"Or when you know you've lost," he says. There's a weight to his words. We both know why we're leaving.

  "Either way, we should go." I pull on his hand and we exit the concert hall to the resounding sound of applause. We're the first ones in the lobby, and my steps hasten toward the exit doors so much that I'm pulling Jackson along. Until we step into the parking lot and then I come to a sudden halt. Lying face down on the concrete is the older man from earlier. He's nude, his bare, bulky body bruised and bleeding, his chest, thankfully, rising and falling in the throes of deep unconsciousness. I give Jackson a questioning look. "Why?"

  Why did you have to give me such visual proof you can't change? That we can't really work together? That, if we even try to make this happen beyond the ransom exchange, I'll always have to be watching you to prevent something like this from happening.

  "He brought it on himself," Jackson says, simply. “He needed to learn a lesson.”

  Maybe there's more to the story, but those words are all the answer I need. "Let's just go."

  It's hard to peel my eyes away from the man's prone body as we walk through the parking lot. It's hard to look away from the truth when it's staring you uncomfortably in the face.

  When Jackson helps me onto his motorbike and climbs on in front of me, I've already hardened my heart, encased the sadness within me inside a cold, solid shell.

  "Where to now? The lighthouse?" He says.

  I shake my head. This is one of our last nights together, and I want to make it special. Despite everything that's happened tonight to cause me pain, I'm still fully aware of all the risk Jackson has taken on for me. That, in his own way, even with all the chaos and confusion he's thrown into my life, his intentions are good.

  At least, they're good when he's not beating people unconscious in a parking lot.

  This is our goodbye. Even though our physical separation is yet to happen, this is the moment where things truly ended.

  I want to give him something to remember us by.

  A piece of me he can hold on to.

  A final something that I can cling to in the lonely nights ahead.

  "I have something else in mind." I take out my phone while Jackson watches me, quizzically, and my fingers dart across the screen in pursuit of a piece of me I haven't revisited in a long time. Then I find it. A couple taps of my finger makes it a reality and I pass him the phone. "Can you take us here?"

  * * * * *

  Later, the motorcycle comes to a rolling, thunderous stop in front of a familiar house. A house that tugs at painful parts of my heart as I gaze upon it. Enormous windows, two stories, built in the early 1920s, with Spanish-influenced architecture, a red-tiled roof, and a million happy memories.

  I slip off his bike and stare at the home, swallowing to force down the bulge building in my throat.

  "What's this? Where are we?" Jackson says.

  My eyes sweep over the neighborhood as I turn to him. I swallow again.

  "This was my home. I grew up here."

  "It's beautiful," he says, politely. His voice is subdued, respectful, as if he recognizes the category five hurricane of emotions swirling inside my chest.

  "It's not my home anymore," I continue. Then I swallow, twice. A deep breath brings historical air into my lungs, familiar scents I haven't inhaled in almost a decade. Even in pain, I can't help but smile; there's a eucalyptus tree on the corner, a tall, proud tree that despite its hated, non-native status in California, I always loved because of the way it flooded the air with its lovely, perfuming scent. It's the smell of home, of my happy childhood, of the time before my family fell on hard times. I breathe in that era and I smile.

  "What happened, Maddy?" His hand touches my shoulder. His voice is low, caring, and I hear in it the echoes of that dangerous, heart-stopping young man with beguiling eyes who helped me when I was young and desperate and my car had broken down somewhere I should never have been; a young man who lent me a hand, his ear, and stole my heart. "Why here?"

  "I want you to see, Jackson. To understand."

  "Understand what?"

  "This is why I put up with everything. This is why I took all the misery that Alexander heaped upon me. This is why I fought through university, despite the wishes of my fiance, despite the privileged destitution of my parents, despite all of life's obstacles. It’s because I remember this place, this happy place, and I would go through hell with a smile on my face to make this home and all its memories a part of my life again."

  "I'm sorry you lost it. It looks like a wonderful place to grow up."

  “You don't know the half of it." I gesture to a window on the lower floor, a massive bay window that afforded me a perfect view of the yard and an adequate view of my favorite eucalyptus tree. "Right there. I used to sit there all the time. The light was perfect for doing homework." I pause, smile again, and hear Jackson lovingly whisper, 'Nerd.' I nod. "I was. I was a huge nerd. In, like, third grade, when other girls were talking about dip-dyed hair and colored denim—yes, terrible, I know, but it was what was in at the time—I was deep into the quadratic equation."

  "Nerd," he says again, louder, and still with enough love that I blush.

  "Absolutely," I say. "Next to the living room, where I'd sit in the window and do math or read or just daydream, my dad had his office. Sometimes, he worked at home. When he did, if he had the door open and he saw me sitting there, he'd always lovingly yell at me to go outside and play like a normal kid. I'd yell back at him to get back to work or go into the office, like a normal adult. Then my mom would tease us, from the kitchen or the art studio she had set up in her own room, and tell us to stop bickering and to remember we loved each other. Then she’d tell us both to get back to work."

  "Sounds like they both really loved you," he says.

  "Still do. Even if I resent them for the deal they made with the Covingtons; I know they love me. They're just scared. Scared and embarrassed that they made such poor decisions, that they mismanaged the business, that they had to sell this home and downsize to something so... lesser... just to survive. I know it kills them, though I'll never tell them that to their faces. Because what parent would want their kid to point out the elephant in the room—that they failed? Besides, I love them enough that I can deal with it, with anything Alexander wants to dish out, and I believe in myself enough that I know I can get this home back for them, for us, for me."

  Whether it's with the ransom money or by some other means, getting this home back is one of the first things I'm going to do. I just hope that, somehow, I can be there to see the looks on my parents’ faces when they realize this home is theirs again.

  "They're lucky to have you," he says.

  "I am who I am because of them," I say, then I stop, caught in the clutches of a loving memory, and my eyes stay on the house as the remembrance plays out in my mind. Finally, I exhale and smile at Jackson. "I tried to show him this house, too, you know. Alexander. Gave him the address, told him to meet me here after work one day, had this plan to show him this piece of me and hoped that maybe he'd appreciate me more. He said he'd come. Then he didn't. Blew me off and had the shitty excuse that a work meeting ran late and that he had to go to San Francisco to have drinks with a potential client. My history was less important to him than sipping mezcal in some hipster bar with some nameless fucking bullshit influencer guru who probably didn't give a rat's ass about working with the Covington Corporation and just wanted the free drinks. After that day, Alexander never mentioned coming here, and I never brought it up. We both knew it was fucking pointless." I shake my head, exhale, release the fist I realize I've been clenching for the last thirty seconds, and then hop on my tiptoes to kiss Jackson on his scruffy cheek. "But I brought you here. You came. This is a big part of me—of who I am and why I am. I am so proud to share it with you. Now, come on, there's something else I want to show you, too."

  "What?" His voice is smiling,

  My heart leaps. I clench his hand tight and I lead him forward to the gates that bar the entrance to the driveway; they're wrought iron inset into brick columns, closed with a heavy duty iron lock that looks like something used back in the Mission era to shut the gates of a hacienda against the outside world.

  "Something inside."

  "But those gates are locked. They're heavy gates, too. You sure you want to climb them wearing that dress of yours? It could tear."

  "It would tear. If I tried to climb it, that is. But I thought we'd just walk in." I take out my phone, pull up the confirmation email I received before we left the concert hall. There's a code in the email, and I quickly enter it into the small lockbox inset into one of the brick gate columns. It pops open, revealing a large iron key. I take it. "But whoever bought this house turned it into a vacation rental. I booked us a night. We're going through the gate and then I'm going to show you something truly special."

  "Which is?"

  My smile grows. With heat, with intention, with desire. "My childhood bedroom."

  "Oh?"

  "See, I was too young when we moved away."

  "Too young? Too young for what?"

  I kiss him. My cheeks color, and I can't help but smile bashfully. It's as if I'm young again, on the verge of growing up, feeling feelings stirring inside me—feelings I don't fully understand yet, but know I like in a way that makes me warm.

  "To have a boy alone in my bedroom."

  * * * * *

  The room isn't how I remember. Of course, that doesn't surprise me. Whoever bought this house to turn into a rental wouldn't have kept the little girl's desk with the plastic, hot pink chair, nor would they have let the bookshelf full of age-inappropriate math books, or the nautilus poster on the wall illustrating the golden ratio. Or the several Barbie dolls or the Easy Bake Oven—because I wasn't entirely obsessed with math and still had those normal, little girl things.

  Now, it's just a normal bedroom, decorated in a bland, modern style with furniture an expensive grade or two above IKEA, yet still looking as lifeless and character-free as if it were assembled from mass produced parts.

  Still, I can see all that used to be here. Feel all that used to be here, too. That loving, familiar flush of childhood, of warmth, of love, fills me.

  But there's something new here, too. Someone new.

  Him.

  "This was yours?" Jackson says. "Little Maddy grew up here?"

  "She did. I liked to read in that corner over there," I say, pointing. "I had a hot pink beanbag chair. So pink it nearly burns my retinas just remembering it. I loved that color for a time longer than I'm willing to admit. Over there I had my Barbies, and where that bland, blue-blanketed bed is, was where my bed used to be, too. It looked nothing like the one you see now. It was more colorful, with a duvet so big and fluffy that it was like sleeping with the love child of a rainbow and a cumulonimbus. To this day, I've found nothing as comfy as it used to be." I slip onto the bed.

  It creaks.

  A familiar creak.

  Laughing, joy bubbling inside me, I turn and inspect the bed beneath the sheets.

  "What is it, Maddy?" Jackson says.

  Quietly, I continue my inspection. Then I burst out laughing again.

  "The blankets are different, but the mattress is the same—there's still marks from when I was really young and playing with my mom's nail polish—and the frame is the same, too. It was never anything special, just a basic frame, but I remember the creaky noise. Oh my god, it's my old bed." I pat the spot next to me. "Come on, get over here."

  He joins me. “And now?”

  "We're both adults. We both know."

  Unable to just sit, pushed by the urge to kiss those impossibly kissable lips, to kiss away the feeling of loving sadness swelling in my chest, I lean in and press my lips to his.

  He reciprocates.

  Hot, intense, with a kiss, with a hand on my back that pulls me into him; my hands—one on his back, gripping his strength, one on his thigh, moving higher—explore him in return.

  With a sudden move, he pushes me back on the bed.

  With another sudden move, he climbs atop me, holding my arms pinned above my head.

  "Yes," I gasp between kisses. His hands are on the straps to my dress, slipping them off my shoulders. I help, shrugging, moving the fabric across my electric skin. "The zipper's on the back," I moan, lifting myself just barely off the bed, pressing my chest to him.

  Nimble fingers free me.

  Another pull and I'm bare before him, except for a pair of thong panties so sheer and delicate it's a miracle they exist. His eyes widen, flash with desire.

  "Well? Are you going to leave the job undone?" I say.

  "Never."

  His lips travel down my bare chest, across my goose bump covered tummy, until the hot breath from his lips tickles my pubic mound through the near non-existent lace of my panties.

  "Oh god, you're making me so hot," I moan, fisting my hands in his hair, pushing his face into my sex. “I need it now.”

  The wetness from my arousal is already showing through the lace. My breathing grows heavier and heavier as I feel his lips, his tongue, move across my soaked sex.

  I slip my fingers in the thin waistband of my panties, pull them down.

  "I want you to eat my pussy in my childhood bedroom. Do it, Jackson."

  He grips the panties and pulls them the rest of the way off. His lips return to my thighs, to my wet, waiting, aching pussy.

  "I’ll do more than that, Maddy," he murmurs as his tongue makes me shiver. As his slow, succulent kisses fill me with impossibly heated desire. "I'm going to make you come, and then I'm going to fuck you on your childhood bed. Fuck you so hard, so deep, that you're screaming my name and begging for every drop of my cum."

  With the touch of his tongue, I thank god for inventing the orgasm. Especially the one I feel rising on my inner horizon, the cosmic, cataclysmic orgasm that I know is going to shatter my small world to pieces.

  His tongue slithers over my clit, sends electric pulses of pleasure rocketing through my body, filling me with the need to cum. His hands grip my ass, pushing my pussy to his face, crushing my sex to his mouth.

  "Yes," I moan, my voice shaking with need, with desire. "Just like that. Give me your tongue."

  The orgasm rises inside me, imbuing me with a yearning, an explosive desire so strong I know it's about to overwhelm me. I’m almost there.

  "Yes, Jackson," I moan. "Eat my pussy. Eat it. Make me cum."

  He works my clit with a swirling of his tongue, a sucking and a nibbling of his lips, with moans and growls of his own.

  "I'm going to make you come." His eyes look up at me, lock with mine, burn with heat.

  As his lips caress my aching clit, he makes good on his promise.

  With a growl, his mouth locks around my clit; he sucks it and slithers his tongue over it. His hands hold my ass high, pressing my pussy against his face, while my toes curl and my thighs shake and my back arches and my head pushes against the pillows.

  I scream at the ceiling of my childhood bedroom, racked by incredible passion.

  "Oh, god," I shout. "Fuck, Jackson. Oh, my fucking god." My voice breaks into an incomprehensible tremor, a violent shake of passion, before my tongue returns to my control. "Fuck me. Fuck me now. Give me your cock and fuck me until I scream."

  He stands, eyes locked on mine as he strips off his suit, a burning smile on his lips; a chiseled chest, firm abs, tattoos, and a rock-hard cock fill my vision.

  Then he climbs onto the bed.

  My childhood bed shakes as I wrap my legs around his waist, moaning.

  My childhood bed shakes as he presses his cock against my waiting pussy. I feel every inch of heat, every pulse, the slick wetness of precum as it dribbles from the head of his cock.

  My childhood bed shakes as he pushes into me, as he fills the wet slit between my thighs, as he pushes his cock as far into me as I can take it.

  A gasp breaks my lips.

  A gasp, and then a moan.

  I clench my legs tighter behind him; my nails run lines down his muscular back, drawing blood.

  He grins at me. "You can do more than that. Let's make this one to remember. Give me everything you have, Maddy."

  Moaning, panting, I claw at him again, digging in my nails and leaning up to whisper in his ear, “I want to feel every drop of your cum in my pussy, Jackson. I want to watch you melt as you fill my tight cunt with your cum.”

  My childhood bed shakes as he pounds me, as he fucks me, as he makes me cum again, screaming, twitching as his hard cock pounds me into ecstatic oblivion.

  "I'm cumming, Jackson. Fuck me, give me all of your hard cock. Make me feel it. Fuck me like you hate me." Screaming, I claw at his back again, begging for more, urging him to fuck me senseless in the same room where I slept innocently every night as a young girl.

  Growling, he pulls himself from me, drawing a sad moan from my lips at the moment of separation. Then he flips me over, grabs my hips and pulls me into position; with a growl, he fills me so deep I sink my teeth into the pillow and scream so hard my throat hurts.

  But I want more.

  Need more.

  If this may be the last time we're together, I want something that, years from now, I can think back on and feel myself get so wet I won’t be satisfied until I’ve touched myself.

  "Put your finger in my ass, Jackson. I need it in my ass."

  He does as I ask, and the new sensation makes me buck, makes me build towards another orgasm. I look at him over my shoulder—the ink on his arms, on his chest, the fiery look in his eyes, the muscles that ripple and flex each time he thrusts his cock deep inside me. Each pushes me further to the edge.

  I'm going to come with his finger in my ass, with his cock deep inside me, as I moan and writhe in my childhood bedroom.

  "I'm almost there, Jackson. Harder. Faster. Just a little more."

  I feel his fingers dig into my hips, his cock slam into me, his fingertips penetrate the tense muscles of my ass, his grunts and growls and groans fill the room.