“What is there to think about?” Agatha wrapped her fingers around Rio’s hand and brought it to her mouth and kissed it. With every inch that her fingers climbed up Rio’s arm, she planted a soft kiss. And with every kiss, Rio grew weak, and she craved more. Was this really happening?

“Agatha,” Rio said, barely holding her resolve. Her spine dissolved, and her knees buckled with a dizzying weakness. “We need to talk.”

“Is that what you want right now?” Agatha’s lips curled as she found Rio’s neck, cradling her face with her warm hands. “To talk?” Her nose pressed into her neck as she nuzzled there, knowing exactly how to coax the desire from Rio.

She began to kiss her neck, and Rio reactively bit her bottom lip. When her hot breath reached her earlobe, an involuntary moan escaped her mouth.

“Goddamn it, Agatha.” She throbbed below the belt.

It should’ve made her angry, but being crushed under her was exhilarating. Rio’s stomach fluttered, like a flock of doves unleashed.

No, not this again. She throbbed between the legs, only separated from reality by the thin polyester of her robe. She swallowed and braced herself.

They stared at each other in the dark, like they had, many times before. The air had transformed into something heavier, something different. Electricity charged through the animosity between them, vaporizing it.

“You didn’t think I would, did you?” Agatha breathed, smirking down on Rio.

“You know what I think? I think you can’t help that you want me,” Rio said. “That’s why you’re still here.”

Agatha’s fingers tightened around Rio’s throat. “You’re not in any position to taunt me.”

Rio grasped onto Agatha’s wrist. “You trust me. You’ve forgiven me. But you’re scared because you don’t know what it means.”

“You really think you know me, don’t you?” Agatha clenched her jaw, in lockstep with her fingers, tensing still. “I don’t think about you. I haven’t thought about you.” She leaned back, letting go of Rio’s wrist and her throat.

Rio caught Agatha’s eyes wandering beyond her clavicle, down at a sliver of skin in between her breasts. “You’d crumple in a court of law.”

Agatha’s eyes flicked back up, full of denial.

“I slept with someone last night,” Agatha betrayed.

Rio couldn’t mask her shock fast enough.

“Still think I want you?”

Agatha didn’t answer. She blinked incredulously, as if Rio had stolen all the voice she had.

Rio continued. “You flirt with me and then you push me away. You tell me we’re not friends and it doesn’t matter to you what we are, but then you invite me to Thanksgiving dinner. And you pulled out the soft-lighting and the candles, does that scream ‘this doesn’t matter’ to you?”

“Tell me what you’re doing.” It wasn’t a question on purpose. It was a demand.

“I don’t know,” Agatha said, absently. She tilted her head but kept her elbow resting on top of the couch. “I follow my instincts.”

Rio mirrored Agatha, also opting to lean on the couch with her elbow. Inside, she found herself dazed with disbelief. She’d finally cornered Agatha’s amorphous spirit on this very couch, and there was nowhere to run. Her dark, vexed eyes coaxed Agatha to continue.

“You’re not annoying, you’re not too political, you’re pleasant-looking, you’re handy, you’ve clearly got a green thumb—and it’s the strangest thing. I can’t seem to stop inviting you into my house and my very solitary life that I used to like.”

“I started to feel. . .lonely,” Agatha said, like she’d eaten something slimy. “And you wouldn’t stop worming your way into my life, and I let you—and I don’t know why.”

“You don’t know why?” Rio asked. “Do you mean that?”

Agatha sucked her bottom lip in for a second. “I don’t know, it could be you. It could be the way you wear that shirt.”

Rio battled the butterflies in her stomach and the smile wanting to reveal itself. But was this flattery just a distraction, yet again? Did she mean it? Was Rio this easy to play?

“It could be that it’s not so bad to have you around.”

Rio tucked her hair behind her ear and locked eyes with Agatha, still sitting far from her. “So, why are you hellbent on icing me out?”

“It scares me,” Agatha confessed. She looked down at the couch cushion, meekly. “It scares me that my instincts are telling me that I want to be around you.”

“What are you doing here? How the hell did you find me anyhow?”

Alice shook her head, waving her off.

Rio glared at her.

“Look, I’m off-duty, so I don’t know when this happened—I just heard, but the detectives paid Agatha a visit.”

“They did?”

“They took her to the station, and they’ve been questioning her for hours now. They’re holding her under suspicion.”

A volcano of nerves exploded in Rio’s stomach and mushroomed into her chest, her throat constricting and her mouth tight with dryness. The police must’ve found out Agatha was at Rusty Hill shortly after they’d parted ways at the search.

“They’re holding her under suspicion? They think she’s a suspect?”

“They at least think she’s associated,” Alice said, her sharp brown eyes prodding Rio.

“You don’t think she did this?” Rio asked, incredulously. She half-expected Alice to rationalize the detectives’ decision, based on Agatha’s reputation.

“Look, if I learned my lesson, I know that you trust her, and that I jumped to conclusions on baseless accusations.”

Rio asked Alice exactly what she had heard. What made the cops think Agatha was involved with Tommy’s disappearance?

“They went through the CCTV footage and they saw her stumbling through the alleyway seven minutes before Tommy went through that same alleyway. Apparently, everyone else takes the alleyway on the other side of Rusty Hill.”

Alice quipped, “Add that and her infamous relationship with the cops and the public, it’s no wonder they took her to the station.”

“So, what do you want to do?”

Rio only had one idea. It was rash, foolish, and utterly driven by her misguided, pounding heart.

“I’m going to be her alibi.”

“How do you know?” Agatha asked, her blue eyes truthful and unguarded.

“I know you,” Rio said. “You’re a good person, no matter how hard you try to deny it. You’d never hurt Billy or Tommy.”

Agatha blinked at her, looking diminutive under her cap.

Rio took her by the shoulders and emphasized her words.

“Agatha, you’d never hurt anyone like that.”

Her shoulders uncocked, dropping slowly, as if she was absorbing it all. She looked deeply in Rio’s eyes, blinking once, freezing time, her gaze flickered down to her lips. Last night came rushing back to Rio and the things Agatha had said, and the lecherous ways she’d used her body. Somehow, she didn’t believe those things she’d said anymore. This moment felt so different.

But she couldn’t stomach the thought of begging for her and then losing her again.

Lilia deciphered the look in her eyes instantly and sighed with her whole body. “Oh, my God. You didn’t. Did you?”

“I did,” Rio said, nodding into her hand.

Alice and Jen turned their heads to Rio.

They turned their heads back to Lilia.

“You did not.” Lilia sprung to her feet, her hands firm on her hips. “Oh, Rio. What did I tell you?” Rio didn’t protest.

“Does one of you want to chime in and tell me what exactly Rio did?” Alice quipped.

Lilia ignored her and continued her rant. “She’s not your friend, Rio. I mean, you’ve talked to her and been in her house—and you even said so yourself—she’s rude, entitled, unhinged, kinda violent.”

“I know,” Rio whined. “We got into it the other day. She threatened me with a bat.”

“Wait, is this about Agatha?” Jen asked, her eyes widening.

Agatha had eroded Rio’s dignity down to the primal ache that cooked underneath it all. She kissed Rio’s neck and inhaled her skin, fiddling with her emotions, her desire, and her sanity.

“You know why,” Rio whispered. Her cheeks flushed with a hotness that traveled down to her chest.

“Don’t chicken out now,” Agatha goaded. “Unless I’m reading this the wrong way; I wouldn’t want—”

She pulled back, her arm above Rio’s head.

“—to assume anything.”

“Is this you forgiving me?” Rio asked.

Agatha took Rio by the jaw and turned her face to the side abruptly. “Don’t. That’s not what this is.”

“Tell me why you were following me,” she pressed again.

“I followed you because…” Rio wrested her neck to face Agatha, exposing her inner thoughts. “...I want you. Is that what you want to hear? It’s the truth. I haven’t stopped thinking about you. Tonight, when I saw you, all I could think about was what it would be like to kiss you again.”

Agatha’s blue eyes glinted, and her lips curled into the subtlest smirk. She knew she’d won. She took Rio’s chin between her thumb and index finger, fixated on her lips.

Agatha inhaled, and squinted out of one eye, sleepily. Rio placed a hand on her back, the tips of her fingers tingled when they danced on the surface of Agatha’s soft skin.

“Hey, you,” Agatha said, her blue eyes lucid and alert now.

“Morning,” Rio said. “How’d you sleep?”

“You tell me,” Agatha said. “I should keep you around at night to hold onto me, so I don’t sleepwalk again.”

Rio almost told her that she, in fact, sleepwalked frequently. But some things were best unsaid. She vowed never to spy on Agatha again.

“You just want to save on your gas bill,” Rio quipped, burying the thought. “But, if you’re asking, I’m accepting.”

Agatha kissed her neck, gently handling Rio’s jaw. “I could eat.” It was all so natural between them.

She confidently kicked the covers off and climbed out of bed, naked. Rio smiled at her, biting her thumb to keep her wits about her, but still completely captivated by her sensuous, lithe curves. The way her long, unkempt morning hair spilled down her pale back, the shape of her hips, the nape of her neck bruised with hickeys.