damage. Poor soul. But I’m sure there are women lining up to take care of his screwed-up self. There are two types of women—the ones who want to save, and the ones who want to be saved. The entire population of the former would take Mal and his goodie bag of issues happily.

“Stop smiling.” I groan.

“Why? Life is beautiful.”

“Is that so?” I quirk an eyebrow. I think—I think—he just rolled his hips against my groin, essentially pushing his dick between my legs, but I can’t tell for sure, because the movement is very gentle. What I am sure of is the fact that I’m drenched to the bone and currently clenching my womb, wishing his throbbing member was in my tunnel. And yes, I just said throbbing member in my head, because admitting the obvious—I am insanely, deliriously in lust with him—is hard to swallow.

There’s heat swirling in my lower belly, and if I don’t escape this bed right now, I will do something I won’t be able to forgive myself for.

His eyes pop open, purple and bright and full of mischief. It’s like he woke up a new, healthy man. The tables have turned again, and now I’m the one at his mercy.

“Are we still doing this I-have-a-boyfriend routine? Because Shiny Boyfriend lost the girl the minute you found the napkin.”

I get out of bed and walk out of his room, flipping him the finger without turning around. Screw him and screw Tolka. Screw his goddamn grandfather (sorry, God) and the unpredictable Ashton Richards and Jeff Ryner himself.

I head to the living room, unzipping my suitcase and rummaging through my stuff for an appropriate flight outfit.

After a moment I see Mal sauntering into the living room, lazy and confident and OH MY GOD, WHY CAN’T YOU BE UGLY?

“You might want to reconsider that.” He picks up his cigarette-holed Joy Division white tee from the floor, but doesn’t put it on.

“Oh, yeah?” I park a fist on my waist. “Why?”

“Because you’re naked, and although I’d personally pay good money to keep you in that state, there are rules to abide by in this wonderful country.”

I look down at my naked body, then up at him, frowning. I pick up the first thing in my vicinity—the triangle sandwich I never ate—and throw it at him. He catches it in one hand, cracks it open, and takes a bite. Dammit.

“You kept the napkin and you didn’t tell me!” I ignore my stomach, which at this stage is glued to my inner organs, screaming for food. Guess that’s what happens when you’re too busy having three internal meltdowns and an anxiety attack due to emotional overflow. You forget to eat.

Mal shrugs, putting his shirt on and taking another bite, talking with his mouth full. “You wouldn’t have come here if I had.”

“Because I wanted out of our contract!” I yell, throwing my chocolate bar at him.

I should really stop doing that. I really am hungry, and the electricity is still down, and I don’t trust any of the glitzy, organic, gluten-free, sugar-free, taste-free stuff Richards’ people crammed the fridge with anyway.

Mal catches the chocolate bar in his spare hand, tearing the wrapper with his straight, white teeth and biting off a chunk.

“That’s not how contracts work, darlin’,” he notes, chewing vigorously.

“Where have you been?” I ask again. “Whose birthday did you go to?”

He tilts his chin down and stares at me seriously. “You’ll find out when you’re ready.”

“Fine. Next question. Why are you screwing Maeve? She’s a married woman.”

“Same answer. There’s a reason, but I need to ease you back into my life. A lot has changed, and I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“I don’t want to be in your life!” Only I do, and I hate the discourse between my heart and my brain. “And even if I did, you screwing Maeve didn’t earn you any brownie points.”

“Well…” He pushes off the wall and stalks toward me, disposing of the sandwich on the coffee table without breaking his stride. “Shagging her still, while we’re together, has never been the plan. Honestly, she was a bit of a one-off. I hadn’t…” He pauses, poking his lower lip out, trying to figure out how to say it. “I hadn’t been with anyone in quite some time. And even if I was that sort of person, I’m not a cheater.”

I shake my head. “Me neither, and I sure as hell don’t plan on starting now.”

“Oh…” His smile drops. “But darlin’, you already have.”

I blink at him like he’s crazy. Because he is. Completely mental, as they say in this neck of the woods.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I unzip my suitcase frantically, fishing for some clothes. I can feel my hands shaking, and I don’t know how to stop them.

He places his foot on the suitcase above me, slamming it shut with a thud and preventing me from getting dressed, and that’s when I realize he is still without pants. Just his shirt and briefs, and the mammoth erection pressing against them, pointing at me.

“You’ve already been in bed with me. Mostly naked. You’ve already had your wet-as-feck panties pressed against my cock—and yes, I noticed, thank you very much. You’ve already masturbated to the sound of me plunging into Maeve—imagining it was you, by the way, forever the romantic. Face it, Rory. Emotionally, you didn’t only cheat on Shiny Boyfriend, you basically fucked his entire immediate family, pet parrot, and rude neighbors.”

I rise to my feet, and angry blood whooshes between my ears. I’m no longer chilly. My cheeks are aflame with shame and mortification. He heard me coming from the next room. Of course, he did. The only reason he interrupted Callum and me in the first place was because his walls are paper-thin.

“Mal…” I take a step back, raising a finger in warning. “I don’t want you.”

“You don’t want me?” He takes a step forward, crowding me toward the kitchen. “Or you don’t want to want me? There’s a difference.”

“How is it different?” I play into his game, mainly so he’ll talk and not do something else to me I won’t be able to stop.

“Well, if you simply don’t want me, I have no choice but to respect that.”

He closes the distance between us, and my back bumps against the cold fridge. His bare body is flush against mine, and my heart is pounding so fast and hard, I think it’s about to leap out of my mouth, like a fish, if I open it to tell him not to touch me.

But Mal doesn’t touch me.

He almost touches me, knowing it frustrates me even more.

He gets in my face, smirking. “But if you don’t want towant me, then I’m sorry, but I’m not going to let you screw up both our lives because you feel committed to a guy you aren’t sure about to prove a point nobody cares about.”

“I got in bed with you because you were freezing. I haven’t cheated on Callum.” I shake my head, reminding him. Reminding myself.

My eyes drop to his lips, and there’s a fireball growing in my lower stomach, a sensation akin to nothing I’ve ever experienced.

You will never forgive yourself.

He leans forward, regarding me with thinly veiled amusement. I feel his hot breath on my face when he speaks. “You just did the right thing by me, right?”

“Right.” I nod with gusto. “Exactly.”

“Do you know this rumor?” He frowns thoughtfully, his hand snaking into my panties in one smooth motion.

I gasp, reaching for his arm, but he grabs my wrist and pins it to the wall with one hand, his expression unchanged by my resistance.

“About Mick Jagger and Marianne Faithfull in 1967? When they were allegedly caught in Keith Richards’ estate during a drug raid, while he ate a Mars bar out of her cunt?”

I feel something shoved into me and think, oh, God. Oh, Jesus. The chocolate bar is inside me. It’s so filthy and crass, I want to spit in his face, but I can’t help but shiver with pleasure, clenching around the thing.

“Do you think there’s truth to that rumor?” Mal’s lips are practically moving on mine now.

I can feel my puckered nipples rubbing against his body. My breathing is so labored, I am practically heaving. It feels like I’m tipping over an edge of something huge, like I am never going to be the same again.

“I think—” I start.

He pushes the chocolate bar in and out, in and out, thrusting it inside me deeper and faster, and I squeeze my eyes shut and hate myself, because I’m about to come.

You’re cheating on your boyfriend, I scream inwardly. He is making a point, and you are falling for it. Tell him to stop.

“Answer?” Mal asks indifferently, his lips still ghosting mine. “Yes? No? Maybe? Unsure?”

“St…st…sto…”

“Say it,” he urges, his lips crushing mine, but not kissing them—punishing, more like. “Tell me to stop, and I will.”

I can’t do it.

I can’t do it, and I break down in tears as wave after wave of pleasure begins to crash over me, head to toe, and I’m coming hard against the chocolate bar. It’s the ultimate sensation of pleasure and pain, but the guilt thrown into this makes it somehow, shamefully, even more erotic.

My knees buckle, but Mal keeps me on my feet, his hand clasping the back of my neck as he withdraws what’s left of the chocolate bar slowly. I can feel my sticky thighs gluing together, the gooey, melted milk chocolate dense over my flesh.

Mal lifts the bar between us, and it’s ruined, molten, the white waffle sticking out.

“Hungry?” he asks coolly.

I shake my head, feeling my tears fly everywhere.

I cheated on Callum, just like my mom cheated on the guy she left behind for Glen. I’m no better than her.

Mal takes a bite of the chocolate, shrugging, and suddenly, my mouth waters. I am so, so hungry. Without asking me again, he angles the bar toward my mouth.

“Tastes like you.” He licks his lips.

I take a tentative bite, then another one. I finish off the bar. I barely have time to swallow before his lips crash down on mine, and I moan into his mouth, helpless.

I wish I could rewire my thoughts back to my boyfriend. Or that Callum was an abusive, awful man who had it coming. But this is not the case.

But the truth is, I can’t.

The truth is, I don’t think I ever could, even before I met Mal in New York again. The cracks were always there, weeds slipping through them, even when Callum and I were a normal couple facing normal issues. I always compared him to Mal. I longed to feel Mal’s lips on mine, his heady scent wrapped around me like a collar, owning me without even trying. The difference was, I didn’t feel guilty, because the possibility of that ever happening seemed unlikely.

In the unlikely event.

I whimper as Mal takes my face in both his hands and deepens the kiss, growling like a beast. His tongue meets mine halfway, and my eyelids drop shut.

My phone pings, and I rip my mouth from his, snapping out of the moment. I’m cupping my face as I scurry to the breakfast nook. I flip it over to see the number on the screen.

Callum.

It’s like he has a sixth sense. How did he know?

“Hey, love,” he says, sounding cheerful when I answer. “Summer called me. She told me about Richards running off. What a wanker. She suggested I hop on a plane to keep you company. What do you reckon? Still want me to come for New Year’s?”

I look up and see Mal with his elbow propped on the side of the fridge, raising his eyebrows in a really? look. I shake my head. My thighs are cemented together with dried chocolate. What have I done?

I look away from Mal, clearing my throat.

“Yes!” I say, trying to match his jovial tone. “Please come over. I would love to have you here.”

When I end the call, I press my forehead against the breakfast nook and close my eyes. Do I get a special award for being so stupid? A discount at my local library? Anything? Seems a bit surreal I’d be left to my own devices after pulling something like this.

I need to tell him. I need to tell Callum.

“I just want you to know,” I say shakily, my lips moving on the surface of the counter, “that this meant absolutely nothing.”

“Say that to your puckered nipples and wet cunt, darlin’.” Mal breezes into his bedroom on a whistle, picking up the half-eaten triangle sandwich on his way.

All the lights in the house turn on at the same time. The microwave dings. The television turns on, and two guys in suits talk heatedly about football.

The electricity is back. Mal lets out a sigh of contempt.

“Real funny, Kiki. I’m trying here, too, but you see that she’s stubborn.”

I whip my head toward him and scowl. “You think your dead wife wants you to hook up with me?”

“I know she does,” he says, matching my thunderous look.

“How so?”

“She loves me, and I love…” he trails off, slanting his head sideways. “I love chocolate bars. Love is like that, don’t you feel? Deadly, kind of. The more you prolong and stretch it like a leather leash, the more painful when it finally snaps and hits you. When you’re ready for answers, let me know.”

A NOTE FROM THE CHOCOLATE BAR

Best. Day. Ever.