Disclaimer: That '70s Show copyright The Carsey-Werner Company, LLC and Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, LLC. Degenerate Matter, their albums Vagabondage, Ultrarelativistic, WIMPs and MACHOs, Frozen Stars, the songs "Keystone," "End State," "Sagittarius A*,"and all the lyrics contained therein copyright to the author of this story (username: MistyMountainHop, maker of Those '70s Comics).

Author's Note: Potentially triggering content at the very end of the chapter.

CHAPTER 22
REFRACTION

September 17, 1994

New York City, New York

Hotel Elysée
 ...

Jackie sipped black tea in Hotel Elysée's Club Room. She was trying to appear as relaxed as possible, and she leaned back in her upholstered carver chair. Steven would be here any second, delivering her promised ticket, and the prospect of seeing him again vibrated through her nerves.

She didn't visit New York City that often. It was too big, too loud, too fast. That was one reason she'd chosen the small but luxurious Hotel Elysée for her stay. It was also near 30 Rockefeller Center, where Saturday Night Live was taped. Most importantly, though, no one on staff would report to Ann-Marie that she was there.

At a Wintry Hotel, Anne-Marie had spies. It was a paranoid thought, but after last week, Jackie was done providing gossip for her friends. Ann-Marie couldn't learn she was in New York, particularly to see Degenerate Matter perform live. She'd tell Jackie's mother, who might learn Steven was involved with the band. That was a catastrophic possibility.

These dominoes were unlikely to fall, but Jackie wouldn't risk it. Not to save a few dollars on a hotel stay.

Steven walked into the Club Room at 11:01 a.m. He wore a fraying suede jacket, Soundgarden T-shirt, and jeans, and her throat tightened. With his long hair hidden in a backward baseball cap, he resembled the Steven she remembered, the one from her youth. All he needed was a pair of sunglasses.

She waved him to her table, nestled in a corner of the Club Room. The acrid stink of cigarettes hit her as he approached. Not an unexpected smell, just the intensity of it. Maybe he was nervous about this meeting, too, or his addiction was so bad he couldn't help himself.

"Can I get you some tea?" she said when he sat across from her.

"Nope, but thanks," he said with a smile, and she put down her tea cup. The sincerity in his smile, from lips to eyes, sped her pulse. "Thanks, too, for seein' me now. Gotta be at 30 Rock in a few hours to help with soundcheck before the dress rehearsal."

"It's too bad Brooke wouldn't let me bring Betsy without Michael." Michael couldn't go because of a toy convention, not that Jackie would've accepted his company anyway. "Brooke should've just come herself."

"About the dress rehearsal..." Steven rubbed the nape of his neck, like he used to do when he was uneasy. "It films earlier, so if you'd be more comfortable, you could go to that instead."

Jackie sat forward. "I actually would," she said. She'd had no idea Saturday Night Live filmed the show twice.

"Great." He slid her ticket over the small, glass table between them. "Doors open at six-thirty but your seat's reserved." He tapped the ticket with his index finger, pointing out that the words INVITED GUEST were stamped on it with a seat number. "Front row, unless you want to sit father back."

"Front row is good."

She took the ticket and sat straight again, pressing her spine into the chair's cushioned back. Her pulse wouldn't stop racing. She'd begun to sweat under her shirt, and she avoided Steven's gaze. He was supposed to act indifferent around her, aloof. He'd shut her out fifteen years ago, let her punch him until his skin bruised, and said he couldn't love her anymore.

"Hey, what's wrong?" he said, and she cursed his observation skills.

"Just not used to us being friends."

"Was I that much of a prick when we were together?"

She crossed her legs and laced her fingers over her knee. Maintaining her composure was her first priority, and she nodded past his shoulder, at the pine chest where a variety of non-alcoholic drinks were on offer. "Are you sure you don't want tea? Coffee? Juice?"

"Is talkin' about our past relationship out of bounds? Say the word, man, and it's locked in verbal storage."

"What do you want to say about it? It's been fifteen years."

"Didn't exactly end the best of ways. If we're gonna be friends, maybe we should do some spring cleaning. Toss out debris."

She pushed her hands into her knee. Trembles were awakening under her skin. She prayed they weren't visible, but her voice was a pitch higher when she next spoke. "You think about how we—how our relationship ended?"

"What I did wasn't your fault. That's something I've wanted to tell you a long time. I believed you then. I believe you now, but I left 'cause I was freakin' a headcase."

"That night with Michael in the motel room, did it ruin me for you?" The question was fifteen-years-old. It had moldered inside her, and it stank worse than Steven's cigarettes. But during the latest session with her therapist, Sarah said she should unshackle the questions. To take the opportunities with Steven as they came, as long as Jackie felt safe enough. Otherwise, her past would continue to haunt her present.

"It ruined me for you, Jackie," he said roughly, but his gaze never strayed from her. "That's all I can say about it. You deserved a hell of a lot better..." He extended his hand toward her. "And I'm sorry."

Her back stayed flush against the chair cushion. Her legs didn't uncross, and her fingers continued to clutch her knee. He'd marked the limits of his confession, but she couldn't forgive him without the whole truth. Couldn't touch him. "Your apology's appreciated but incomplete."

He withdrew his hand, and his chest rose with a heavy breath. "I should've stuck around that hell-night in Chicago … and the day you told me what happened. Should've made you my first priority. Thought I had, but my choices were as screwed up as my skull. I put myself first. That's why I had to go."

"Okay..." she said, not truly understanding. "Okay."

"Hurting you again..." He shook his head in that almost imperceptible way of his, but the pain in his eyes flashed like an S.O.S. He was begging her not to dig further, to accept what he'd given as an explanation. "I'll do anything I can to avoid it. If that means us being friends won't work—"

"Tell me this one thing, please. Why did you stay friends with Michael after what he did to me?"

"I'm not his friend," he said, and the pain in his eyes deepened. "Know it looks the opposite, but I'm—fuck." He lowered his face for the first time since he sat down. He cupped his mouth, and he didn't speak for almost a minute. "I owe you so goddamn much. More than I'll ever be able to give. But I don't expect to be forgiven, all right? Just wanted you to know I own my shit."

She believed him, but his choices remained incomprehensible without specifics. "I can't love you anymore," he'd said before leaving Point Place for good."It ruined me for you," he said minutes ago about Michael raping her. The latter was the reason behind the former, but she couldn't figure out the connection.

Still, his remorse sank past her skin. She knew from Michael that a step in Alcoholics Anonymous was to make amends, to apologize to the people one harmed. She might've been part of Steven's Step Nine if he attended A.A., too, but his intentions felt bigger than a checkmark on a list.

"I don't want this—" she gestured between them— "to be about owing me. Like I told you at Brooke's, our friendship has to be equal. You've respected my boundaries since Izzy's birthday party," and that was why she spoke to him so honestly. "And I'm going to respect yours. But if you truly want to make amends with me..." She paused, and he quirked up an eyebrow. "Do you have direct contact with O. MacNeil?"

"He's a bit of a recluse. Doesn't travel with the band. Just writes lyrics and some music."

"But you do have direct contact with him."

"Yeah."

"What does he think about Degenerate Matter's fans?"

"From my experience, he respects 'em."

"Does he ever read his fan mail? Does he write back?"

Steven hesitated before answering. "You wrote him a letter?"

Blood heated Jackie's cheeks, and she counted how many people were in the Club Room. A group of five sat on couches. Three others sat at a different table, but their conversations seemed to grow impossibly loud.

"If I gave you something to give him," she whispered in response, "would you make sure it goes directly from you to him? That he would be the only one to open it?"

"It's not a letter bomb, is it?"

"Oh, God. Please." She removed an envelope from her purse. It contained a revised, much less revealing letter than the one she'd originally written. "Does this look explosive?"

Steven looked at the envelope in her hand. "Not from the outside."

He was joking, but this matter couldn't be more serious. "Would you give it to him?" she said.

"I'll give it to him." He reached for the letter, but she pulled it away.

"You can't actually promise no one but him will see it, can you? Once he has it, he can show it to whoever he wants..."

"He wouldn't screw a fan over like that." He grabbed his baseball cap by the bill and lifted it off his head. Thick, wavy hair tumbled out, and he brushed his fingers through it. "He's gotten some heavy letters, and he's always kept their content private. Caught him writing back to someone in the band's rehearsal space once. … He takes the responsibility seriously, the impact his lyrics have on people."

She held the envelope closer to him. "You won't read it—"

"Jackie, only O.'s gonna read it, okay? He's, uh..." He put his baseball cap back on and shoved his hair into it. "He's gonna be—should be at the last stop on the tour. I'll make sure he gets it."

Her blood roared in her ears, blocking out the conversations in the Club Room. Her heart hadn't slowed at all since Steven arrived. If he read her letter, he'd learn secrets that weren't his to learn, but she passed him the envelope.

Hyde watched, via a monitor, Degenerate Matter's first performance of the evening. He was backstage at Saturday Night Live's Studio 8H, acting as the band's tour manager. Producers scurried back and forth through the wide corridor. They were making sure the dress rehearsal wasn't a mess. Hyde was part of that effort, coordinating the band's skeleton crew with SNL's.

The majority of Degenerate Matter's roadies had gone to Buffalo, with the band's actual tour manager, Pete. Studio 8H has its own stage, lighting, and audio people, so few of the band's crew were needed. The instrument techs were here, though, and they were doing their jobs. Degenerate Matter sounded killer.

"You stole her life away, so I took yours as compensation," Ro sang and seemed to search the audience with her eyes. "Demolished the brick you depended on, and the rest came tumbling down on top of me."

It was the second verse of "Keystone," and her gaze landed on someone. Could've been Jackie, but the monitor didn't show it.

"Only way to escape was to put you back together again. Put you back together again..." Ro shut her eyes as the band kicked into the high-octane chorus. She mostly kept private the feelings Hyde's lyrics gave her, but his concern tonight was Jackie. "Keystone" held the answers he couldn't tell her, the ones she'd asked for at the hotel today.

His hand went to his jeans pocket. Her letter was folded inside, maybe full of answers she'd never tell him. He had no right to read it, despite that she'd written the letter to him. She just didn't know she had, that he was O. MacNeil.

Degenerate Matter played "Keystone's" last note. The audience cheered and whistled, and Ro said a quick, "Thanks," into the mic before leaving the stage. The instrument techs ran onto it, all but Scotty. He must've had a good reason for staying back, like helping SNL's crew deal with the soundboard or replacing a fucked-up wire.

The band entered the wide corridor where Hyde was standing. Sherry smiled upon seeing him. "Good crowd out there," she said. "Hope the one for the real thing is as good."

"No doubt it will be," Nate said and patted Hyde's shoulder. It was an invitation to join the band in the greenroom, and Hyde walked beside him. "Think about the two shows we just did at MSG. New York crowds are some of the best."

Inside the greenroom, Ro grabbed a bottle of water. She sat in a striped armchair. An identical armchair was beside it, but Hyde maintained his distance, in case an SNL producer came in.

"Did you see her?" he said to Ro.

She drank some water before answering. "If it's the blonde in the front row wearing the gray blazer, then yeah."

"The hot blonde?" Lee said on the couch across from Ro. "She was mouthing all the lyrics."

"I dig that," Nate said. "Love when the fans get into the songs." He passed Lee a slice of Swiss cheese and plunked down next to him.

Lee bit into the cheese, but a smirk Hyde didn't like slid across his face.

"She's off-limits," Ro said.

"She a friend of yours?" Sherry said to Hyde. She was sitting in the other striped chair, and she kicked her long legs out in front of her.

"She's off-limits," Ro repeated, staring at Lee, and Hyde thanked her internally. If he'd given Lee that order, Lee would've made it his mission to hit on her.

A half-hour later, the band was onstage again and performing "Hoaxed". It was an up-tempo punk rocker. Ro and Lee shredded the hell out of it, but near the end Ro broke a guitar string. The backstage monitor showed her passing the guitar off to Rick Landowski, her tech. But she arrived in the corridor ahead of the rest of the band, sweaty and scowling.

"Broke a fuckin' string," she muttered and grasped Hyde by the shirt sleeve. He followed close behind, but her grip on him stayed tight all the way to the greenroom.

"Sit this time," she said when the rest of the band was inside. It sounded like an order. Felt like one, but he obliged and sat in an armchair.

"What's goin' on?" he said, but she dropped onto his lap and kissed him. It was open-mouthed, full tongue, and he grunted in surprise. Keeping their relationship private was more her deal than his, but she deepened the kiss. He shifted his weight in the chair to compensate, and Jackie's letter crinkled in his jeans pocket.

Ro withdrew her lips from his. "You got candy on you?"

"My guess is a condom," Nate said.

Ro pushed herself off Hyde's lap, as if he'd become white-hot. "I keep trying to get him to stop using them, but he insists." She wasn't talking to him but their audience on the couch: Lee, Sherry, and Nate.

"Too much information!" Sherry said as Nate laughed, but Hyde did his best to appear indifferent. As careful and private as Ro was, she flirted with danger whenever she could, especially when it would piss him off.

Or, maybe, she was sending him a message.

"What guy fuckin' insists on using a rubber?" Lee said, and Sherry twisted Lee's nipple through his shirt.

Nate gave him a sympathetic glance, but Sherry said, "Good guys do, and don't tell me you wouldn't wear one if your woman wanted you to."

Lee rubbed his chest where she'd pinched him. "'Course I would, but if she gave me the option not to..." He glared at Hyde. "You think Ro's dirtied up?"

Lee was baiting him. If Hyde threw the first punch, they could finally have it out, and Lee would blame him for the brawl. Gain the leverage he needed for Hyde to quit the tour, but words weren't enough to inspire violence. Hyde had long eradicated that part of himself.

His two options were to leave emotionally or physically. Ro disliked the former more, so he went with the latter. She whispered, "Shit," as he strode to the greenroom door, but he left without looking back at her.

May 8, 1982

Milwaukee Wisconsin

Cheryl Amber's Apartment
 ...

Hyde paced Cheryl's one-bedroom apartment, going from room to room. She'd called him in a panic this morning,. He'd come right over, and her panic seeped into him. They'd been dating exclusively for a few months. His sister had introduced them, and their relationship was getting serious. But he hadn't expected it to get so serious so damn fast. "You're on the Pill, man," he kept saying. "This can't happen. You're on the Pill."

Cheryl twisted her hands in her long T-shirt. She was in her pajamas, and her normally flat-ironed hair was mess of spiral-curls on her head. "I might've forgotten to take it a day or two," she said. "Busy doesn't begin to explain how work's been lately. The lawyers have me typing up so many reports I can't think straight."

"If you want to keep it, we can get hitched." He stopped pacing at the bathroom, and his gaze fixed on her e.p.t. Pregnancy Test. It was lying on the sink. "I've got cash saved up. We can do this."

She laughed a nervous, near-breaking kind of laugh. "Wow, that's every girl's dream! Being proposed to because she got pregnant."

His heart beat faster when he looked at her. His normally pale face had to be as red as a clown's nose;, it was burning hot. She probably thought he was acting like a freakin' clown, too. But her rich brown skin glowed copper in her cheeks. She was the sunrise, and he'd fallen hard for her. "It's my fault," he said. "Not wearin' rubbers."

"No, I should've been more careful—" she stepped closer to him and grasped both his hands—"but I'm not ready. I'm not."

"Neither am I." His ma had gotten pregnant with him at nineteen. Kelso was the same age when he'd knocked up Brooke, and Hyde was only twenty-two. His ma and Kelso were both crappy parents, both drunks. Too selfish to be responsible, and Hyde wasn't exactly avoiding the bottle himself. "It's your call," he said. "What're you gonna do?"

She squeezed his palms, gazing at him sadly. "End it."

Backstage at Studio 8H, Hyde focused on the monitor. Degenerate Matter was playing "End State," its last song for the dress rehearsal, and Lee seemed ticked. Every chord was an assault on his guitar, but Hyde took no pleasure in it. His dynamic with Lee was contentious enough without Ro giving Lee fuel.

"So this is how we end, as degenerate matter," Ro sang, her voice bleeding his words like a wound. "Chemical bonds no longer holding. Remains mashed together but eternally separate."

On her way to the stage, she'd gripped Hyde's arm. He'd acknowledged her with a nod, but she'd wanted more. Her eyes told him that, but certain discussions needed the proper venue.

The song entered its coda, and she clutched the microphone stand with both hands. "No energy source," she sang quietly. "No heat. No more stellar evolution. It's the end state. The end state. The end."

The music should have stopped then, but the band continued playing. The last notes of "End State" transformed into a slow, soulful jam, and Ro mumbled lyrics he'd never heard before: "I keep changing the station, but I'm picking up your static on every channel. Screw you, I won't tear apart. Screw you, I won't go extinct. Screw you, screw you, screw you—I'm coming at you with my rockets."

She backed off from the microphone, and applause swallowed the music. Hyde pressed his knuckles to his lips, unsure if he should laugh or slug himself in the jaw. She'd just begun their conversation without him, and it was going to be a beauty of a fight.

Hyde, the band, and the crew had an hour to eat until the televised show. They went to a local steakhouse, one with dark lighting and sawdust on the floor. But Hyde sat with the instrument techs—and as far from Ro as possible. Their conversation-fight with would have to wait, probably until they were on the road to Buffalo.

"Ever have a moment like someone's stepping on your grave?" Scotty said beside him.

"You tellin' me you're a zombie?" Hyde bit into his hamburger, and juice ran over his fingers. It was too large a bite, but he was hungry. He hadn't eaten all day.

Scotty tapped his fingertip against his glass of water. "No—"

"Then how do you have a grave?" Rick said. Ro's guitar tech was both great at his job and asking apt questions.

"Fuck, just shut up a second." Scotty swallowed a chunk of steak and drank some water. "When we were loading the guitars back into our little shithole of a bunker, I swear I saw a chick in the audience who looked like my ex."

"Your ex-what? Hair stylist?" said Hank Perito, Nate's drum tech. He teased up a few strands of his shoulder-length hair and sang off-key: "'All the desert's sands run through my fingers and blind my eyes as I search for a vision of you.'"

Hyde stared at him. "What the hell is that?"

"What do you think?" Rick said. "It's a Wildebeest song."

Hyde put down his burger. "Damn it. You made me lose my appetite." But he was laughing. Burning Scotty about his hair metal past had become obligatory.

Scotty, though, picked up Hyde's burger and shoved it at Hyde's mouth. "Eat. In fact, all of you eat so I can finish talking." He waited as if another interruption would come. None did. "My ex-wife," he said. "Didn't look twice. Just caught a glimpse of her—but what's the likelihood, right?" He jabbed his fork into his steak. "Couldn't be her."

"What's her name?" Rick said.

"That's classified. Part of our settlement agreement."

"Bet if we looked through old issues of Come On Magazine, we'd find out," said Sebastian Rojas, Sherry's tech. "Nothing stays a secret forever, man."

Hyde swallowed half a French fry without chewing. Some secrets had to be eternal. "You gonna spend the bucks to by back issues of that rag? Spend the time lookin' through each of 'em?"

"Life's too short," Hank said to Sebastian. "Pick a better hobby, like learning more of your abuela's recipes. We'd all benefit from that."

"Man, you should do that," Rick said then mimed holding binoculars in front of his eyes. "You're just seeing things," he said to Scotty. "Is it an anniversary of yours or some shit like that?"

"No..." Scotty sounded unsure, and he drank more water than he likely intended. His glass was empty when he put it down. "No. You're probably right. Lots of blondes in New York."

"Wait a sec," Hyde said. "Was it a blonde in the front row? Gray blazer?"

"Yup—well, the blonde part. Don't remember what she was wearing."

Hyde chuckled and clapped Scotty on the back. "You can relax, man. That's definitely not your ex."

"How do you know?"

"'Cause she's my ex. From high school—and a friend."

Scotty let out a long, audible breath. "Thank fucking God."

"'A 'friend,' huh?" Hank said.

Hyde's shoulders tensed. "Just a friend."

"La está follando," Sebastian said, and Rick nodded.

"I'm not banging her," Hyde said, remembering the phrase Sebastian taught them all a while back. "But if I said I was, then what would you think?"

Hank, Sebastian, and Rick all shared a look, and Rick said with a grin, "That you're just friends."

A new audience filled Studio 8H for Saturday Night Live's televised show. The dress rehearsal's crowd had been enthusiastic, but this one was raucous, and Ro clearly fed off that energy. During "Hoaxed," she jumped onto Lee's back. Her weight didn't interfere with his guitar playing, and he carried her around the stage while she sang.

Their closeness was always evident, onstage and off. Hyde respected their friendship, and he stomached watching it on the backstage monitor. But he had little doubt Ro would still be screwing Lee on the side if she and Hyde weren't engaged.

After the show, the band skipped SNL's after-party. Degenerate Matter's gig in Buffalo was in less than twenty-four-hours. The drive would take six hours, but that was life on the road: play was work.

The road crew's tour bus was already in Buffalo, so Hyde had rented a luxury trailer for the instrument techs and skeleton crew. But on the band's bus, Nate was snoring in his bunk. Sherry and Lee were in their bunks, too. Hyde wouldn't have minded sleeping himself, but Ro joined him in boner lounge, the rear bunk.

A thick curtain separated the area from the rest of the bus. It would give them decent privacy for their fight, but she said, "Do you think Jackie enjoyed the show?"

She was sitting close to him on the bunk, but he could barely see her. Only the faintest of light from the tinted back windows kept darkness from completely enshrouding them.

"Hope so," he said. "Didn't talk to her afterward."

He pulled a night shirt from his duffel bag and a pair of sweatpants. He unbuttoned the fly of his jeans, but Ro's weight landed in his lap. The letter in his pocket crackled like thunder, and she looped her arms around his neck. "You have that condom, love? Or is it candy?"

"Got plenty of rubbers, but one ain't in my pocket."

"How about trying something new, then? A quickie without barriers." She yanked off his Brewer's cap and tossed it into the darkness. "Promise I won't make it hurt … unless you want me to."

His hand swept up her back. His mind had already rejected her proposal, but his body was responding. "Tell me why."

Her laughter tickled his ear, and he breathed her in. She smelled like the cigarette she'd sucked down outside the bus, minutes earlier. "Would you believe," she whispered, " I've never done it before without one?"

"No."

"Smart. Because I have—with Lee."

His hand dropped from her back. "So?"

"He was careful. I was careful."

"Not worried about catchin' something. We're long past that, don't you think?"

"There's this wonderful invention," she said. "It's called the Pill." Her right hand buried itself in his hair, but her left hand landed on his hip. "I've got more to be afraid of here than you. But creating a parasitic hell-beast I'd have to abort—I'm willing to risk that if it means being closer to you. What are you willing to risk?"

Her hand darted into his jeans pocket and plucked out Jackie's envelope. "Hello," she said. "What is this?"

"Not yours." He tried to snatch the envelope, but she hopped off his lap. "Ro, you gotta give that back."

"It's a letter." Her silhouette knelt down—that was all he could see of her—and rummaged through her duffel bag. It was stashed beneath the bunk, and light stung his eyes seconds later. She'd taken out a small flashlight. "Addressed to O. MacNeil?"

"Made a promise no one but O. would read it," he said.

"You're gonna break that promise—" The bus hit a bumpy patch of road, but she widened her stance for balance. She stuck the flashlight under her armpit, and her thumb slid beneath the envelope's flap. "Unless you tell me why you're so chicken-shit about fucking me."

He lunged for her, but she side-stepped him. "This ain't somethin' you can play with, okay?" he said and managed to grab her wrist. The flashlight clattered to the floor and rolled beneath the bunk. The letter, though, was is in her other hand.

"Who's it from?" she said.

"A fan of the band."

"That much is obvious."

"It's private."

"Even from me?"

"How much of your own shit do you keep to yourself?"

"That's fair," she said and finally returned the letter. He stashed it in his duffel bag, relieved he'd wrestled it from her verbally, not physically. But she hugged him from behind as he stood up straight.

He didn't mind. He turned around in her embrace and cupped her butt. "Take a bigger risk," he said. "Tell me something I don't know about you."

"What'll I get in return?"

"No rubber."

"All right." She unzipped his already-unbuttoned fly and massaged him while standing. The motion of the bus made her touch less than smooth, but he could take it. "I have a half-sister," she said.

"What?"

She increased the pressure on his dick, and he half-collapsed to the bunk. Her hand lost its grip on him, but he blocked her access when she sat next to him.

"Just freakin' talk to me," he said. He had no problem listening without a hard-on. Hell, he preferred it. But she was more comfortable sharing when they were screwing or near-screwing. "Just talk. I'm not goin' anywhere."

She made a strangled sort of sound, like she'd rather choke to death than reveal any part of herself. But she nudged his shoulder and said, "Okay, you fucker. A deal's a deal. Ma stayed in Chicago with Sis. Let Da take me to Minneapolis when he got tenure at the University of Minnesota."

"How old were you?"

"Not old. Little brat was a scunner."

Hyde scratched his neck. Ro had known the kid long enough to consider her a nuisance. "She's your half-sister?"

"Da and Ma had taken to separate beds, so she went off and found someone else." She laughed a little too loudly. "A mighty big surprise for my da when she got pregnant, I can tell you that." Her laughter became brittle, joyless. "He stayed in the marriage, though. Would've raised the kid as his, but Ma was having none of it. She was done with us."

"Man..." He tried to ease his arm around her shoulders, but she shoved it off her. He should've known better. She hated tender gestures when she felt vulnerable. "Sorry," he said.

"No time for apologies. I've fulfilled my half of our deal. Your turn."

She kicked off her jeans, but he said, "I got a girl pre—"

"Actions, not words, love. I just let you in deeper. Let me in." She stripped him naked and pushed him down on the bunk. "I won't get pregnant," she said, straddling his hips. "I promise you this is gonna be fun."

His heart throbbed with fear as she fucked him. He felt out of control, like he had no choice in this, like he couldn't back out without losing her. He tried to speak, to prove himself wrong, but his body wouldn't obey. His pulse was so damn fast. Ro was fast, and he barely participated except to groan during his release.

"Fuckin' good, right?" Ro said afterward, curling next to him.

Fuckin' bad. Sex with her usually freed some trapped part of himself. But as he held her and acted like he'd enjoyed himself, the light inside him dimmed.