“Why are you such a night owl?” Bo asked him one evening, while Max with eyes closed lay across her legs. She was running a hand through his hair, and he seemed quietly at peace, his breathing even and face slack, warm to the touch under her fingers.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you never want to sleep at night. You work, and then you see me, and you only go home when—”
“Geoffrey’s house isn’t my home,” Max interjected, sitting up, a change to the tempo of his breathing suddenly evident. “It’s not home. It’s just somewhere I’m staying for the summer.”
And you’re just a woman he’s fucking for the summer,Bo’s mind unhelpfully added, and she paused for a moment, swallowing down her discomfort. Why was she even bothered? She wasn’t supposed to be bothered. She wasn’t supposed tomind. She knew this was just temporary. Knew it was just a summer fling. A summer fling she’d been totally onboard with.
“Okay, so, you only go back to Geoffrey’s house—” she paused again as the new reality of her words sank in. It wasn’t Geoffrey’s house anymore, was it? It was Max’s, even if he didn’t want it. “You only go back to the house when the sun comes up,” she tried again. “Are you scared of the dark or something?”
At that, Max settled against her legs again, and the tempo of his breathing settled once more. “Or something.”
“Secret vampire?” she asked, prodding his cheek gently.
“Tell me: have I ever drawn your blood?”
She smiled at him. “No.”
“Not a vampire then.”
“Werewolf?”
Finally, Max smiled. “Have I ever bitten you?”
She laughed. “Once or twice, actually.”
“In my defence, you didn’t complain at the time.”
“I’m still not complaining now,” she returned, before falling silent, sitting back against her headboard and resuming her gentle exploration of Max’s hair. For a few minutes they lay in silence, the air soft and gentle around them, the sounds of London muted between Bo’s four walls. Bo decided Max wasn’t going to answer her question; realized he was going to keep that piece of himself to himself, when suddenly—
“My mum died at night, while I was asleep,” Max said, his words weighted though evenly spoken, and he uttered the words so quietly, so softly, that Bo blinked, her fingers falling still against his scalp.
“What?”
“My mother. She died at night. I was asleep when it happened,” Max said again. “That’s why I don’t like it. Going to sleep, I mean.”
Bo’s stomach lurched. “What happened?”
Max shrugged. “Ruptured brain aneurysm. She had no symptoms. It was completely unexpected.”
“That’s awful. How old were you?”
“Six.” Max’s face stayed blank, as though he were well-practiced in telling this story, numb to his own tragedy. Lightly, Bo’s fingers began to move through his hair again, and he closed his eyes. She thought perhaps that was all he would say on the matter; thought that might be all he was willing to share, when his eyes opened once more, settling on her face.
“She died in the winter. Just before Christmas.” He made an ugly and bitter sound, halfway between a huff and a laugh. “She put me to bed as normal, but I had a bad dream. I went to her room and climbed into bed next to her.”
How odd. Bo couldn’t imagine Max — Eton alumni, Oxford graduate and famed concert pianist Max Fitzroy — being a child, and certainly not one who had nightmares.
“Everything was fine, everything was normal, and then when I woke I realized I was cold, and the room was too quiet,” Max carried on. “Far too quiet. All I could hear was the sound of my own breathing. My mother’s breathing had stopped. She’d died, and I’d been asleep next to her. If I’d only been awake . . .”
“If you’d been awake, what?” Bo couldn’t help herself from asking. “You were six. You were a child. What could you have done?”
Max shrugged. “Something. Anything other than nothing.”
“You were six,” Bo argued again. “There was nothing you could have done.”
“I could’ve called an ambulance,” Max replied. “I didn’t even do that, you know. Not even once I understood what happened.”
