Still decide, I thought with what could only be called a giggle. He’d told me to go; he’d set down the rules. I was going.

I was well aware that building some kind of infatuation around this guy was dumb…but it was also fun. And fun was a rare enough bird in my life that I was going to let it stick around if it wanted to.

Good God. Forty dollars’ worth of drinks? Was he nuts? I’d buy myself one. Maybe. And then a box of hair dye, because my roots were coming in and I looked like a weird off-color skunk.

But beneath the drink thing, it said, This is why I watch him. This is why I want you to stay away.

The folded-up piece of paper was a photocopied news story from ten years ago.

GANG MEMBERS ARRESTED AFTER TRIPLE HOMICIDE

Beneath the headline was a picture of a younger Ben and two other men in handcuffs being led into a police station.

Quickly, I closed the article, pressing my thumb along the crease as if I could seal it shut. Forever.

Triple homicide?

Gang member?

Joan had said that, remember? She’d said, that day at the lake, that he’d been a part of a gang. He’d been kicked out for doing something awful.

Was this it? Was this the awful?

It seemed ludicrous. Like a joke. He fried zucchini flowers and told me to stay out of the sun. He gave me tomatoes from his garden. The other morning I woke up to find a loaf of cornbread on my stoop. Still warm.

He was a man whose regrets and remorse sat on his shoulders, nearly visible.

This…article didn’t make any sense.

With shaking hands, I opened the paper back up.

Three members of the Skulls Motorcycle Club have been arrested in relation to the October house fire that killed two men and a young girl that took place in the Tallyrand area of Jacksonville.

According to local law authorities, the two men who died in the fire were tied up and alive at the time the fire was set. The girl was apparently asleep in an upstairs bedroom. The house, area residents claim, was used to make and distribute methamphetamines.

“Between DNA testing and eyewitness testimony, we’re confident we’ve got a case,” says county prosecutor Edward Hayes. “All evidence points to the three suspects tying up those two men, setting the house on fire and leaving them to die. Those two deaths I have no doubt were premeditated. Whether or not they knew the girl was upstairs is a matter we will have to determine in court.”

I closed the article again and fumbled for the phone. I texted Dylan.

Is this article real? Did he kill those people in the fire?

A little girl?

Was I living next to a murderer?

The phone rang and I answered it before the first ring was over. “Is this a joke?” I asked.

“No,” Dylan said. “It’s not.”

“What happened, did he go to jail?”

“Not for this. The whole case was thrown out because the prosecutor fucked with some evidence. He was a little too keen to get those guys behind bars, and so they all walked.”

I paced the very small distance the charger cord let me.

“Is that…did he?”

“Set the fire so those guys would burn to death? Yeah. I think he did. He was some kind of enforcer for the MC.”

“MC?”

“Motorcycle Club.”

“Oh Jesus, oh God.” I sat down on the edge of my bed. That little girl…

“You are safe.”

I didn’t even think about that. If Ben wanted to hurt me he’d had a month to do it.

“Why did you send that?”

“So you know who he is. And who he’s not.” His voice was loaded and hard. Mean sounding. Like he was angry.

That article and what I knew of Ben did not connect in any way. “I have no idea who he is,” I cried. “Not after this.”

“He’s someone you can’t trust. He’s someone you do not want to get close to. Not for any reason. I don’t want you to be scared; I want you to be informed. To be smart. I shouldn’t have asked you to look in on Ben and not tell you the whole story.”

“Did he go to jail for something else?” I asked.

“Yeah. He was in and out of jail until the club kicked him out a few years ago.”

“Why did they kick him out?”

“I don’t know, Layla. Just…keep away from him.”

I sat up straight and blew out a slow breath.

“You okay?” he asked.

“No. And why do you sound mad at me?”

“I’m not mad at you—”

“Then don’t talk to me like that.” I was stunned those words came out of my mouth. Stunned. But I was too angry myself, too freaked out, to process any of it.

“Baby,” he sighed. “I’m sorry. I just needed you to know.”

“Well, now I’m pissed at you.” I was pissed at him for his tactics. I felt bullied. I shifted on the bed and the money slipped down over my hand. Bullied and cared for. What the hell?

“But…thank you for the money. Forty bucks is too much, though—”

“Forty bucks is nothing. Look, I gotta go. I have this party thing…”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Me too. Well, not a party thing. But I need to go.” It was Thursday night and I had my weekly date with the laundry building. He had a party thing. Awesome.

What the hell are you doing, Annie?

“Will I talk to you later?”

“We’ll see.”

“No. Layla. No ‘we’ll see.’ If you’re done, be done. If you’re not, I’ll talk to you later.”

“Where in that choice is there room for me to be pissed at you?” The words choked me as they came out of my mouth. Was that me, saying that?

His laughter was unexpected, a husky curl that would usually make me close my eyes and shiver a little. “Both choices have that room. Depends on how pissed you are. You can still be mad, baby, and keep doing the things we do.”

I didn’t really know how. How to hold both my anger at him and my desire for him in the same hand. But I knew I didn’t want this to be the end.

“Okay,” I breathed. “I’ll talk to you later.”

“Good,” he said, the relief in his voice obvious. He’d been worried I would end it.

I hung up and then walked over to my stove, where the foil-wrapped loaf of cornbread sat in between the burners.

How could the Ben I know be the Ben that was in that newspaper?

How can you be the woman lying on a kitchen floor begging your husband not to kill you and the woman having phone sex with a man you don’t know? How did those two realities live side by side inside of me?

That was the truth, wasn’t it? We could all be so many things. Victims and criminals. Sinners and saints. Devious and virtuous.

That was what my mother was really scared of, why she kept us so alone out on that farm. Why she tended that garden of radical fear and suspicion. Because we were editors of our own selves, revealing only what we wanted to show. Being only what served us best.

Trust was an enormous act of faith.

And faith…God, faith was hard.

Who was Ben? Really. Who was I?

And who the fuck was Dylan?

That night really was laundry night, so I loaded up my stuff, including the last book I’d bought at the library, a historical romance that was the second in a series, so I was a little lost, but hooked all the same.

To my surprise, Tiffany was sitting out at her picnic table, the twinkle lights on making the dusty little yard actually seem quite lovely. And she was sitting with a woman who looked just like her but without the bruises and the dark circles under her eyes.

But the real kicker was that Tiffany was laughing. Head thrown back, hand pounding the table—laughing.