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Definitely not complaining. I just wanted to know so I can start wearing more than my boxers to bed.”

    That gets a blush out of me. “Well, don’t—uh, change anything on my account,” I stammer, and he laughs and crosses the room to kiss me again.

    We spend a very nice few minutes hanging out on his bed. Nothing heavy, since Tucker still has this notion that since I have angel blood in my veins he should try to keep my honor intact. For a long time we simply lie there, catching our breath. I lay my head on his chest, feeling his heart thumping beneath my ear, and I think for the thousandth time that he is without question the best guy on the planet.

    Tucker takes one of my hands and curls and uncurls my fingers around his. I love the texture of his hands, the calluses along his palms, evidence of all the hard work he’s done in his life, the type of person he is. Such rough hands, but he’s always so gentle with them.

    “So,” he says out of the blue, “are you ever going to tell me what happened the night of the fire?”

    Moment over.

    I guess I knew this question was coming. I was maybe hoping he wouldn’t ask it. It puts me in this terrible position, knowing other people’s secrets, especially when those secrets are all tangled up with mine.

    “I—” I sit up, pull away from him. I seriously don’t know what to say. The words catch in my throat. This must be what it’s like for Mom, I think, keeping things hidden from the people she loves.

    “Hey, it’s okay,” he says, sitting up next to me. “I get it. It’s top-secret angel stuff. You can’t tell.”

    I shake my head. I decide that I am not my mother.

    “Angela’s forming a club, for angel-bloods,” I say as a start, even though I know this isn’t what he asked me.

    This is so not what Tucker thought I was going to say. “Angela Zerbino’s an angel-blood.”

    “Yes.”

    He snorts. “Well, I guess that makes sense. There’s always been something off about that girl.”

    “Hey. I’m an angel-blood. Are you saying there’s something off about me, too?”

    “Yep,” he answers. “But I like it.”

    “Oh, okay, then.” I lean in to kiss him. Then I pull away.

    “Christian is an angel-blood too,” I say, trying to be brave and look him in the face and say it. “I didn’t know until the night of the fire, but he is. A Quartarius. Like me.” Tucker’s eyes widen. “Oh,” he says in this emotionless voice, and looks away. “Like you.”

    For a long time neither of us speaks. Then he says, “Big coincidence, huh, all these angel-bloods popping up in Jackson?”

    “It was a pretty big surprise, that’s for sure,” I admit. “I don’t know about coincidence.” He swallows, and there’s this little click in his throat. I can see how hard he’s trying to play it cool, pretend that the angel stuff doesn’t scare him or make him feel like he’s standing in the way of something more important than him. He’d still step aside, I realize, if he thought he was distracting me from my purpose. He’s already putting on the breakup face. Like he did before.

    “I don’t know what was supposed to happen that night,” I say quickly. “But the fire’s over.
    I’m moving on with my life.” I hope he doesn’t detect the touch of desperation in my voice, how much I want to make the words true just by saying them. I don’t want to think about the possibility that my purpose could last another hundred years. “So I’m all yours now,” I say, and the words ring false, so terribly false, in my ears. And here I started out determined to tell him the truth.

    Only I don’t know the truth. Or maybe I don’t want to know.

    “All right,” he says then, although I can tell he’s not sure if he believes me. “Good.
    Because I want you all to myself.”

    “You’ve got me,” I whisper.

    He kisses me again. And I kiss him back.

    But the image of Christian Prescott, standing with his back to me at Fox Creek