“Laugh away, jerks,” I muttered, holding up my wine bottle triumphantly. “You almost made me spill alcohol. That’s a grave offense against the gods.”

They sobered instantly.

“I forgot you were holding the wine,” Danielle said, her voice serious. “I wouldn’t have done that if I’d known the risk.”

We pondered the severity of the situation before she started giggling again, which got me going. Life might be fucked up, but I had damned fine friends despite it all. Five minutes later we sat in a row on the roof’s incline, feet braced on the low false front that someone thought would make the building look more impressive, once upon a time. It’d been a doctor’s office back when Callup still had a doctor. His sign still sat out front, right next to the broken barber pole on the building next door.

“Your apartment used to be part of a whorehouse,” Danielle said casually.

“I know. Regina told me about it.”

“Did you know the girls liked to come out here to eat their meals? They wouldn’t let them out to walk around town or anything.”

“Really?” I asked, intrigued. “I thought it was anything goes back in the mining days. Seems weird that the hookers wouldn’t be allowed outside.”

Blake snorted.

“It didn’t shut down until 1988,” he said. My eyes widened.

“Seriously?”

He nodded, taking a swig from his bottle.

“Yup, my dad used to come here,” he said. “Mom dumped his ass over it, I shit you not. There was one in the building on the other side, too.”

I glanced over toward the three-story building rising above us, across the roof from my apartment. You’d be able to crawl out onto the roof from there, too, although I’d never seen anyone do it. That one just had one big apartment filling the whole second floor. Until recently, an old logger lived there. Six months ago he’d retired and gone south to move in with his daughter. Sooner or later someone else would rent it, but for now I had the roof to myself.

That’s when I saw the flicker of a light inside.

“What’s that?” I asked, my voice a loud whisper.

“What’s what?”

“There’s a light in the window over there,” I said. “Or I think there is. They’re so damned dirty it’s hard to tell.”

“Probably a ghost,” Danielle replied, her voice sage. “You know, Wyatt Earp came through here, back during the gold rush. I’ll bet he shot some prostitute in there, and now she’s just waiting around to have her revenge on all men. You better watch out, Blake. She’ll steal your dick and then you’ll be no good to me.”

“Fuck off,” he said, his voice happy. The shadows had grown longer and the sun was already down below the ridgeline. Night fell fast here in the deep mountain valleys.

“You wish,” she replied, crawling over me to lie down on top of him. I rolled my eyes.

“You guys are disgusting.”

“Jealous?” Blake asked. “You’re totally welcome to join in.”

I flipped him off, then looked back toward the empty apartment across from mine. There was definitely a light in there, I decided. Between the dirt and the dark curtains it was hard to see, but apparently I had a new neighbor.

“Hope whoever moved in isn’t an asshole.”

Danielle and Blake didn’t reply, and I looked over to find them swapping spit as his hand slipped up her shirt. Great.

“You know, you’re hurting my feelings,” I muttered. “Seems like just a little while ago your hands were all over me. What’s a girl to think?”

They ignored me, and I giggled at my own little joke. Then I saw a shadow pass across the window.

Alcohol is fully to blame for what I did next.

Booze and that unpleasant, impulsive streak I’d inherited from Mom . . .

Setting down my bottle carefully, I crept across the roof on my hands and knees in full stealth mode. This wasn’t exactly an impressive feat, given how old and soft the shingles were, but I still felt very sneaky and special when I reached the far window and tried to peek inside.

The grime blocked everything, so I spat on my finger and wiped off a little peephole. It worked surprisingly well but when I put my face up to it to look through, I was rewarded with a sight that shocked me. Oh wow.

It was an ass. A bare ass, with tight, sculpted muscles and thick, firm thighs. It’d been five years, but I recognized those thighs all too well. Even if I hadn’t, the little tingle of arousal would’ve been a dead giveaway.

What in the name of hell was Puck Redhouse doing in the building across from mine? And where the fuck were his clothes?

I gasped as he slowly turned, revealing that it wasn’t just his butt that was naked. Nope, that was a penis and it was every bit as big and hard as I remembered it being. I’d felt that thing push deep inside and it’d felt good. Total understatement. It’d been fantastic.

Well, fantastic until the pain, the beating, and the endless ride across the desert wondering whether my mom was still alive.

You’d think the memory of the bad would wipe out the good, but it didn’t. In my head they were almost two separate incidents, unrelated. Regina told me once that we do whatever we have to when it comes to survival, including allowing our bodies to feel pleasure at the strangest of times. She said I shouldn’t worry about judging my sexual responses, even if they were kind of fucked up.