4. Puzzle Pieces

PUZZLE PIECES

I may have gone a little overboard with the wood splitting. I now have a two-deep stack almost as tall as me on the porch by the front door. But I had to deal with my emotions somehow, and my therapist suggested physical labor as the best way, especially for a guy like me.

I can't believe I stayed for fucking coffee. What a dumbass. What was the one thing Nathan told me? Leave the woman be. I should have helped her with the flue and gotten out. Instead, I stayed for coffee and conversation.

It was all good and well while we were talking about her. She's…well, she's fascinating. Gorgeous. And tiny. My god, she's tiny.

If she clears five-three, I'd be shocked. But despite being such a shortstack, she's got a killer body. When she stumbled out onto the porch, the wind blew her blanket-cape away and tossed her hoodie up. I doubt she realized it, being in such a state of panic over the smoke situation. But… damn . She wasn’t wearing a stitch under that thing.

Her ass is a work of art. Firm, heart-shaped, and generous.

Stop, stop, stop.

I pull at my hair, yelling at myself mentally for objectifying my temporary neighbor. I didn't miss how gingerly she moved or the way she winced unconsciously whenever she sat down or stood up. She clearly had some sort of medical procedure done fairly recently and is here recuperating. The absolute last fucking thing the poor little thing needs is big scary me in her space, leering and ogling.

I just can't stop thinking about her. That long blond hair, wavy and glossy and thick, hanging loose and wild and messy around her perfect oval face. Those big, soulful blue eyes. Kissable lips. Small, soft hands with neat nails painted a muted pastel pink. Fuck, her smile. When she laughed and smiled, my stomach did backflips and my whole body went on alert. I wanted to make her laugh again—I'd say anything, do anything just to make her laugh, show those even white teeth and make her whole face light up.

"Fuck me," I groan. "I'm such a goddamn sucker."

My brain keeps suggesting reasons to go over there. I need to borrow a cup of sugar…for, um, reasons. I split too much wood; you want some? Even though you've got enough stacked inside to see you through a few good burns.

Yeah, no.

When I told her I was an actor, I saw a glimmer of recognition in her eyes. I'm not famous . I can still walk down the aisle at the grocery store wearing a ballcap without being pestered. Occasionally, someone will recognize me and want a photograph or an autograph. But mainly, I'm a character actor. I'm the guy who shows up in a handful of scenes and you go, “Huh, I've seen him before in something." And then you google me and remember the other bit parts I've had. Most of my roles have been the bad guy in direct-to-streaming action flicks where the lead actor is someone a few years past his heyday. The kind of thing you settle on after trolling through Netflix for something to watch for an hour. You pick it because you like the lead, and it seems like something you can enjoy without having to think about it too deeply. My roles are scenery-chewing bad guys, but not the main bad guy—I'm the main bad guy's big, scary, head-crushing henchman that the plucky hero just barely defeats in hand-to-hand combat, usually in a sewer or an abandoned warehouse somewhere in a run-down part of an Eastern Bloc country.

So, chances are she didn't recognize me for my award-winning filmography, but for my rap sheet. For the slew of news articles flooding social media about me. Articles with headlines featuring lovely phrases like “B-list actor,” and "alcohol-fueled assault,” and "cop-beating actor."

She was already scared of me. I get that—I'm a giant guy. I tend to have a perma-scowl. I look like I eat barrels of roofing nails for breakfast and shit ingots of iron at night. Scary. I get it. But then you add in my very public struggle with anger, and she, a tiny little thing I could just about put in my pocket, has every right to be downright terrified of me.

That's what hurts. It's hard to tell someone that you're not dangerous or violent or angry regularly when there's a video on TMZ of me hurling a metal cafe table halfway across Rodeo Drive.

I threw the table because it was better than throwing Viv, which was the other option.

Tell that to the journalists and the paparazzi and the judge. No one cares. All they see is the big scary actor with an anger problem.

And the worst part? It's my own fault.

I did it.

I threw the table. I got hammered and assaulted eight fucking cops.

I did that. Me. No one else.

I've done therapy. I do breathing exercises. I'm learning to count before I answer or respond—some jackass cut me off on the way here, and instead of losing my cool like I usually do, I counted and I breathed and I stayed calm. I still flipped him off, but my blood pressure didn't skyrocket.

And really, the main source of my anger is Vivian. Now that it's finally over with her, maybe I'll find some inner peace.

I try to put Lilith out of my mind. I have to do something to occupy myself or I'll go bananas.

Around me, Nathan's woodworking shop is neat and tidy, with shelves and racks of neatly organized tools on the walls where cabinets used to be. There's still a fridge, stove, microwave, and sink, but it's all clustered around a single tiny bit of counter, every other available inch of space being dedicated to tools. Where the counter used to be is now a long waist-height workbench. In the middle of the room is a U-shaped work area featuring a table saw, a lathe, and a router. There's a drill press on the wall on one side of the fireplace and a jigsaw opposite. Next to the workbench is a miter saw. Everything is neat and clean, with plenty of ventilation and a built-in vacuum for absorbing and eliminating sawdust and shavings—a long, flexible tube is routed outside to a collection drum.

It's somewhat tight quarters with all the larger machines in what isn't the largest cabin in the world, but there's plenty of space to move around. A covered lean-to has been added to the back of the cabin, with backdoor access installed—Nathan's supply of wood is stored there. The office is not much more than an old PC on an old desk, a few folders of receipts and orders, and a printer. There's a futon where I’ll sleep—I’ll probably fit if I sleep at an angle. There's a single, ancient, overstuffed easy chair in front of the fireplace, which is where I'm sitting at the moment.

I've dabbled in woodworking a few times—that's how I met Nathan. He was a supervisor on the set-building team for A Certain Fate . I only had a few scenes, so a lot of my time was spent kicking my heels and waiting for call, so I drifted over to a piece under construction and made myself useful. Nathan, being several years older, took me under his wing and showed me some things. After that, I found myself pulled to the set-building crew off and on over the years. I have a few saws and such myself—now in storage.

What else am I going to do?

I shoot Nathan a text:

Mind if I use your shop?

Not at all. There's a bunch of wood in the back you can use. Just please leave the stack of reclaimed stuff—I have plans for it.

Got it. Thanks.

He gives it a thumbs-up.

Without any real plans or ideas other than keeping busy, I poke around his stacks of wood. He’s got piles and piles of the stuff, neat stacks of fresh lumber, scraps from previous projects, pieces saved from discard piles, blocks and planks and 2x4s and 4x8s and a few massive logs and buckets of odds and ends. The pile of reclaimed wood he mentioned is in a corner by itself under a tarp—I peek at it, curious. It's aged wood, buttery smooth and sun-bleached, probably from an old house or barn. I replace the tarp and go back to browsing the scraps.

On impulse, I grab a scrap section of clean, thick oak about two feet by four feet. Still without a plan, I let my hands do what they want. I shape the piece into a shield, the kind you see for plaques and such. Once it's shaped, I plane it and sand it until it's even and smooth. I glance out the window and catch a glimpse of Lilith in her kitchen, head down at the sink. She has earbuds in, and she's bopping her head to whatever she's listening to.

A thought strikes me, and I go with it. It's probably way beyond my skill set and will probably turn out like shit, but what the hell. If it turns out decent, great, I'll give it to her. If not, I wasted my time and lost nothing.

I set to work. Find the image I want online and then use Nathan's computer and printer to create the stencil. Then, I use his woodburning tools on the stencil to transfer the image I selected.

A couple of hours later, the project is complete. It looks like something a teenager would make in workshop class, but I'm pretty proud of it.

Now I just have to decide if I'm gonna give it to her.

I'm contemplating this dilemma—whether or not, how, and when to give it to her—when I see the kitchen window slide open and thick black smoke boil out. A few seconds later, Lilith staggers out onto her porch, coughing and holding her midsection with each cough.

"Dear god, not again," I mutter, stomping into my boots and jogging outside.

The snow has slowed, but it's still cold, and snow swirls lazily. I sprint up the steps. "Again?"

She shakes her head, coughing. "No, it's—" she bends over, trying to catch her breath. "Just…ah, fuck." She devolves into coughing again.

I peek inside. She seems more embarrassed than panicked, so it doesn't feel like an emergency. The smoke has already dissipated. I go inside to assess the situation: it looks like she was trying to cook something. A cast iron pan is in the sink, steaming, filled with something charred beyond recognition. I grab a hand towel, wrap it around the handle, and carry it outside and down the steps. I dump the contents into the snow and then use handfuls of snow to scrub the worst of the caked-on char away.

Lilith is watching, dressed in tight red yoga pants and a bright green sweater with an image of The Grinch on it. Her hair is down, tied loosely at her nape and hanging over her left shoulder.

"Did I ruin their pan?" she asks, sounding fearful.

I laugh as I head back up the steps. "It's cast iron, honey. This thing'll survive a nuclear apocalypse."

"It will? It's burnt to damned crisp."

I hesitate at the doorway. "You mind? I can clean it out good as new."

She gestures inside. "Please."

I take the pan inside and find a good, well-used scrubber. Squirt some dish soap in, grind a generous amount of coarse salt, and then add a thin layer of water. I swirl the water, soap, and salt together and then scrub the char away. It takes a couple of repetitions and some elbow grease, but in a few minutes, it's cleaner than it was before she used it, I'd wager. Cleaned, I drizzle a hint of olive oil into the pan and use a paper towel to rub it in and dry it.

I show her the pan. "See? Good as new."

She frowns up at me. "How do you know how to do that?"

I shrug. "It was just me, my mom, and my kid brother growing up, and Mom worked three jobs to keep us fed. So, I took care of my brother. We spent a lot of time at my grandma's house before she passed, and my grandma was a hell of a cook. A real Southern comfort food maestro. She taught me to cook, how to care for a good pan, and all that. I worked at a diner all through college, too."

"So, you can really cook."

I grinned at her. "Honey, you have no idea." I flexed my bicep and patted it. "Takes a hell of a lot of food to feed these pythons, and I'm particular about my food, so whenever I'm bulking or cutting for a role, I do all my own meal prep and such."

"What about when you're not bulking or cutting?" she asks.

"I let myself go a little. Eat out more, order in more. Pizza and burgers and shit."

She looks me up and down. "So…are you bulking or cutting right now?”

"Neither. I bulked up big time for Hercules, but after that wrapped, I leaned back down. I was sitting at like two-sixty for Hercules, and I just felt…" I mime someone slogging through molasses. "Slow and heavy, so I cut back to two-thirty. Now I’m just…not doing either, since I’m out of work.”

"You can just put on and take off thirty pounds of muscle at will?" she says, eyes wide.

"I mean, not just like that. It's fucking hard . If I'm bulking, I lift twice a day and eat between six and eight thousand calories a day. Means I eat and lift and not much else other than learn my lines for months. Wake up, eat, lift, eat, go over lines, eat, lift again, eat, go over lines, eat, watch TV, eat. I wake up in the middle of the night to…you guessed it, eat. I'm natty, which adds a whole other element, too."

"Natty?"

"Natural. Meaning, no PEDs." She stares at me without comprehension. "Performance enhancing drugs. Steroids. I don't use steroids to get bigger faster. My trainer has been on my case to try a cycle, but I've made it this far without them, and I have no plans to start now." I bite the bullet and put it out there. "Especially now."

I watch her—yep, she knows. She doesn't say anything, but the fact that she doesn't ask me what I mean says it all.

"Did you already know? Or did you google me?" I ask.

She blushes. "I googled you. I thought you looked familiar, but it wasn’t until you said you were an actor that it clicked."

"Listen, Lilith, about—"

She holds up a hand. "You do not owe me any explanations, Reece." She moves to stand a little closer to me, as if to make a point. "We've all had bad days. We’ve all made mistakes. You just had the misfortune of having yours put out for the whole world to see."

I look down at her. My breath is lodged in my throat. "I just…" I chew on the inside of my lip. "I swear I’m not the guy you saw in the articles and videos. I'm not making excuses for my behavior. At all. But there were…extenuating circumstances." I rub my face, sigh with a shake of my head. "That's still a damn excuse. Extenuating circumstances, my ass. I did what I did, and it's on me. No one else. But I just need you to know that I’m not—" Words fail me.

Lilith glides closer, reaches up to pull the hand I have covering my face away. "Hey, Reece. Don't."

I frown at her. "Don't what?"

"Freak out and bolt." Her tiny, delicate, slender little fingers barely wrap around my wrist; she hasn't let go. "I'm not afraid of you."

All the breath leaves my lungs in a whoosh, and my knees almost give out. "You seemed a little scared yesterday."

"I'd just almost set the cabin on fire, and then you came to the rescue, and you're fucking enormous and I was nervous. About being around a new person, and a very large man at that. I was never afraid of you." She gazes up at me with sweet, expressive blue eyes, and I can see the truth in her lovely features—she's not afraid. "I don't scare easily, Reece. I was a public defender, remember. I worked with truly violent criminals all day. I was routinely locked in an interview room with men charged with murder. Men who, despite being handcuffed, could still kill me before the guards could do a damn thing."

"I'd never, ever hurt you," I murmur.

"I believe you." Her voice is soft, almost tender.

She stands with her hand around my wrist, gazing up at me with those big blue eyes, looking at me for all the world as if she actually likes me.

Hard to trust that, after what I've been through.

"So, uh…" I chew on the inside of my lip. "What were you making?"

She covers her face with both hands. “Grilled cheese?" It comes out as a question, embarrassed.

I chuckle. "Damn, girl. Takes real skill to fuck that up."

She drops her hands and glares at me. "Oh, shut up. I don't cook much, okay? I work twelve-hour days and don't have the time or energy to cook. Plus, I just never learned.”

I can't help tucking a tendril of fine blonde hair behind her delicate little ear. She sucks in a small sharp breath at the contact but doesn’t pull away.

"I'm teasing. Like I said yesterday, you can't know what you don't know." I pick up the pan and spin it by the handle. "Let me see what I can rustle up."

"Reece, you don't have to cook for me."

I wink at her. "Have to, no. Want to, yes. I like cooking. And I'm hoping maybe if I cook for you, I can stay and eat with you."

She hesitates and then smiles. "I'd like that."

I set the pan on the antique range and fire it up to a nice medium-high. While it's preheating, I poke through the fridge and cupboards, assessing the options. I find a package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts in the fridge, a bag of broccoli in the freezer, a box of instant rice, and a few lemons. Plenty of spices, lots of butter, and even a partial bottle of white wine.

"I can work with this," I announce, setting everything on the counter.

I pour two glasses of wine, give one to Lilith, keep one for myself, and set the bottle aside for later. I dry off and season the chicken with plenty of salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika, and butter the pan. Once the butter is sizzling, I toss the breasts in. While they cook, I get a second pan out and start on the broccoli, pre-heating, adding them to the pan, and then adding water to steam them up from frozen. Flip the chicken, cut a lemon in half, and squirt the juice over the chicken, add a couple healthy pats of butter and the wine.

Once the broccoli is steamed, I season it with salt, pepper, and garlic and give the pan a few good shakes. Nuke the instant rice. Finish the chicken and shut off the heat. Coat the broccoli in a generous helping of parmesan cheese, and plate everything.

I set the plates on the table, one in front of Lilith and the other next to her. She just stares at the food and then at me.

"Oh, shit. You're a vegan?" I say, heart sinking.

She bursts into laughter. "No, god no. I'm just…stunned."

I blink at her. "Stunned? By some chicken and broccoli?"

She shrugs. "Well, yeah. I didn’t come from a cooking household. We ate out most nights. I've never watched anyone cook before, I don't think. Not outside a restaurant, at least." She gestures at the kitchen. "So, to me, that was…magic."

I laugh. "Magic, huh? Well, I hope the magic tastes good."

She slices off a piece of chicken and pops it into her mouth. I have a hard time looking away from her mouth.

She covers her mouth with the back of her fork-holding hand. "My god, Reece. This is divine."

I try a bite and have to admit it's not too bad. "You should let me make you my lasagna sometime. Takes half the day to make it right, but that , darlin', is magic."

She puts her fork down and looks at me with an expression I can't decipher. "Be very careful offering a girl homemade lasagna, Reece Morgan. I'll start showing up at your door with a casserole dish and a fork."

I laugh, covering my mouth. "You have strong feelings regarding lasagna, do you?"

"I have a Garfield-level attachment to it." She twirls her fork. "It doesn’t love me back, however.”

"No?"

"Ohhh no. Goes straight to my ass."

“Well, you have an amazing ass, so…" I realize what I just said and put my fist to my forehead. "Shit. That was crass. I apologize."

She regards me while chewing, an amused smirk on her face. "A little crass, perhaps, but flattering."

She doesn't seem to be offended, which seems miraculous. "I don't always have the best filter. But it is true."

Her cheeks are pink, her smile breathtaking. "I don’t have a very good filter either."

"You're a lawyer. Isn't talking what you do?"

She shrugs and nods. "Well, yeah. But I write out my arguments. I have pages and pages of research, case law to refer to, evidence, testimony, and all sorts of stuff. I don't just go in there blind and make shit up off the cuff. I go in prepared—I’m a fucking shark when I'm prepared. But outside of the courtroom? Bit of a filterless bitch."

"I have yet to hear a single unfiltered, bitchy thing come out of your mouth," I say.

"Maybe I'm on my best behavior." She holds eye contact, a ghost of a smirk on her plump, red, kissable lips.

"Maybe you shouldn't be."

"Maybe not.”

We eat in silence for a while. I finish first, unsurprisingly, while Lilith takes a few minutes longer. Finished, she takes both of our place settings to the sink and starts washing. I join her, drying them and setting them on the rack.

"Wanna hear something kinda wild?" I ask.

She shrugs a shoulder, glancing at me. "Sure."

"A lot of people in England don't rinse the soap off after they wash dishes. They just put them in the rack still soapy." I clean out the pan again as she absorbs this information.

"What?"

"True story. I did some filming in rural England for a project and stayed with someone from the local crew, an older fella named Harry, and his wife Angelica. Nice folks. They put me up, fed me, and watched TV with me. Naturally, I pitched in with things around the house as much as they'd let me. Well, one day, we'd finished eating and Harry got called to set, so I stayed with Angelica and helped her wash up. She didn't rinse a thing. I didn't know what to say, so I asked Harry about it later, and he told me it's a whole thing. Not everyone does it, but a lot of people."

"That's…" she frowns at the dishes in the drying rack. "Weird. That's weird. You'd be eating soap."

"I guess so, but clearly not enough to matter. I just always think about it when I handwash dishes."

"Well, thanks for that," she says, snarky and sarcastic. "Now I will, too."

I put the cleaned pan back on the range. "Well, I appreciate you letting me share a meal with you, Lilith. I don't wanna bother you too much."

She looks at me, big blue eyes thoughtful. "You…don't have to go. I'm not really doing much."

"Sure?" I ask.

Her smile lights up the room. "Yeah, Reece, I'm sure. We could…" she looks around the room. "I don't know what we'd do. I’ve never had this much downtime in my life. I'm going a little stir-crazy, to be honest."

I laugh. "Same. I've spent every spare moment of the last ten years either filming, getting ready for a role, or dealing with my divorce. I don't know what to do with myself all alone with no work and no role to prep for." I glance up at the loft and spy a row of puzzles along the bottom of a shelf. "What about a puzzle? Something to do while we talk."

She furrows her brow. "A puzzle? Hmmm. I could be into that. I haven't done a puzzle…well, ever."

"Me either." I climb up the ladder into the loft and scan the selection. "Thomas Kinkade, Disney characters, or…a National Geographic sort of thing?'

"Thomas Kinkade," she answers. "Since we're in one of his paintings right now."

I laugh as I descend with the puzzle box in hand.. "We kinda are, aren't we?"

We clear the salt and pepper shakers and the stack of paper napkins from the kitchen table, dump the puzzle out, and then set the box on end so we can see the picture for reference.

We take seats side by side and scan the pieces, flipping the upside-down ones right-side up.

"Aren't you supposed to start with the edges and corners?" Lilith asks. "I thought I remembered hearing that somewhere, at some point."

I shrug. “Sounds like a solid strategy to me." I find a corner piece, set it to one side, and then hunt for a piece that might connect. "So. You're here over the holidays by yourself. I take it you're not close to your family?" I look at her. "If that's a sensitive subject, just smack me."

She snorts, a gentle little laugh. "Smack you? Not likely. Smacking someone who could toss me across the lake doesn’t seem smart." She rests a hand on my forearm. "I'm kidding." A sigh. "So, yeah. I'm not close to my parents. I went to Stanford after high school and transferred to Yale for my law degree—”

"Wait, hold up. You went to Stanford and Yale? What were you doing as a public defender?" I ask.

She connects a piece to the corner I set aside. "Well…um…sort of a long story. I got a fancy law degree and interned for some pretty fancy East Coast firms, and I fucking hated every second of it. Logging ass-loads of billable hours doing bullshit busy work for the real lawyers? Fuck that. I wanted to be a lawyer — in the courtroom. Not stuck in some law library researching precedent and case law for some chauvinistic old fart with saggy jowls. That's what I faced years of before I got anywhere near a courtroom. And I'm impatient."

"That doesn't sound very fun," I agreed.

"Right? I just couldn't do it. I sent my resume all over the country, and what do you know? The best offer I got, without the right experience, was as a public defender for Fulton County. I guess they were desperate to bring someone on just to wade through their absolutely fucking insane backlog of cases. So I moved back home to Atlanta."

"And your parents?"

She finds another piece and connects it to the other side of the corner. “I haven't spoken to them in ten years."

"May I ask why? I don’t want to pry, but I'm curious." I finally find a piece that connects to the section we're putting together.

"It's okay. It's old shit." She uses her middle fingertips to push the pieces around, separating them. "My sister was Nathan's first wife. My parents didn't approve of the match. They're snooty, snobby, stuck-up, rich, old Southern Elite family-money assholes, and Nathan was from so far across the wrong side of the tracks that he couldn't even see the right side of the tracks from where he grew up. Lisa loved him, and they eloped. She never saw them again, either. And then, ten years ago, Lisa was involved in a head-on collision with a semi. She was killed instantly. My mother and father didn't go to the funeral. I'd pretty much disowned them already by then, but I'd still show up for some very awkward Thanksgivings and Christmases. When they didn't attend their own daughter's fucking funeral, though? Oh, hell no. I cut all ties. Haven't so much as laid eyes on either of them since. And I live less than twenty minutes from them."

I blow out a breath. "Jesus, Lilith. That fuckin' sucks, honey. I'm sorry."

She smiles, waves a hand in dismissal. "Water under the bridge. I'm over it." A frown and a shrug. "My parents, at least. Lisa I'll never stop missing. That'll always hurt."

I feel my own emotional scars twinge. "Yeah, I know how that feels."

She stops hunting through the puzzle pieces and looks at me intently. "You do?"

"Yep. My senior year at U-T, my mom and brother both died within a month of each other." I swallow hard.

“Holy shit, Reece. That's awful. What happened?"

"My brother, Rob…" I sigh. "I haven't talked about this in years."

“You don’t have to," she says, resting her hand on my forearm again; I'm starting to like how she does that.

It makes my pulse race.

"You did. So can I.” I find another connecting piece and add it. "Robby was in a lot of trouble most of his life. Looking back, I think he had undiagnosed mental health issues. But at the time, he was just labeled a bad kid. Suspended all the time, drinking, smoking pot—to be fair, I wasn't any better, but I knew how to stop. He didn't. He’d get in fights. Most of my suspensions were because of him, actually. Eventually, my coach had to sit me down and tell me that if I kept getting into fights because of Robby, he'd have to cut me. By that point, I was already All-State and had a dozen universities scouting me. So I…I chose football. Stopped defending Robby. And he…he only got worse. Dropped out of school and struggled to hold down shitty jobs. Ran with the wrong people. Got into hard drugs.”

Her hand still rests on my arm while she alternates between looking at me as I talk and scanning the puzzle pieces. “God, Reece, that's tough."

“It was. We went to a decent high school but didn't live in a good area. If I didn't get into a good university, I'd be stuck there. My mom had been, my dad before he took off, my grandparents before they died—everyone in my family was from the same tiny little town. No one ever left. And I wanted more. Story as old as time."

"But you did it. You got into the University of Tennessee." Her smile is bright and proud.

"I did," I agree. "I got out and I never looked back. I mean, I went back for breaks, but I knew I'd never move back."

"And now the hard part," Lilith guesses.

"Exactly," I sigh. "Senior year, we were on track for the Rose Bowl. I was kicking ass. Leading the N-C-double-A in sacks and pressures. I was fuckin' hungry . Robby called me a dozen times that week, but I was always working out or practicing or studying. I never answered. I didn't see the point—he was gonna ask for money for drugs. That's what it had always been, and I'd told him I wasn't gonna enable him anymore."

"Of course not. How could you?"

I find three pieces to form a long section of vertical side. "I got a call from the police. He'd OD'd. It looked intentional."

"God, Reece. How awful."

"Went back for the funeral. Mom was…not in good shape. Robby was her baby. I think she always knew he was sick but just couldn’t do anything about it. I dunno. She never talked about it. There just wasn’t money or insurance. What could she do? That's how it felt. There probably was help, but she just didn't know how to find it."

"I saw that a lot as a public defender. A lot of undiagnosed mental illnesses drove otherwise good people down some very dark paths." Lilith shakes her head. "And you're right, there are services available, but they can be very hard to access, assuming you even know about them. It's a catch-22. To receive the services, you have to spend hours filling out paperwork, and often, you have to provide information and documentation that can be difficult, if not impossible, for people that far below the poverty line to find, let alone take that kind of time away from work to gather it and fill out all those forms, because if you don't work, you don't eat, you don't have a car, and you don't have a roof overhead."

I nod. "Exactly. That's what happened to Robby. He just fell through the cracks and died because of it."

"And your mom?" she asks, her voice soft.

"Broken heart, really. Medically, she was just very unhealthy. Overweight and severely diabetic, overworked, burnt out. She'd worked three jobs for twenty years. Barely slept. Ate shit. There just wasn’t time to take care of herself. And then when Robby died…he was her baby, you know? He was a sweet kid, once upon a time, and that's all she ever saw. So yeah, when Robby died, she just kinda…gave up. Her body just quit. Technically, it was what they called a cardiac event. But really, it was a broken heart."

"That's so tragic, Reece." She leans closer, shoulder against mine, hand on my arm. "I'm so sorry."

"Thanks." I sighed. "So…a few games before the Rose Bowl, I took a bad hit and fucked up my knee. Ended my pro football aspirations.”

She gasps. “No!”

“Yeah, that sucked pretty hard. I went into a dark place after that.” I sigh and shake my head, remembering the despair and confusion I’d felt. “So anyway, after I graduated, I moved to LA. I didn't have a plan. I just wanted to get as far away from Tennessee as I could. I'd played a few games in New York and hated it, so I figured LA was a better spot. Better weather. Better opportunities."

"Logical. And clearly, it worked out."

I laughed, but it was a bitter sound. "Yeah, until I fucked it all up."

Lilith had somehow managed to inch even closer to me without me knowing it—her scent filled my nose, and her warmth radiated against my arm.

"What happened? Or is that too fresh, still?

“A few very bad decisions." Without thinking, I extend my arm across the back of her chair, and Lilith instinctively leans into me. "I met Vivian at a grocery store. I was trying to decide on something, I can't remember what, and she helped me. She was a social media influencer and had a bunch of big-name sponsors. She was trying to turn it into an acting career. She denies it, but to this day, I still believe the only reason she ever pursued me was because she saw a path to what she wanted. I wasn't, like, a big name. But I had connections, and that’s what she wanted. Hollywood is a very small town, and it's all about who you know. I was booking solid projects and making decent money. She wanted a piece of it. And she got it."

"Did you love her?" she asks, looking up at me from a few inches away, big blue eyes curious.

"Maybe? I dunno, honestly. I thought I did. I spent so much fucking money on her. Bought the houses she wanted, the cars, the bags, the clothes, took her all over the world on expensive vacations. She liked to hang on my arm on the red carpet and be seen. She loved what I gave her, not me. I think I was in love with the idea of being in love with her. But was I actually in love with her? I don't think so." I sigh. "She was never home—always out, always doing something. She wasn't affectionate and got annoyed when I tried to be. Not to be TMI or anything, but the only time she wanted to sleep with me was if she was drinking. She talked down to me a lot, too. I mean, that I'm used to. People see my size and assume I'm stupid."

"Spend five minutes talking with you and it's clear that's not the case," Lilith says. "People can be mean for no reason."

"No kidding." I smile at her. "And thanks."

She snorts. "For what? Speaking the obvious truth? You're far from stupid."

"Hercules was stupid," I say.

"I thought it a good movie," she says.

I quirk an eyebrow at her. "You saw it?"

"While I was recovering at home, yeah. It was fun. You were quite good. I enjoyed it."

"Flattery will get you all the lasagna you want," I say, laughing. "You're one of, like, eight people who didn't think it was a total stinker.

"Why was it a mistake?" she asks.

"Oh, well, it just wasn't the right market for the movie, for one. Plus, I put a lot of my own money into it, which was a gamble that definitely didn't pay off."

"That sucks," she says. "I'm sorry."

I shrug. "My fault. My agent told me not to do it about a hundred times. I figured I knew better. Clearly, I did not. Lost my ass on that one."

A few minutes of companionable silence go by, and we make good progress on the puzzle, filling in more than a third of it.

Eventually, Lilith pulls away from me and stretches, yawning—she hisses and grabs her midsection partway through the stretch. "I'm gonna need a break from the puzzle," she says. She hesitates, glances at the open bedroom door, and then at me. "Would you…do you want to watch a movie with me?"