I drive home, and the only thought I have the whole way is that mostly comatose really is the best to feel if you have to deal with L.A. traffic.

My brain is still on vacation when I arrive, so I never question why I park three blocks away in a spot that somebody else probably needs, and walk back to our rented cottage and its empty driveway.

Jackson's leapingly happy to see me, as always. I know it is irresponsible to work the hours I do and have a dog, but I can't freaking help it. I pay very good money to make sure he gets more exercise and attention than any two dogs will ever need, and the few minutes I get in his company every day make it all worth it.

I go into the backyard and don't turn on a porch light. I lay on the chaise lounge by the pool in the lengthening shadows and pet Jackson until his fur is in danger. He doesn't seem to mind.

I want to call my mom, but I know that I will just sit helplessly silent on one end of the phone until she starts to cry on the other. I'm not going to call just to make my mother cry. I text that I love her, and then I sit there with my phone in my hand and the vague thought that I should call someone else. My phone vibrates a few times with texts from various people. I don't read the words, but I find the notifications oddly soothing.

I hear Sophie come home and rustle around the house for a while. She doesn't see me or my car, so she must think I'm not home.

Jackson whines quietly. If there's anyone he loves more than me, it's Sophie. I can't blame him. Still, tonight he keeps my secret and he doesn't run for the sliding glass door to remind her that he's out here, awaiting attention. He just whimpers and shifts restlessly until the sounds cease and the lights inside are extinguished.

I listen to city noises of cars and distant voices until I fall asleep.

I wake up to vibration and because my mind's lived in the gutter for weeks, I think it is a giant sex toy in my shoe. Then the sparse stars and the faint city glow of the sky come into focus and I realize that I fell asleep outside and the air is cool but I'm warm.

I look down. I'm lying with one leg on the concrete, dangerously close to sliding off the chaise lounge. Jackson is curled up by my side, his weight digging into my elbow. I taste a piece of his hair that has worked its way into my mouth.

My right leg has lost all circulation, because Sophie is laying on it. Her head is pillowed just inside my hip joint, the buckle of my belt pressing into her forehead. She's dead asleep but shivering with her whole body.

I smile and roll my eyes. Of course she is. Her sleeping self may have a homing instinct for me, but it isn't much for self-preservation. She's wearing tiny shorts and a camisole that is long on ribbons and lace and short on insulation and she's so slender that even the warm California nights chill her.

I sit up and gather her into my arms. I stand, stumbling gracelessly on my numb leg and stomp once or twice to start the painful pins and needles. I probably shouldn't have picked her up until I had all my limbs in order. She stirs against me.

"David?"

"I'm here. Go back to sleep. I'll get you warm soon."

She rubs her eyes, squinting around in confusion.

"Rental house, California," I say out of habit. We move a lot, and she wakes up slow and fuzzy-like.

She slumps back against me with a groan. "Why the hell do we have a pool?"

"We needed a yard for Jackson, and apparently nobody in California has ever considered having a dry yard," I remind her, stamping my half-numb foot again and wincing.

She rubs her face against me, heedless of the ridiculously expensive shirt I'm still wearing that technically belongs to wardrobe. Wardrobe department, in my opinion, is the only entity who should ever pay that much for mere fabric.

"Let's go swimming," she says through a yawn.

"You're hypothermic already," I tell her practically. "Even though it is like eighty degrees. If you get in the water, I'll have to drive you to the hospital."

"Or you'll have to supervise me in the shower," she says, an impish smile peeking out beneath her sleepy brown eyes. She glances quickly behind her and then swings her legs hard, tipping me off my precarious one-legged balance. We fall, expensive costume clothes and all, into the pool.

I come up sputtering and reaching for her. She spits water at me and I dunk her, crowing triumphantly and then stroking hard for the other side of the pool.

She's a fast swimmer, but I tag the opposite side a full body length ahead of her. She pushes hair out of her face and sticks her tongue out at me.

I grin smugly at her. "Can't be good at everything, love."

She shoves at her heavy, wet hair. "I'm apparently not funny. I don't think swimming would be a terrible consolation prize."

I think about refuting her, but it never freaking works. She's really hard on herself, and comedy is a killer if you don't have great writers, everybody says so.

"You can't be pretty and witty," I remind her, waiting for her to catch the rhythm of our old joke. "Nobody is."

"Except Josh," we finish in unison, and she laughs despite herself. We've been flogging that old saying since season one, and Josh's never heard a thing about it. Never will.

She splashes me and I mock glare at her, my body feeling alive for the first time today. Like it belongs to me again.

"I'm freezing," she admits, paddling over to me and looping her arms around my neck. Her kiss tastes like chlorine and cinnamon toothpaste. It's my new favorite taste.

"I think you're winning the wet T-shirt contest," she says.

I glance down. My white dress shirt is plastered to me, and her lacy camisole isn't doing any better. It decorates her round breasts in a way that speaks to the most primitive part of me.

I slip my hands under the hem of her shirt, enjoying the graceful curve of her back as I bring her closer to me. Her hard nipples scorch my chest through two inadequate layers of wet fabric.

She licks the water droplets from my bottom lip, a mischievous gleam in her eye. "Warm me up?" she whispers.

"No problem," I murmur, my eyes on her lips as I lift her into my arms again. In the water, we're both weightless.