Over the next few months, Griffin and I settle into a routine: I go to classes four days a week and he does...whatever it is he does.

I don't ask.

He usually spends at least two nights a week at my house — yes, I think of the condo as home now — and I'll go to his place on the weekends. I'd like him to stay over more often, and I think he would, too, but we're both quietly mindful of each other's space.

As much as I'd like us to move in together, I know that would force me further into his world. I don't want that, and neither does he. Although I do slip more into his orbit every day, and while I was initially reluctant and scared about dating a drug dealer, everything seems frighteningly normal now.

So normal that I sometimes forget how he makes money. So normal that I'm starting to think that bottle service at clubs, five-hundred dollar shoes, lavish dinners at sushi bars late into the night, are typical. I'm only reminded that they're not when I go to class, and I'm surrounded by people who live with their parents or work two jobs to pay for classes.

One day, Griffin dropped me off at school in his Porsche. A girl in my English 101 class came up to me before the lecture started.

"I saw you get out of that incredible car just now. Is Griffin Davis your boyfriend?"

I nodded and smiled.

"Holy shit," she whispered. Since then, some students around school have been uncharacteristically friendly. Thankfully, the college is big enough that I can usually lose myself for a few hours a day amidst all the people. It's the one thing, the one place, keeping me grounded. I'm still trying to figure out if I want a pharmacy degree, or if I should major in English like Griffin keeps saying. For now, I'm taking prerequisites while I figure it out.

On the weekends, we live lives that others fantasize about. We know DJs on a first-name basis, drink champagne in the VIP next to actors, skip to the front of every line.

It's the end of September, we've been together four months, and I think I've been to every club in the city. Usually we'll begin Friday nights at a restaurant, someplace where Griffin knows the owner, manager or half the waitstaff. Then we'll head to a club, where we'll dance until the early morning.

Griffin seems to know everyone in the city, and loves it when I dress to the hilt.

Which means when I'm not in class or studying, I'm shopping with Vee or Zoe. They're my closest friends now. Vee's actually fun to be around. Bitchy, but fun. And she's showed me where to shop, what to buy to flatter my curves, and how to do a killer smokey eye with about six different liners, shadows and mascaras.

I want to show you off, Griffin says every weekend, then proceeds to tell people we meet about how proud he is of me taking an extra course load this semester.

His words make me self-conscious at first, although deep down I love it. Being with Griffin is the first time I've been noticed by, well, anyone. In school I'd always been a dreamer, a bookworm, shy.

Now I'm proud to be on his arm and each weekend is more dazzling than the last.

There are Saturday afternoons on yachts and quick, overnight trips to casinos in the Bahamas. Box seats at the Marlins games, even though neither of us like baseball. A neverending cast of acquaintances who are all chummy with Griffin —although he keeps everyone at a jovial arm's length.

People treat him with a mixture of respect and fear. Which means they approach me with the care they would his half-million dollar Porsche: with awe and reverence. Because they know I'm the person closest to the city's biggest ecstasy dealer. Closer than Matthew, closer than Zoe. Men want to hang with him and women still want to fuck him, but when they see how he treats me, they sigh and swoon.

"You've hit the jackpot, girl," is a common refrain from women in club bathrooms, usually after they admire my designer shoes, my expensive purse, my dresses from Dolce & Gabbana.

"Don't I know it," I say, beaming.

And yet, to me, he's just Griffin. He's the gangly boy who played video games on my sofa when I was a kid and the man who rubs my feet when my stilettos have pinched my toes after too many hours dancing. The one who was tested for STDs three months in a row so I'd be certain he was clean, and who paid for my doctor's appointment so I could go on birth control pills (sex without a condom is so much better).

He's the man who spent three hours one night poring over my college calculus book, trying to help me with homework. He looked so adorable that night at the kitchen table, with his determined frown.

He's the one who makes sure I have everything I need, in every way possible.

Usually once a week, sometimes more, we stay home and snuggle. Watch sci-fi movies in sweatpants and pop popcorn.

We spend Sunday mornings in bed. We make love lazily, tenderly, whispering soft I-love-yous to each other as the electricity of summer storms crackles in the tropical air. At twilight we rise and head to one of the pool parties at the hotels on the beach — we especially enjoy the trance music nights at the Setai.

I've come to crave other moments, too. The ones where he's as sharp and edgy as a cleaver, when he's going through something shadowy and dangerous with his business and comes to me, needing sex as a release. He needs me in so many ways.

We do things I've only read about in books. One night, we went to see Dita Von Teese do an erotic burlesque show at a local theater. The act was supercharged with raw sexuality, and we were both ravenous after watching.

Out on my balcony, I teased him in the dark, kissing him softly and running my hands down his clothed body but pulling away when he tried to touch me. Giggling, I started to go inside, but he grabbed me and clasped a fistful of my hair.

"Kneel," he said, pushing me down. The roughness of the cement scraped against my bare knees and I looked up. His face was illuminated by the city lights, and he stared at me, smirking.

Keeping one hand tight in my hair, he undid his belt buckle and pants with the other. I knew what I was supposed to do after that, and I was edgy with want.

"Take this, angel," he growled, sliding himself into my mouth until I choked a little. "You know what to do."

So this is my life. I guess I'm addicted to the excitement of it all..

Sure, there are reminders of what he does. Like when he has four phones in the console of his car and all are ringing at once. Or like the time when I was looking for matches in a bathroom cabinet and found a mysterious package of powder. How he pays in cash for everything, and almost always carries a wad of hundreds an inch thick.

How he steps outside on my balcony to talk on the phone, shutting the door tight behind him. How he disappears for a night, and won't tell me where he went or what he did. Those are the worst nights, when I can't reach him — and when he's unapologetic.

"Can't you just text me? How will I know if you've been arrested? If you're hurt, or worse?" I whispered to him one night in bed.

"Don't think like that," he'd said, stroking my hair.

For about a week, I asked about the Amsterdam trip every days. When was he going? Who was he taking? How long would he be gone? I asked him so much — because I was so afraid of his answers, so afraid for him — that he slapped the kitchen counter one morning. He was wearing an expensive suit because he was meeting with a real estate agent about buying more properties.

That day, he looked so arrogant and handsome. And he was pissed.

"I'll tell you when I'm going. If I'm going. Until then, stop asking." His voice was sharper and louder than I'd ever heard.

I counted that day as our first true fight. Our only fight.

I stopped asking questions after that. I didn't want to know why people approach him everywhere we go and boldly ask if he's got molly. When I'm with him, he shakes his head, smirks and tells them to call Matthew.

I don't know what he does when someone asks that question and I'm not with him. I don't want to know.

No, I don't want to know how he made the money to to buy an upscale pizza place in Fort Lauderdale.

I don't want to know where he met the young city councilor who sat with us in the VIP one night, or why he sometimes makes stops at secluded warehouses at odd hours or how he has a defense attorney who charges four hundred fifty dollars an hour on speed dial.

Knowing what I know is enough. Probably too much.

One night, I'm asleep when he texts me. It's a Tuesday.

Hey. I'm coming up

OK, I respond. He has a key, but always tells me when he's coming over.

Half-asleep, I hear the door open. Usually when he arrives late, he immediately kisses me, even if I'm in bed. Tonight he doesn't. I hear him flick on the bathroom light, and the shower running.

The idea of his naked and wet body is too alluring, and I get up, wrapped in a short robe. The bathroom door is half closed.

"Griffin?" I say in a sexy voice.

I push the door open, only to gasp when I see a gun on the bathroom counter. There's also a white T-shirt on the floor, the crimson blood splatters evident. As the steam fills the room, the shower stops, and he climbs out. I'm still staring at the blood on the T-shirt when he wraps a towel around his waist and stares at me with cold, hard eyes. The skin on his right cheekbone—his sharp, beautiful cheekbone—is an angry shade of red.

My veins turning to ice, I turn and make my way back to bed. Sitting there, I consider all of the various reasons why he'd have blood on his shirt and a gun on my counter.

I'm silent as he walks into the bedroom. In the bright moonlight shining through the window, I notice his knuckles on his right hand are raw and rough. I sit up straighter, my back pressing against the white quilted headboard. He's done something horrible, and I don't want to know.

With a low groan, he eases onto the bed and puts his face in my lap.

"I'm sorry, Juliette." His voice is hoarse and filled with pain, and all I can do is stroke his damp hair softly and try not to cry.

It's late Sunday afternoon and we're watching Mystery Science Theater 3000 reruns on the sofa. We're laughing like crazy when my phone rings.

Griffin hits pause on the remote. "Gonna run to the bathroom while you get that."

I reach for my cell, which is on the coffee table next to the empty bowl of popcorn.

MOM, the screen says. I talk with her every few days, so it's not unusual that she's calling.

"Hey," I say into the phone.

I hear sobbing on the other end and my spine straightens.

"Mom, what's going on? What's wrong?"

"Honey, it's Ashton."

"What about Ash?" My entire body is pulsing with fear.

"He's in the hospital."

I gasp. "My God. Why? Where is he? What's going on?"

"He was admitted last night." My mom's voice is small in between the sobs.

"Last night?" I shriek and jump up. "Why didn't you call me? I would've come up."

"We didn't want to alarm you. We weren't sure if...we were hoping that..."

"What, Mom? Hoping what? What are you trying to say?" By now, Griffin's back and he's standing next to me with huge eyes. I don't think he's ever seen me this agitated.

"Ashton hasn't been feeling well lately. Last night he collapsed. I was hoping it was just because he's been working hard to find a job, but," and here she dissolves into sobs, "his leukemia is back."

"What?" I whisper. All the warmth I'd felt in Griffin's arms was gone, like a blown-out candle "I thought Ash was in remission."

My eyes slide to Griffin, and his face is drained of color.

My mom haltingly talks about how doctors did a complete blood count and a lumbar puncture and x-rays. I'm half listening, my mind churning over the quickest way to get to Jacksonville.

"Thankfully there's a great cancer hospital here in the city," my mom says.

"I'm coming up. I'll be leaving soon."

I expect her to tell me to stay until there's more information.

"I think that's a good idea, Juliette. He's quite weak." A huge stab of fear hits my chest. Does that mean he's about to die? I can't bring myself to ask my mother that question over the phone.

"I'll get my stuff together and get on the road as soon as possible."

We hang up and I crumple onto the sofa. Griffin sits and puts his arms around me.

"His leukemia is back. He was admitted last night." I start to cry. "I have to pack and go now."

"You're not driving like this. I'll drive you."

I pull back and look at him through wet lashes. "You don't have to, I can go on my own."

"No. You can't. How can you drive like this? It's a long way. C'mon. Let's get some stuff together. I'll call Matthew and tell him we've got an emergency. We'll get a hotel up there."

I sigh. This will be so much easier to deal with if Griffin's with me. Even if he doesn't come to the hospital with me, just knowing he's near will soothe my nerves.

"Okay." My heart is slamming against my chest.

Griffin kisses the top of my head and I'm wiping my nose on a crumpled up, popcorn-and-butter scented napkin when the elevator doors slide open.

We look up at Zoe.

"Hey, kids," she says in a cheery voice. She stops and tilts her head, studying us. "What's wrong? Neither one of you look normal. I mean, you two usually don't look normal, but today's different."

I let out a loud sob. Griffin's face is pinched with worry.

"What?" Zoe says.

"Ash is back in the hospital," Griffin replies in an even tone. "His cancer might be back."

"Probably is back," I emphasize.

Zoe's eyes grow huge and she doesn't move. It's like she's shocked into stillness. Her arms go slack and the bags in her hands drop to the floor, the shoe boxes making a dull thud noise on the polished concrete. What is she thinking now? Does she regret not calling my brother over the years? Is she glad he's sick? Is she upset? Her face reveals nothing.

"We're going to Jacksonville as soon as we can," Griffin says gently.

Something inside Zoe switches and she scoops up the bags and stares hard at her brother. The two of them can be so intense together. "You driving?"

Griffin nods.

"That car of yours. It's too small."

"What's wrong with my car? We don't have time to rent a car." His big hand is on my back, rubbing in circles, soothing me.

"It's a two-seater Porsche with no backseat."

I'm about to interject and say that comfort doesn't matter, and ask why we would need a backseat, when Zoe glances from Griffin to me. "We'll take my SUV."

"We?" I croak. Griffin looks more alarmed than I've ever seen him.

"I'm going with you. Be ready in thirty minutes." Zoe says in a brisk tone.

She turns and walks down the hall to her bedroom, leaving Griffin and I gaping at each other. We know what the other is thinking.

Is now a good time for a reunion between Zoe and Ashton?

And, is Ash going to die?

____