Bella slept on the couch because that was where she passed out, and at four the next day we went to the water tower. It was cloudy but no rain was in the forecast.

"You're so fucking crazy," she said in a raised voice, doing so because I was halfway up the iron rungs. She had both feet on the ground as always. She was terrified of heights.

"This is what we call a cake walk," I said condescendingly, not even breaking a sweat. I'd done it a few hundred times, half of them alone. It was like walking to the mailbox. If I'd had a mailbox. Which I didn't.

"If you fall and break your neck I'm not carrying your ass to the car," she warned me.

I just continued to the top as she grew smaller. It was windy, and perfect. I sat up there for half an hour and let it blow away some of my stress. I felt sorry for people who didn't climb.

When we returned to my house, the hairs stood up on the back of my neck as I parked. "Wait," I said to her, holding my arm out to keep her from exiting the car.

"What? I have to pee."

"Something's weird, just wait." I looked around. It was almost dark. Then I saw.

Reed's boots were on the porch, covered in mud but set neatly side by side outside the door. Which meant he'd parked the Jeep around back. "Okay!" I said, too excited, not caring.

"Shit," she said, knowing. "It's him, isn't it. He's here. Oh my God, your face. You have it worse than ever."

I ignored her in my haste to get to the door, which I could hear him unlocking, and then he was hugging me tightly and I felt like I could breathe again for the first time since he left. "I didn't bring roses this time, either; I'm oh for two, chérie."

"Ugh, gross," Bella said behind me.

"Hello, Isabella," he said, his accent stronger as it was when he was nervous. He knew how she felt about him, and why, and he didn't hold it against her.

"Bon jour, Romeo," she said sarcastically. "She doesn't need flowers, you know. She needs stability. Reliability, even."

"Stop it," I hissed at her as we went inside, Reed automatically bolting the door and resetting the alarm. She stuck her tongue out at me.

"N'importe quoi," he said to me with a wink, basically whatever, don't pay attention to her. He was wearing a blue button up shirt, the top two buttons open, black denim cutoffs, and purple socks.

"I speak French, too, if you recall," she said dryly. She also picked up languages quickly, and had lived with a French family for over a year before they gave up on dealing with her emotional problems.

"Ça fait longtemps, but I do recall."  Been a long time. "It's your Spanish that will come in handy, however, ma vieux." Old pal . . . yeah, right. They'd met a handful of times, but weren't exactly friends. Bella was difficult to be around when she liked you, let alone when she had it in for you.

"How so?" she asked warily.

He put a finger to his lips and gestured into the living room. We peeked, wary. A small boy lay curled up on the couch, thumb in mouth, fast asleep. He was dirty and his face bore injuries likely afflicted by another person. His head was clean shaven and he was covered with my soft pink blanket.

We ducked back out and into the entry way, which in my tiny cabin basically included the kitchen too. There were only two bar stools, but he gestured for us to take them and opened the fridge.

"So this wee child, he is in some trouble, the kind we've all been in," he informed us, putting eggs and ham and cream on the counter. "I have a place for him to go but not for two days, though he'll likely sleep much of it after his traumas. Until then . . . " he paused in reaching for a mixing bowl and gave me a winning smile.

"I'm a safe house," I finished.

"You're already a safe house, chérie," he assured me.

"Mec, faut vraiment que t'arrêtes ça parce que tu me rends malade là."  Cut that shit out before I puke. Bella pretended to put a finger down her throat for those of us who didn't get her exact meaning. She was also showing off her linguistic skills and I was appropriately jealous. 

I understood most of it, I just couldn't put it together to speak it very well. One of my greater embarrassments. 

"Stop being disgusting," I told her.

"Tell him!" she said, feigning outrage. She had her tall stainless steel thermos, from which she was drinking straight vodka.

He washed his hands and dried them on the apple hand towel, turning to me. "He does not speak any English, so I was afraid your Rosetta Stone, shall we say, 'education' would have to do." He glanced at me expectantly to see if I was going to throw something. 

"Hey," I said halfheartedly.  

Bella had lived with two different Hispanic families and was also fluent in Spanish. "Shit," she said with a huge sigh, wafting alcohol at us. We exchanged a look about the smell but then I felt disloyal. "I guess I can hang out here too and help with the little refugee," she said tactlessly.

"That would probably make him feel better," he admitted. I knew he disliked asking her for anything, but pride was not something he allowed to hinder him and he knew when to put it aside. Not to mention the unspoken fact that she owed him, technically.

On one of his return trips in my seventeenth year, his gift had been a suitcase full of hundred dollar bills. Ten thousand of them, in fact. He had been more exuberant than I'd even seen him, naturally, though he'd been sporting a pretty nasty head wound. 

"It's extra. A million. Give it to the nuns if you like,chérie , or make some homeless person's day, but I think we could use it better," he'd told me. "It's clean, of course."

"So this is like, really a million dollars?" I'd asked faintly. I could afford the plastic surgery that would repair much of my gruesome scarring. I'd realized this and looked at him in shock and cried with the sheer emotion of it. 

Not long after, they had indeed fixed the majority of it; it had been two years since the last grafts. I wasn't sure I was done with them, but for the moment the pain of the surgeries outweighed any further cosmetic benefits. I didn't do well with pain.

Of course, I had used a portion of the money to set Bella up in a nice apartment, and gave her money each month. She knew it was money from Reed, a fact which she loathed, but she wasn't going to let that stand in the way of freedom. She also knew when to put her pride away.

So if Reed needed help with the kid, she would pitch in, even if she didn't love kids much.

I watched him crack eggs with one hand and got up to get another bowl out, along with the flour and some Crisco. We moved around each other in the tiny kitchen without a word, automatically stepping aside when one needed to get to something, or handing it over before being asked. We'd cooked together so many times.

"Jesus, you guys are way too familiar with each other," she said, her words starting to slur a bit. "For people who aren't fucking," she added under her breath, but loud enough for us to hear.

He was reaching around me for the cheese grater in the little utensil drawer as I cut the shortening into the flour. He caught my eye at her remark and grinned, shaking his head a little so I would know he wasn't paying her any mind. I could feel myself blushing. 

"You know what it's like to be Addy's family," he reminded her, his tone mild. He began on the cheese next to me and I just breathed him in.

She snorted. "Yeah, well, I would never bail on Heidi, whose name is Heidi, like you do," she said belligerently, drinking more from her thermos. "Which makes you bad family."

"Bella. Stop." I wanted to push her off the stool.

Reed put his hand on my bare arm and shook his head a tiny bit. "I would not do so if I had the choice," he said calmly, going back to the cheese.

"That's a lousy excuse," she told him plainly, looking for her cigarettes in her purse sloppily.

"It is," he agreed, kissing me suddenly on the temple. I looked up at him questioningly. "Sorry I'm bad family," he said with a bit of a smile, but it pained him.

"You're not," I said firmly. "Isabella! No more fucking talking."

"I'm going outside to smoke anyway." She got off the stool, almost fell, and made her way to the door. She fumbled with the handle.

It hurt to watch her so I turned back to the crust I was making. 

He sighed, watching me. "Sorry, mamour. I know it's difficult."

"I hate it," I admitted, but shrugged. But being called my love helped me bear it, certainly. 

"At least I remember when I read your books, you'll notice I didn't point out," he said, half-teasing, but a little stung by her harsh words.

"You're the best," I said, meaning it. "So do you get to stick around too for the two days he's here or what's the plan?" I tried to sound casual.

He whisked everything together in the bowl as he considered. "I can stay tonight, if we can find room for us all. I have to leave really early but I'll be back tomorrow night. I don't know beyond that yet."

"We'll find room," I said, shaking my head, and we finished making the quiche.

He slept on the living room floor in a pile of blankets I made, and I lamented Bella's being there because otherwise he would have slept with me. But, what are you going to do. I couldn't even inflate the air mattress for him because it was too loud and I didn't want to wake up the little boy.

Bella passed out immediately and was still deeply asleep when I woke up at five the next morning. My whole room reeked of alcohol sweat so I cracked the window a few inches. 

It was still dark and I tiptoed to the doorway to peek out. Reed and the child also slept. I turned up the heater before I used the bathroom and when I came out Reed was awake.

He motioned me over, his hair standing up choppily. I shivered in the cold and he raised the blankets so I could get in with him, which was about my favorite thing ever. He lay on his back and put his arm around me and I snuggled up to him and sighed happily. I didn't bother hiding it. He knew he made me happy.

He groaned a little. "I must get up," he whispered. "I do so despise five am."

"It's a disgusting hour," I agreed. "I could make some coffee." But I didn't want to.

I started to get up but he tightened his arm a little. "Stay with me," he said. "It can wait a few minutes."

He was silent for at least a few minutes, and I was almost asleep again, with that little part of me reminding me to wake up while I steadfastly ignored it. 

Next thing I knew he was dressed with his black backpack over his shoulder and was kneeling by me to kiss my forehead. "I'll be back tonight. Je t'aime." He kept his voice a whisper so as not to wake the kid.

He began to stand and I grabbed him and sat up so we could hug. I didn't miss hug opportunities if I could help it. "I love you too. Fais attention."

"I am always careful," he reminded me, and we both grinned a little at that lie, and with that he was gone. I went back to sleep in the blankets that smelled like him, which was easy as I knew I would see him that night.