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  I actually feel his loneliness and confusion coming off him in waves, like it’s something physical, but there’s nothing I can offer him; there’s no way in for me here. I stare out the window, and I do think of angels killing each other now.

  Darren says something.

  “What?”

  “I think I want you to go,” he mumbles, still holding on to me.

  Yep. I’m already disentangling myself, sliding off the bed.

  “Thank you,” says Darren. And then, as he falls asleep, he just keeps repeating that over and over again: thank you, thank you, thank you, as if he’s willing me away as quickly as he can.

  Crouched on the floor, I slip on my sneaks so fast I burn a patch of skin on my right index finger. I turn to look at him. He’s sleeping: his mouth open a little, his arm still placed where I was, outstretched next to him.

  He is beautiful—and it hurts to think that even, because I don’t know what to do about it. I can’t have him. And I have to stop myself from storing this image of him for later; mental thumbnails for when the juices start flowing, because it’ll come with a heaping of sadness and frustration and I don’t want that other stuff.

  I remember Santiago and the way his hand gripped my upper thigh, a little possessively, while he was kissing me. That one chunk of memory has come in useful at times. I don’t want any chunks of this.

  I practically tumble out of his room with my eyes closed so I don’t see any more of Pretty Sleeping Darren.

  I hit the elevator button sixty times. I lean against the wall across from the elevator bank, looking down at the carpet. I don’t get in with the family of four. As I get in the next car, I let myself laugh as I straighten my shirt collar. At least that’s over. And I guess it could have been worse. But when I get back to my room, I’m in a different frame of mind already, and the absolute wrong combination of shit happens.

  CHAPTER 3

  Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead

  They turned down my bed. There’s a piece of chocolate on my pillow. I tear off the wrapper and stuff the whole thing in my mouth. I flip on the TV, lie on the bed, and mindlessly watch an episode of Bob’s Burgers I’ve already seen.

  I want to make a point here: I would not have gotten back on DirtyPaws except for the fact that I had just had the most frustrating, unfulfilling experience of my entire life and desperately wanted to wash the taste of that out with something else.

  I try everything. I half watch that Jason Statham movie. I down a mini bottle of Southern Comfort (awful!) and order room service. I try to go to bed early. Fail. I read some more. I spend a few minutes uploading all the recent photos I took—including the ones I snapped today—to my Tumblr.

  But I’m horny and restless. So I open the DirtyPaws app again, and when I see the perfectly polite greeting (“Hello there, young man”) from the Silver-Foxy-Anderson-Coopery-Roger-Sterlingy dude who is 49 feet away, it trips all my wires.

  I send a smiley face back.

  His name is Benoît.

  “Pronounce it ben-WAH,” he says, with a wide grin. Nice, straight, white teeth.

  “You’re French?”

  He gives me a quick, sharp, curious look. “French Canadian. But I live in the States.”

  “Cool.”

  I’m standing in his room—second room I’ve visited tonight, and don’t think I’m not overly aware of that fact. Hotel rooms seem to manipulate human behavior into certain patterns. Darren and Benoît have pretty much nothing in common. But they’ve both put their luggage in the same corner, on luggage racks. The ice bucket is in the same place, too. Both their phones are charging in the same location, on the mantel below the TV, and their toiletries are laid out in the same spot beside the sink in the bathroom.

  I guess we’re all creatures of habit. Or maybe secretly we look for guideposts, so when we’re away from home we don’t feel like we’re flailing. We never want to flail.

  “You brought it with you,” says Benoît, mouth open, expectantly, and not really asking a question.

  For a second, I don’t know how to respond. Is this some sort of line older men use? Is he referring to my… skills or something? My prowess? I laugh a little bit and sit on the edge of his bed, hands clasped between my legs. When he sees me do this he seems amused, like he was expecting something else, but just got a bonus. I’m aware of the alcohol in my system. My head is not clear. But, given what we’re about to do, I’m okay with being a little removed.

  He sits beside me. He smells expensive, like a guy who regularly takes luxe vacations and stays in nice hotels: wafts of cedarwood and coconut. When he puts his arm around my shoulder, I allow it. He rubs my back, lightly. We sit there like that for a moment and I notice his TV is off—one notable difference from Darren: Benoît isn’t distracted in any way.

  “We’ll do it after, then?” he asks, his mouth curling up at one side.

  My head shudders, subtly, once, from side to side. We’ll do what after what?

  Is this how French Canadians talk? He’s French Canadian. That’s what he said, right?

  I nod, not really knowing what he means, and not really caring because that’s become the theme of tonight. I lie back and close my eyes.

  Immediately Benoît takes that as his cue, and moves into action as I exhale.

  He undresses me. Then I tell him what to do, in a whispered torrent of optimistic stage directions. He does it, but he puts his own twist on things to let me know I’m not necessarily the one in charge here. And also, I think, to make things less regimented. He has firm hands and he’s in good shape for his age.

  Even as I reciprocate, I have yet to open my eyes. Which has nothing to do with him. He’s a good-looking guy, with a sexy accent. But right after we bring things to a satisfying denouement, Benoît sits up and cups my chin, making me look right at him. This unexpected moment of tenderness startles me, so I just wind up apologizing because I’ve been shutting him out the whole time.

  “Très adorable,” he says.

  “Yes. I mean… thank you. Merci.”

  “We should eat… maybe sleep a little? And then you can give it to me?”

  I smile and go “Mm-hmm,” assuming he’s talking about more sex, which impresses me because we did not exactly hold back just now. He has a lot of energy, and he doesn’t seem to want to kick me out. And I don’t want to make a break for it like I usually do. I kind of like him.

  Benoît orders room service and we eat cheeseburgers in bed and watch some travel show on the Food Network. We don’t say anything for a while, even as my eyes find his gold wedding band on the bedside table beside a black-and-gold Bulgari watch and a pile of loose change. I look at him. His eyes are the color of icebergs when icebergs look blue. I rest my head in the crook of his arm while a lot of stuff swills around inside me.

  I haven’t been 100 percent honest about everything.

  My public school back in Rhode Island was fine, perfectly fine. In fact, I even had a few friends I really liked. It wasn’t the school’s fault that I was unhappy. The main issue was… I made a pretty big mistake.

  I had a good friend there named Shane. And I was sleeping with his dad.

  I know. It was wrong, very wrong, and I’m a terrible, awful person. The worst part about it was that I started to… feel things for Shane’s dad. And when that happened he knew it was time to cut me loose. He felt I was becoming attached, which I was. He broke things off, and it pummeled my heart into a million pieces, even though I knew it would have to happen eventually.

  No one ever knew. No one ever found out. Not even Shane.

  Jackson and Leo are the only two people I ever told.

  Shane is disabled and his mom was sort of the breadwinner of the family; she traveled a lot, because she was the chief legal officer of some Fortune 500 company. They lived down the street. And one day his dad, Mr. Reid… I mean, Tom… his name was Tom… asked me if I could help mow his lawn and I agreed because he would pay me well. Shane was out of the
house a lot of the time doing physical therapy. And one thing led to another. I know. It’s like the plot of bad gay porn. But that’s what happened.

  After we ended things, I just couldn’t deal with seeing him every day outside my window: mowing his own lawn, pulling out of his driveway, taking in the morning paper, or whatever. And with that pain came other stuff. Regret. Anger. Guilt. I felt like I had betrayed Shane. And his mom—who I never really knew, but she seemed perfectly nice, just super busy. I felt dirty, like a scheming teenage homewrecker. I didn’t like who I was anymore.

  So that’s why I brought up the whole going-away-to-boarding-school thing with my parents. They quickly agreed, probably because I had pretty much stopped eating or sleeping at that point, and they must’ve figured new surroundings would do me good, that leaving home would be a healthy change of pace. I can’t really give them credit for having figured out what was going on. And even if they did, I doubt they’d care. My family is pretty much like what Jackson guessed about us: Waspy-repressed. Staring down silently at our breakfast, silverware clinking, in a kitchen full of windows with everything buried under sweaters.

  He was joking, but he was kind of spot-on. When things weren’t worried-hysterical with my family, they would settle into the silent-funereal. After a while, I couldn’t figure out which was worse.

  I just needed to leave.

  When I wake up from a restless doze, Benoît is asleep, curled away from me, and I feel like not much time has passed. There’s an odd, focused draft in the room. It’s dark, but my eyes are drawn across the room because there’s a nimbus of cold light emanating from the dresser. I realize it’s my phone and someone is texting or calling. I hop out of bed, run over and grab the phone, unplugging the charger. There’s a text from an unfamiliar number.

  The message says:

  May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you’re dead.

  I stare at the message for a second, and when I slide into the home screen I realize my phone isn’t locked. No password. And then I realize someone has erased the contents of my phone. Then I realize this isn’t my phone—it’s Benoît’s. I left mine on the nightstand. Then I realize I’m stark freakin’ naked. Shit.

  I grope around and turn on the nearest lamp, bathing the room in a golden hue. Benoît doesn’t stir, so I commence the search and rescue to locate my underwear, which I find wadded up under the front of the bed, where it usually is. I gather the rest of my clothes and quickly get dressed. I pocket my own phone (no calls or texts, and it’s twenty to midnight). Then I look through Benoît’s phone, which is kind of a naughty thing to do, but whatever.

  Here’s the weird thing.

  His iPhone is blank, like it did get erased. Or maybe it’s brand new, although the scuffing on the back and a small scratch on the screen the size and shape of a fingernail clipping would say otherwise. There’s no e-mail account set up. There are no apps. Even DirtyPaws seems to be deleted. There are no contacts or phone calls made or received. No voice mails, no other text messages. I open up his Photos, and that’s when my throat gets tight and sweat beads up on my brow.

  There are photos only of me.

  They start from me asleep, in his bed. That’s creepy enough: that he took photos of me while I was asleep. Except, as I keep scrolling down, the photos of me go back in time.

  He was taking photos of me in the lobby having tea with Jackson and Tatiana.

  There are photos of me at school.

  My hands are shaking as I stare at photos of me going to and from class, talking to friends, walking down the steps of my dorm. But they look like paparazzi shots—something taken with a telephoto lens from far away. These photos were sent to him, I think, rather than taken with the camera phone itself—although I don’t know for sure.

  I lower the phone and stare at his unmoving form, fast asleep under the covers.

  Then there’s a knock on the door.

  When I look through the peephole, I see a bellhop standing outside.

  “Room service,” he says, two or three octaves away from being jovial.

  I look toward the bed. “Hey,” I say to Benoît in a tense whisper. I clear my throat. “Hey,” I say again, louder, but he doesn’t move.

  We already ordered room service. Did he order something else?

  I open the door.

  The bellhop is a sharp-jawed blond guy who looks like he stepped out of a daytime soap—a different bellhop from before, but wearing the same hotel uniform.

  “Room 4509,” he says, pushing the cart inside with a silver tray on it as I stand aside. I look toward the bed, but the bellhop, trained in the art of walking into hotel rooms and encountering a wide array of messy situations, politely doesn’t follow my gaze. Nor does he wait for a tip, or lift the lid off the silver tray.

  “Have a good night, sir,” he says, closing the door behind him.

  When I lift the lid off the tray there is nothing under it. The tray is empty.

  I walk over to Benoît, ready to wake him up, and that’s when I see the blood.

  And his eyes…

  Glassy. Wide open. He’s lying on his side, head resting on his arm. It’s as if someone scooped out a dime-size hole in his temple with a cherry pitter; blood is trickling out of this hole, over his arm, down the side of the bed—a little crimson waterfall pooling in a puddle on the carpet. And it actually makes a sound: a little drippity-drip-drip as more blood soaks the carpet, further darkening the Rorschach stain.

  I jump back, looking around wildly. Directly across from Benoît’s head there is a similar-size hole in the window, a sprinkling of broken glass on the carpet below.

  I realize, almost immediately, that I should get the hell away from the window.

  And then I see a green laser beam slowly crossing the room.

  I drop to my stomach, hyperventilating, trying to steer clear of the blood.

  I am giving DirtyPaws a one-star rating in the app store. This is bullshit.

  I slither across the floor, trying to move toward the door as fast as I can.

  And I think about Tinkerbell. That’s right, the stupid fairy.

  As a kid, I saw a local performance of Peter Pan. Tinkerbell was just this squiggly green laser flitting across the stage. I’m reminded of that now, watching this horrible laser sight seeking me out.

  I wasn’t exactly enchanted by the show. I think I was just pissed those kids got to fly, and I wanted to fly. I wanted to be Peter and Wendy and whatever the hell those other kids are named. I was jealous because I felt ordinary and landlocked. So when it came to clap if you believe in fairies I didn’t clap. I didn’t really care if Tinkerbell died. My mom was clapping hard, and she looked over at me, somewhat concerned, and said, “Don’t you want to clap and save Tinkerbell?”

  But I just shook my head.

  As I wriggle across the carpet on my belly, chafing my elbows, trying to get to the door, I can’t help thinking this is Tinkerbell’s revenge. Evil Tinkerbell has come to kill me because I didn’t clap. I’m a bad person and I deserve to die.

  Evil Tinkerbell arcs across the ceiling and down the walls as I continue my impression of a panicked mollusk, getting closer and closer to the door, praying that laser sight doesn’t nail me when I reach up to turn the handle.

  There’s a buzzing in my hand. Someone is calling my phone.

  No, my phone is in my pocket.

  This is Benoît’s phone. I’m still gripping it hard in my hand. The number calling his phone is the same number that left that weird text message. I recognize the area code. So I turn over onto my back, lie flat, and answer it.

  CHAPTER 4

  On the Lam

  Hello?”

  A pause. “And who am I speaking with?” The voice is steely, smiling.

  My lips are tingling. I don’t know what to say. Should I give my real name? A fake name? I don’t know why I just answered a dead man’s phone. Was I hoping for a magical resolution to whatever I just got myself in
to here? Some quick and easy answers that would make the laser sight—or this whole situation—go away?

  The voice seems to register my petrified indecision with a slightly impatient hmpf. “Considering he didn’t answer his phone with our code word, signifying the exchange was made, I have to ask: what has happened to our dear friend?”

  Code word?

  “Who? Benoît? He’s dead.”

  There’s a disappointed but knowing sigh on the other end. “And here I am thinking we already had a deal in place. But apparently you had other plans.”

  “What… are you talking about?”

  “We have a confirmed visual of you,” he says.

  My mind races. “The bellhop with the empty tray?”

  “We know what you look like. What you’re wearing. And, obviously, what room you’re currently in. Do not hang up.”

  The adrenaline pumping through my system is clearing my mind. I wasn’t really listening to what Benoît was saying when I first walked into his room—“You brought it with you… we’ll do it after… and then you can give it to me.” None of that made sense. He obviously thought I was someone else. And now so does this guy on the phone.

  “What do you want?”

  “What we discussed,” he replies. “The item in question.”

  Briefly, absurdly, I feel a surge of hope. This misunderstanding can be cleared up lickety-split, no problemo. I keep my voice level. “I think you have me confused with someone else. I don’t think I was supposed to be here.”

  He laughs at that. “How exactly did you plan on getting away? I’m… curious.”

  It’s kind of crazy, but I just start laughing back at him: involuntary and unhinged. I can’t believe all this is really happening. It feels like a prank.

  The kind of prank where there’s a dead guy in a hotel room, blood pouring from a bullet hole in the side of his head.

  Weirdly, my reaction changes the tone of the conversation—the timbre of the man’s voice lightens a bit. “Of course,” he purrs. “You’re wounded. I’d forgotten.”