Bella texted me later to make sure I'd gotten home okay, and I made the mistake of letting slip that Reed was home. 

Immediately the phone rang and I swear I could hear my best friend's annoyance through the ringtone.

I sighed and answered, stepping out onto the porch while Reed shot me a knowing look. 

"The prodigal son returns, huh," she said sardonically. It was only four on a Saturday and her words were already slurring a little. She'd caught up quickly since I left. 

I couldn't judge. I had my own demons. We fought them however we could. "Stop," I told her half heartedly.

"What's it been this time, like half a year? Did you hear one thing the whole time he was gone?" I heard the telltale clink of the vodka bottle hitting the table. "That's bullshit, Heidi; to let someone worry about you for that long."

"I'm familiar with your theory." I also half agreed, but I knew Reed. I knew there was some reason he couldn't talk about where he went. If I questioned it maybe he wouldn't be allowed to return at all.

I shuddered to think.

I did have a phone number I could call in the event of an emergency. I'd never had cause to use it.

"Probably married with kids," she muttered. "To like six different people."

"What are you up to?" I changed the subject.

She made a rude noise. "Don't change the subject. How long's he here for this time?"

I picked at green paint on my arm and noticed there was some in my hair too. "A week, he thinks." Only a week. It fucking killed me.

"Then off for another year while you just sit and wait and cry into your Honey Nut Cheerios," she declared, definitely slurring. I heard the flick of a lighter and her inhale. "Till one day he just never comes back and you wait forever and die of a broken heart all old and wrinkled and sad. With thirty cats."

"Okay, well, it was good to talk to you, Bells," I said pointedly.

Now she sighed. "I just want you to love someone normal, who's the right person," she said, and I knew she meant well.

"Right, like we'd know normal if it bit us in the ass," I said skeptically.

"He probably works for the Russian mafia."

"He's French Polynesian. And supposedly Egyptian."

"One of their mafias then."

I had to smile a little. "I'm seriously covered in paint. I'm gonna go finish this picture."

"Sure, if that's what you kids are calling it these days, awesome." Another clink, another inhale as she toked her pipe. "Be careful."

Says my best friend, who drinks and then drives to the liquor store and then returns home to drink some more. Every night.

"You too," I just said, because we didn't talk much about her drinking. There wasn't much to say. "Love you."

"Love you too. Make him tell you." She hung up.

Reed was asleep when I went back in, upright on the couch and leaning against the armrest with his feet stretched out, his chin on his chest. I took the laptop before it could fall and checked what page he was on. Almost to the end of what I had written. We'd stayed up until three talking, and I sat down on the loveseat for a moment to rest my own eyes.

When I woke up it was dark and my house smelled like an Italian restaurant. My stomach growled. I went to the bathroom, washed my smeared makeup off, and arranged my hair so it mostly covered the scarred side of my face. Then I followed my nose to the kitchen.

Reed was wearing my cow print apron, dancing a little to some music on the radio with a skillet in one hand. He saw me and smiled, setting the pan on the stove and taking my hand to dance me around the kitchen. He ended with a twirl and released my hand, after which I perched on a barstool at the counter and yawned. 

"Morning," he said cheerfully, putting a mug of coffee in front of me. "Or evening. Or whatever. I love your new book. I didn't figure out who did it until the second to last chapter. I think, and no offense whatsoever meant to my other favorite books of yours, of which they all are, but I do think this one is my favorite of all."

I felt the same way. "Really? I thought it was just me." I drank some of the heavenly coffee. 

"You're like cheese, chérie, just getting better with age." He held out a tiny mushroom on a fork and I ate it. It was delicious.

"Cheese is smelly. I'm sure there's a better metaphor than that." I gestured for another mushroom and he put a little dish of them in front of me. He was wearing shorts and a tank top in the warm house, and I couldn't help but notice new scars on his legs. "You've got to wear pants when you're climbing," I said, because I'm a huge hypocrite.

He flashed his grin because he knew. "I'll try to remember that. If you will."

"Hmm," I said noncomittally.

"I love your hair that color. It makes me want cotton candy." He leaned to grab a handful, trailing it through is fingers, then tucked it behind my ear so my scars showed. "Don't hide your beautiful face, Addy."

I rolled my eyes at him and shook my head so the hair fell back in place. "I'm starving. What, and more importantly, when are we eating?"

He gave me a look in response to the eye roll and whirled back to the stove. "Stuff, delicious stuff. And nowish."

It was chicken and pasta and breadsticks from scratch, with Caesar salad and chocolate cake with ganache. We ate in front of the TV, watching Planet Earth, with Reed interjecting comments about all the places they portrayed as usual. "Sandstorms, ouf, they're the worst," he shook his head. "Gets in your nose, your ears, your eyes; it's like being at the beach but the beach is on all sides and its only goal is to infiltrate your body. That, and there's no water." He shuddered. "Terrible. Give me a jungle over a desert any day. Only thing worse are the deserts of my mind." He winked.

"Fact or fiction?" I asked, also usual. It was the only way I could discern if such tales were true.

"Fact, poppet. About the sand storms and my mind, though the latter you well know." He yawned and put his empty plate on the coffee table, followed by his feet. He had a new tattoo around his ankle, and a six inch scar running up his calf that was years old, ending where his blue Adidas shorts began. "I wish it were fiction."

We stayed up most of the night again and slept until noon, then ate a bunch of food and went climbing. 

The next five days passed in this manner, until I knew Friday afternoon by his somber mood we were down to hours together.

"You kill me," I said out of the blue. We were sitting on the porch, he smoking. "All this secret agent shit."

"It's my last intention on earth to kill you," he said, bumping me gently. "And you know it pains me greatly to be secretive."

"You know you can trust me," I said, going for lightness of tone, but not sure how well I managed it.

He sighed, brushing his hair back though it didn't need it. "You know I trust you more than anyone in life. It's bigger than that." He flashed a smile, because he couldn't say any more about it. "Please. Don't make me feel worse about it."

"As you wish," I said with only a bit of snark. "Just remember to come back."

He gave me a knowing look and put his arm around me, squeezing for a moment. "I will always come back, chérie, never fear that."

But I did.

He was gone in the morning and I cried. Then I painted. Then I climbed one of the old abandoned buildings on the edge of town. None of it helped and my anxiety was consuming me so I resorted to old habits. After which I cried some more.

"Fuck him," Bella said when she called that night. She wasn't that drunk yet. "Fuck him and the horse or whatever he rides in on, fucking Aladdin wannabe shithead."

"Bells," I admonished, sniffling.

"At least you didn't disappear with him this time," she grumbled, though I'd promised her a thousand times I wouldn't. She lit a cigarette. "I always expect that to happen next."

I should be so lucky. But luck was never my friend.