He didn’t say anything for a moment, or ask how I knew, but then he answered, “A decaying snowflake.”

I raised my eyebrows. A decaying…

“Why?” I asked.

“Because of Winter by Walter de la Mare,” he replied softly. “Something still beautiful, even after what I did to her.”

Her. Me. The snowflake represented winter.

My throat tightened, and I kind of smiled and teared up at the same time. How did he do it? How did he always break my heart, especially in ways I loved?

“I wish you could see the sea,” he suddenly said, changing the subject. “The choppy waves and moonlight on the whitewash. The rain spilling from the dark clouds under a sliver of moonlight.”

I pictured it, what he was seeing, and I wondered if he felt guilty about what happened to me and all the things I could no longer see.

“I hear it,” I told him in a quiet voice as I listened to everything around me. “The drops on the roof, heavier or lighter in certain areas, because the trees are catching some of it not hitting us.” I caressed his neck, finding his ear lobe with my fingers as I listened for more. “The storm drains we pass every minute or so, because the tires are hitting where the water pools as it flows into the underground.” And then I smiled, telling him, “And the rhythm of the wipers and how they sound like We Will Rock You when the two in front go and then the one in the back does, and it’s like “swipe, swipe, SWIPE”.” I imitated the beat of the song and how the wipers mimicked it.

I heard him laugh under his breath.

I continued. “The way I know he’s driving over the speed limit, because it wasn’t windy tonight, but the rain sounds torrential as it hits the windows.” I wetted my lips, feeling his hand move to my hair and smooth it over and over again. “There’s more thunder over the sea than there is over the forest,” I said, analyzing more sounds in my head, “and it’s getting closer to us.”

I brought my hand down, tucking both in the pocket again to keep warm.

“How, with everything going on out there,” I went on, “I feel like I’m wrapped in a blanket in here—warm, dry, and safe. And all the world living and breathing and raging outside makes where I am seem like a world within a world. Like a fountain in a maze.” I paused, musing, “Like a home.”

Everything with him was like home.

“I hear so much more than when I could see,” I said, my voice turning to a whisper. “I don’t think I’d ever want to not hear all that now.”

I missed not seeing things and enjoying the world the way so many others did, but…I also saw the world so much more differently now. One kind of beauty was replaced with another.

I rested my head to the side and closed my eyes, lulled by all the little sounds and hoping that tomorrow would be more of this with no doubt between us.

“I do love you,” I told him again before I drifted off.

Just so he knew.

I woke the next morning in Damon’s bed, naked under the sheets, everything from last night slowly coming back to me. The party. The maze. The drive in the car.

The whole lot of extra energy he had in bed throughout the night when we got home.

I broke out in a smile, blissfully exhausted but more awake than I’d felt in a long time.

Reaching over, I didn’t feel him in bed, though. Patting his sheets and pillow, I landed on a piece of paper, it crinkling under my hand.

He wasn’t dumb enough to leave me a note, was he?

I picked it up, noticing the little pokes in the paper, and I laid it in my palm, running my fingers over the raised dots and instantly recognizing the Braille.

Moving left to right, over the cells, I deciphered the message.

Stay in bed. I’ll be back for breakfast. Then after breakfast, we’ll eat.

I snorted, realizing the breakfast he’d be back for was me.

P.S. Your phone is on the nightstand.

I crashed back on the bed, feeling my body tingle all over. He wrote me a note. I’d never gotten a love letter before, and that was totally one.

I couldn’t believe he had a Braille printer? Nice. With audiobooks and VoiceOver, I rarely read anything in Braille anymore, but if only to get little notes from him, I loved it.

What time was it? We were up so late, and if he wasn’t back yet, it must still be early. Didn’t he ever sleep?

My phone rang, and I reached over and grabbed it, hoping it was him.

“Hello?” I answered, sitting up and keeping the sheet wrapped around me.

“Winter?” Ethan blurted out. “What’s going on?”

I stilled, my smile falling. Why was he calling me?

I kind of wanted to have it out with him about those pictures, but I wasn’t in the mood yet.

“I can’t talk right now,” I told him. “I’ll call you later, though.”

“Why are there pictures of you online?” he barked, cutting me off. “Pictures of you with him?”

“What are you talking about?”

“At the Throwback last night!” he yelled. “There’s footage of you two kissing! People were taking pictures! Did he make you do it?”

What? Pictures… I don’t…

And then I remembered Will and I were dancing, Damon came up behind me, we started…

People were everywhere. All around us.

And my shoulders fell.

Winter Ashby sent Damon Torrance to jail for statutory rape, and now she’s crawling in bed with him, of age, and here was proof she was totally willing this time.

“How could I be so stupid?” I murmured.

In front of everyone.

But it was going to happen anyway, right? It was a small town. Eventually people would know we were together, and we’d have to deal with reactions, given our past.

“What is the matter with you?” he snapped like I was a child. “You had to know people were watching! You sent him to jail for rape. People were going to remember that. And now you’re making out with him? It makes you look…”

Like a liar. Yeah, I knew exactly how it made me look.

Sometimes I longed for the time where everything wasn’t recorded and broadcast for the world to see. Of course it looked bad.

And now the people who always maintained his innocence were emboldened more.

“He knew what he was doing,” Ethan continued. “How could you fall for it? Why would you let him touch you? Did you not know it was him again?”

I could hear the disbelief in his voice now.

Again.

“Some people were willing to believe you the first time, but now…” he said. “They’ll never believe he fooled you twice. I knew he was smart. I just didn’t think you were so dumb.”

I hung up on him, refusing to listen to it anymore. I didn’t do anything wrong. We didn’t do anything wrong.

We had a fucked-up start years ago, and we both spent years paying for it, but we were doing this. We wanted this.

I loved him.

And Damon didn’t plan that last night. He didn’t know they would take pictures. He wouldn’t have done that.

But part of me wondered.

Part of me doubted. He wouldn’t have done that, right?

He hadn’t said he loved me? He got me to say it. Twice.

Why hadn’t he said it back?

Damon

Present

Walking through the backdoor and Mikhail following, I downed the rest of the bottle of water and tossed it into the trash before dumping some food into his dish and letting him chow down before I headed down the hallway and through the foyer.

I brought my T-shirt to my nose as I climbed the stairs and sniffed. Cigarettes and sawdust. It was probably on my skin, too.

Eh, she’d deal with it.

I pulled the shirt off over my head and walked into the bedroom, tossing it on the floor. “I’m dirty and sweaty,” I said, kicking off my shoes, “but you’re just gonna have to roll with it.”

Leaving the light off, I put a knee down on the end of the bed and crawled up, dying to pin her hands above her head and kiss her until she was begging to get fucked.

But as I reached her side of the bed, it was empty.

“Winter?” I called.

I felt the bed, not finding her, so I reached over and turned on the lamp.

She wasn’t here. The sheets were rumpled and still warm, though.

“Winter?” I barked louder.

Dammit, girl…

I climbed off the bed and went into the bathroom and dressing room, finding them both empty. Leaving the room, I headed down to her bedroom and swung the door open, but she wasn’t there, either. My heart pumped harder, and I bit the corner of my mouth to keep my nerves in fucking check.

Maybe she was in the ballroom.

I walked to the railing, about to head down the stairs but saw Crane move across the foyer.

“Where is she?” I demanded.

He stopped and looked up, meeting my eyes.

But then dropped them again.

“Fuck you, where is she?” I snapped.

“A car picked her up,” he told me, looking like he really didn’t want to. “She said she’ll be at St. Killian’s and back in a couple days.”

“And you let her leave?”

He closed his mouth, averting my eyes. Why the fuck did I hire extra security if he was just going to let her come and go like that?

“It wasn’t my impression she was a prisoner, sir,” he said.

“Was it your impression that I might eat ice cream out of your skull for not telling me she was going?”

He tightened his lips.

“Was she upset?” I asked. Do you know that at least?

“She seemed troubled, yes,” he answered. “Said she just wanted to have some space to think.”

Think.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. When women think, shit didn’t go the way I wanted it to.

What the hell was she doing? I did what Rika told me to do. Almost. I got to work on something. I brought in a crew, we tore down that fugly fountain and built the one I had designed and planned, working day and night for two days, so she’d find it and explore it and hopefully love it.