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buddies slept, the teenage girl on the rollaway on the third floor wondering if someone named Michael was going to ask her out. I wrapped a pillow around my head, but I knew it wouldn’t do any good. I could even catch the faint thoughts of the four single women staying in the room across the courtyard, up late chatting like girls at a slumber party, wondering if that bartender would be working again tomorrow night. Then I heard the boards on the stairs creak. Shane, heading up to bed.
    His room was directly above mine. It hadn’t been a problem when I lived here before. When I wanted to be near him. Back then, after Lionel and Bruce were asleep, I used to sneak up the stairs and meet him in the hallway, and if the Rose Room was empty, we’d go out onto the balcony overlooking Ursulines and watch the tourists yell and laugh and stumble in the street. That was before I was old enough to sneak back to his room.
    I remembered the feeling of his hand covering mine in the boat, the steady pressure of his mental grip as he’d lifted me to the bank, and the featherlight touch of his consciousness as we’d searched for Mina. I could sense his fatigue, his anxiety, his hope, and it didn’t help that his emotions mirrored mine. With only twelve feet and a thin wood floor between us, there was no way I’d be able to block him out all night. I went for my purse and my pills.
    I didn’t realize my hands were shaking until I nearly dropped the bottle, but the feel of the threads catching on the orange plastic was enough to make me instantly calm. I had two caplets in my hand when there was a knock at my bedroom door, and Shane pushed it open. I jumped and hid the bottle behind my back.
    “I brought your bag.” He took a half step into the room and set my duffel on the floor. “I could tell you were still awake.”
    “Thanks,” I said, not moving. Even several feet away, I sensed his concern. My hand tingled where he’d held it, and my heart pounded with a thousand inappropriate memories of his hands in other places, doing other things. My face heated. The situation wasn’t helped by the fact that I was only wearing underwear and a thin T-shirt.
    “Thanks for the jacket,” I said, just for something to say. “You can take it back now.”
    “Trouble sleeping?” If he was skimming my thoughts, I couldn’t tell.
    “Yeah.” I shrugged. The hand with the pill bottle was still behind my back. He noticed.
    Shane cocked his head and took another step toward me. I stepped back on instinct. That was a mistake. He closed the distance between us and spun me around before I could react, grabbing the bottle out of my hand. “What is this? You’re still taking these?”
    I lunged for the bottle, but he caught me by the shoulder and held me back.
    “I only take them at night!” I said, trying to twist out of his grip.
    “Every night?” He looked at the bottle. “These are—”
    “I know what they are. Give them back.” I felt like a child, and my face flushed with anger and embarrassment. The pity in his expression only made it worse. “You don’t know what it’s like—tearing up my bedroom every night, that day running through my head, over and over again—”
    “So this is how you deal with it? You’re just going to ignore it?” He didn’t say it, but I heard him thinking, Like you ignored me.
    He was too close. His chest was half an inch from mine. I had to tilt my head up to look at him, and when I did, his eyes dilated and his grip on my shoulder softened. His fingers began to knead. I wasn’t sure he was even aware of it. It was too familiar, this position, too much like every time we’d kissed in this same room. The way my pulse quickened made me sick with panic.
    “It’s the only thing that works,” I said, biting off the words.
    He was totally silent for a moment, his dark eyes meeting mine with an intensity that almost made me look away. I held my ground.
    “Bullshit,” he said finally.
    “Excuse