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“Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Good. Normal.”

He chuckled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“Damon.”

“Just didn't realize you and I had such different definitions of normal.”

“Did you forget section six, article C?” I asked.

“You mean, neither party shall discuss childhood trauma past midnight?”

That was the second thing he’d proven that he remembered. I thought he hadn’t even read the contract. My lips curled at the corners. I couldn’t help it. “Yes.”

“I still have twenty-three minutes.”

I checked my phone it was eleven thirty-seven.

I took a deep breath, as I laid back down. “My mother is eccentric.”

“That's one word for it.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“She means well.”

“I believe you.”

I shifted onto my side, facing him. In the faint moonlight spilling through the curtains, I could make out the strong line of his jaw.

“It was just the two of us,” I said. “Me and Mom.”

He didn't interrupt. That was something I'd noticed about Damon. He didn't rush to fill silences. He let them exist. Which was both refreshing and incredibly inconvenient when I was trying to avoid saying something meaningful.

“She worked a lot when I was little. We moved around some. Money was tight.”

“How tight?”

I hesitated. “Eviction-notice tight.”

He turned his head toward me.

I swallowed.

“It wasn't always like that. There were good times. Really good times. But there were also times when I wasn't sure where we'd be living the next month.”

I picked at the edge of the sheet.

“I learned pretty early that security could disappear overnight. That you could do everything right and still lose everything.”

He was quiet for a moment before asking, “Is that why you need to control everything?”

I stared at him. Well. That was rude. Accurate. But rude.