Chapter Seven
T ony’s working on his Toyota. It’s not an ’07 Camry, which is pretty much the only thing in its favor right now. Still, he can make it run smooth again with a bit of elbow grease. The first thing he does is take out the fuel pump and clean it up. Corollas get that—janky fuel pumps. This is Tony’s second pump, and he hopes some TLC can keep it running a while longer without replacing it. Every repair on a twenty-year-old car is a gamble as to whether it’s worth it, so the less parts he replaces the better Tony can justify it to himself.
“You ever think maybe buying a new car would be cheaper than all the money you spend on repairs?” Charlie asks mildly.
They’re sitting on the stool by the workbench, spinning circles while they wait for Tony’s half day to end and Daniel to pick them up to go hiking.
“No one should buy a new car,” Tony says to the inner workings of the Corolla.
He can practically hear Charlie rolling their eyes. “Fine, then. There are plenty of functioning used cars out there not in need of a complete overhaul every other month.”
“It’s not a complete overhaul; it’s only a few fixes.” Tony ignores the fact that he’s switched out most of the major parts of his car at least once.
The stool squeaks as Charlie twists in another circle. “Tony. My dude. Have you heard of the ship of Theseus?”
“Yeah, Charlie. I was in the same high school classes as you. My car is the same as it’s ever been.”
He ignores Charlie’s muttered, “I know, that’s the problem.”
Cleaning the fuel pump should fix the awkward moment when the car protests being put in reverse and the way it complains about accelerating too fast. Now, Tony needs to switch out the wiper pads for the squeaky windshield wipers and oil the ignition slot. It’s fine. It’s only another few minutes of work.
He ignores steadfastly that if he were getting paid for the amount of work he puts into this car, he’d probably recommend trading up. When the reception door opens slowly, he’s just started peeling off the old wiper pads.
Lisa stands in the doorway, waiting for Blake, who’s dawdling in the front office, to catch up. Tony can barely hear his voice, talking to Gianna out of his line of sight.
“That’s rough,” Blake says.
“It’s whatever,” Gianna answers.
Tony rolls his eyes.
“No, seriously.” Blake rarely sounds so earnest and serious. “I nearly dropped out of college sophomore year because picking a major stressed me out, I can’t imagine doing it all with a baby.”
As if on cue, Lia gurgles, which makes Tony smile. He can picture her happy little face, but he doesn’t want to come around from behind the car right now to let Gianna know he’s listening.
“Well, I’ll make it work,” Gianna says staunchly.
Tony wonders what she’ll do now that one of the classes she needs for her major might not happen due to unforeseen stabbing.
“Anyway, I can always pick up shifts here if things get tight,” Gianna adds. “It’s a great place to study between customers.”
This is news to Tony. He wonders how she would feel about picking up the extra shifts he took on so she could go to class. He doesn’t want them or need the half pay he gets for them. Much like her, he lives with their parents. He knows for a fact Gianna doesn’t have extra expenses as their parents cover all of Lia’s food and clothing. So, beyond future savings, the money she earns here doesn’t impact her life too much. Great to hear the business he works himself to the bone for means fuck-all to her besides a place to study.
“That’s cool,” Blake says.
“Yeah. Anyway. I gotta go. Have fun on your hike.”
“Thanks.” Blake is letting the hotter air from the front office into the garage, and Tony wishes he would wrap this conversation up already. “Hey, maybe next time you and Lia can come.”
Tony grits his teeth as he rummages through the storage containers against the wall in search of new wiper pads. The door to the front slides closed behind Lisa and Blake while he’s looking.
An engine revs in the lot, and Tony breathes out in relief. It means Gianna and Lia have taken off for the day. As soon as Daniel gets here, Tony can lock up and start his weekend.
“Your niece is the cutest baby on the eastern seafront,” Blake announces.
Tony squints. “I mean, I know, but didn’t your brother have a baby a month ago?”
“I said what I said. We’re not driving in that, are we?”
“My car is perfectly fine and perfectly roadworthy.”
No one answers.
“Not that any of you have any idea what you’re talking about,” he continues, “because I am the only mechanic in the room. But Daniel’s picking us up.”
“Oh, thank god,” Lisa says much too fast.
Tony shoots her a middle finger over the top of the car.
Lisa blows a raspberry in his direction. “When are we heading out?”
“Whenever he gets here. He had a thing at work today, but he’ll be here any minute.”
“It’s Saturday,” Charlie points out. “He’s a professor, right? What’s he got to do today?”
Tony bites the inside of his cheek until it hurts enough to distract him from his brain. “There was, uh… A thing happened. Um. One of the Lobell professors was found stabbed in her office on Monday. Daniel did extra office hours for all his traumatized students this morning.”
In point of fact, Daniel did extra office hours for one Lily Peterson today, by himself with no one else there.
Tony was violently against this course of action. They spent half of Thursday night debating what to do with the knife taped to the door. Tony pried it off carefully, wearing a pair of work gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints. As they talked, it sat on the table between them, a silent fourth participant in the conversation. Daniel and Colette were against calling detective Taylor. She already didn’t trust them and was more likely to arrest them for having the murder weapon than to take them seriously.
When Tony made the mistake of pointing out Lily was markedly absent from the memorial while her boyfriend attended without her, Daniel decided he needed to talk to her. Colette and Tony argued that was dangerously close to investigating the crime, and Daniel argued Lily was, in his opinion, definitely not the killer, just a troubled student.
Unfortunately, Daniel is chronically good at arguing. All that practice he gets doing it with his own brain pays off. He reminded them they didn’t know the knife was the murder weapon, and they didn’t know Lily was the one who left it there. Both were, at most, conjecture, and even if Detective Taylor was inclined to believe they hadn’t planted the knife themselves, they had nothing to offer but guesswork.
The compromise they reached was that Daniel would talk to Lily and try to see whether she was a crazed murderer, and he would check in via text every half hour. So far, he has. The second compromise Daniel and Tony made after Colette went downstairs to bed was to triple-check all the locks and not talk about how long they took to fall asleep.
Tony checks his phone now. Daniel texted fifteen minutes ago. In the wake of his announcement about the newest violent crime to shock the Lobell community, the garage is blissfully silent except for the satisfying tear of plastic backing off the new wiper pads as Tony gets them ready.
“Holy fuck,” Blake says, which confirms that Gianna somehow didn’t find this information noteworthy while they were catching up.
Charlie asks, “Is your sister okay?”
Carefully, Tony aligns the new pad on the wiper and sticks it on, pressing down to make sure it adheres properly. “You heard her; she’s fine.” It’s what she would say. It’s what she’s been saying, but it tastes like a lie on his tongue.
“She can’t catch a break,” Blake says, and Tony emerges from behind the car to see Blake shaking his head. “First, that asshole professor who knocked her up, now this…”
Tony snorts. “Yeah, she was actually taking a class with this one, too, believe it or not.”
“Wow. Is there anything we can do? To, like, help?”
Because he might as well while he’s at it, Tony changes out the pad on the rear wiper. “I’m gonna be honest,” he says, a feat he can only manage with his back turned. “She’s not telling me what she needs right now, so unless you’re down to babysit, I don’t know how. I appreciate the offer though.”
It’s quiet long enough for Tony to sort the wiper.
Tentatively, Lisa asks, “She’s…not talking to you?”
Tony wipes his hands off on a rag. He’s out of things to do with the car and also out of reasons not to look at his friends. “She’s talking to me. She’s not mad or anything. She’s not…she isn’t telling me if anything’s up.”
“Maybe nothing’s up,” Blake suggests.
Charlie and Lisa both skewer him with looks.
“Maybe she doesn’t want to add more to your load,” Charlie suggests.
“What load?” Tony fishes his phone out of his pocket to check how far away Daniel is. He doesn’t want to talk about this in the garage. He’s the only one here, sure. Gianna leaving means they’re closed officially, and no one else will come in on their day off. It still feels weird, like his dad will suddenly pop out from under a car to ask a semi-pointed question about who made Tony’s lunch today.
Lisa’s voice is so kind it grates on Tony’s last nerve. “You’ve all been through a lot this year. First the baby, and I mean, you came out. That’s huge. Maybe she wants to give you space.”
“Don’t forget all the murder,” Charlie adds. “Also, pretty significant events.”
“Right.” Lisa pulls a face. “How could I.”
“Did I come out? Must have missed that.” Tony hates himself as soon as he’s said it. He chose not to say anything in as many words, which is his own way of doing things, and he doesn’t regret it. It still stings that this is the first time his friends mention it.
Charlie sighs, obviously done with his shit.
It’s fair. They’ve put up with more of it than most people through the years. Before Daniel came along, they were the only person who could make an informed guess about where Tony stood on the Kinsey scale (largely because they were the one who explained the Kinsey scale to him in the first place).
“That’s up to you,” Charlie says. “We can’t decide for you. If you want to…change the way we perceive you, you’re gonna have to use your words.”
Tony rubs a hand across his face. “Sorry. Sorry. I—I didn’t think I’d have to figure out the right words.”
“Because you didn’t know?” Lisa doesn’t sound curious or angry or anything at all, and it’s what makes answering bearable.
“No, I knew. I didn’t feel strongly about anyone, and it was never—it was never something real enough to be worth all the fuss.”
He catches the look Blake and Charlie shoot each other.
“Does Daniel know he’s worth the fuss?” Lisa asks.
Unbidden, a smile stretches across Tony’s face. He can’t help it.
“Gross,” Blake mutters. “He’d better know.”
Thankfully, Daniel chooses that moment to pull up in the lot and honk his horn. Tony sets about closing up the shop.
Lisa, Blake, and Charlie crowd into the back seat of Daniel’s car, leaving Tony the front. He doesn’t think much of it, sliding into place as usual. If they were alone, he’d lean over and kiss Daniel hello. As it is, he smiles and physically restrains himself from asking about Lily explicitly.
“All okay?” he says instead.
Daniel shrugs.
“Tony told us about your colleague,” Lisa says.
With everyone in the back seat peering at him in obvious concern, Daniel shrinks in on himself.
“Yeah. It’s been a lot this week. Where are we headed?”
Tony takes Daniel’s phone out of its holder, types in the security pin (it’s Worf’s birthday; Daniel is a softie), and enters the address into Google maps.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” Tony warns his friends. “It’s not a real hike. We’re doing Overlook Mountain.”
“Wow,” Daniel says. “And you call me an elitist?”
“You don’t have real hiking shoes.” Tony’s mostly kidding. A hike is a hike, and Daniel’s shoes will be fine either way. While Overlook Mountain is steep as fuck, especially to start with, it’s a pleasant enough hike for beginners and athletes alike. He just enjoys messing with Daniel.
Daniel glances down at his sneakers and doesn’t answer.
“Overlook Mountain is more than enough for me. It’s two p.m., and we can’t do too much more today.” Blake’s not wrong, but he also hates most forms of exercise passionately.
Charlie saves Tony from having to point that out. “And you want your post-hike beer. Provided by Blake G, which is why he can’t be here with us.”
“We’ll definitely be done in time for that.”
It’s a great day for it, clear skies and fresh air, not as oppressively hot and humid as it sometimes gets in September. If it were a little warmer, it would be unbearable as there’s so little shade, but the worst of it is the steep incline.
“This isn’t a real hike, huh?” Daniel huffs part of the way through, his cheeks now red and his hair starting to stick to the back of his neck with sweat. Tony still thinks he looks good, which is further proof of how very gone Tony is on him.
“No.” Tony only keeps his face straight because he’s wearing sunglasses, and Daniel can’t see his eyes. “It doesn’t count unless you need some rope and mountaineering equipment.”
“Oh, fuck you.” Daniel stomps ahead in mock fury.
Tony watches him go with no small pleasure.
He draws to a halt soon enough, anyway, at the ruins of the old Overlook Hotel. They’re more overgrown than the last time Tony was here, and the end of a summer season means jackass tourists have left trash in all the corners.
The ruins still make something ache in Tony’s chest.
“Never seen anything like this in the US.” Daniel surveys the surroundings quietly, taking it in the way he does with things he thinks are beautiful. Tony’s had that look directed at him, and it makes his heartrate pick up.
Blake, heedless of nature’s beauty and the awe it inspires in other people, walks right past them and through the door leading to nothing but rocks and dust.
“Never seen them in Europe,” Tony murmurs.
Tony sometimes wonders if Daniel would bring him to one of his conferences farther away or if they could go somewhere together to relax, like a real couple.
Daniel takes a deep drag from his water bottle. “It’s different. When I was in France, the ruins were…they’re a tourist attraction, you know? To remember history by.”
Tony swallows. “Ruins around here are just failures.” He thinks of downtown Kingston, of all the historic buildings in different states of disrepair. As proud as people are of being part of Kingston, no one’s pumping money into making it a real destination.
“It’s not a failure. It’s something manmade that’s been given back to nature.”
Tony could say something about the empty soda bottles in the corner, the paper napkins piled up and mixed in with the dried leaves. He can’t quite find the words, though, and then Charlie asks Daniel about Lobell and his work. Daniel steps off and into the ruins, and Tony follows.
Daniel talks about Lily as they walk on. Lisa and Charlie asked, so he explains the story so far in broad strokes. Tony tunes out the parts he knows already and only begins actively listening when Daniel describes this morning’s events.
“It was strange. She was upset all week, and today, it seemed suddenly as if she hadn’t even processed that she found a woman bleeding out on the floor of the science building. She kept asking me about her grade.”
“It’s the second week,” Charlie says. “How would she have a grade?”
“Oh, she took the class last year.” Daniel waves his hand dismissively. “She dropped out of the semester before handing in the final paper, so it counts as a flunked class on her transcript. She managed to make up the rest over the summer, but that one class wasn’t available. I think she’s hoping now the professor’s…gone, someone will reconsider. It was wild, actually. She was talking a mile a minute and kept laughing about the idea.”
“That’s cold,” Charlie says.
Tony frowns to himself. It doesn’t add up, not when two days ago, she was so grief-stricken she couldn’t attend the memorial, according to her boyfriend. But why would she pretend not to feel anything in front of Daniel? Perhaps as a smokescreen to hide her guilt after killing someone and taping the murder weapon to Daniel’s door? That seems unnecessarily complicated. To make him think she’s as stable and ready for the new semester as he did a week ago? Maybe Sean was reading her wrong on the day of the memorial. Maybe her reasons for not attending had nothing to do with grief and everything to do with egotism.
Tony thinks of how Lily looked in the rearview mirror of his car, all bloodshot eyes and panic.
“I wouldn’t call it cold,” he says. “It sounds like she’s a mess right now. Probably doesn’t know what she’s doing.” Leaving threatening messages and weapons on people’s doors, for example.
Daniel sighs. He’s caught the subtext. “I know, right? I tried to convince her to go to counseling, but she kept saying it was fine.”
Tony shakes his head to himself out of Daniel’s line of sight. So, Lily gave him nothing, and Daniel went to his go-to, trying to herd his students to counseling as if counseling has any more appointments left to give. Tony wonders if Daniel’s ever thought of going himself, if they really can help. He likes to think they can. Someday, when Gianna gets her degree done, she’ll be the one with an overcrowded schedule and not much she can do besides listen to other people’s troubles. He can barely imagine it.
“Well,” Lisa says. “It’s been less than a week. I think her mental health will stabilize if you give her some more time.”
Tony doubts it after everything he’s seen and heard about Lily, but it’s a nice thought.
“Yeah. You’re probably right,” Daniel rubs across his forehead with his shirtsleeve. “Something happens, and then you get a million emails about it, and everything seems so important.”
Tony turns to look over his shoulder at Daniel. “Like the stupid spring festival thing last semester, when I had to stop you from driving to campus in the middle of the night?”
“Right. Right, right. Yeah, nothing is as urgent as a three a.m. email makes it sound. I guess I feel responsible for her.”
Biting down on the comment that Daniel feels responsible for everything, most especially for students, Tony walks on ahead. It won’t do any good to tell Daniel he takes on too much—that he can’t save people from themselves, not Andrew Clayfield and not Lily Peterson. It will do even less good to tell Daniel he shouldn’t be worried about saving them from themselves. He should be worried about saving himself from them if the knife on the door is any indication. Maybe Tony should make Colette talk to Daniel about her approach to advising students since it sounds like she has a healthier distance when it comes to Sean.
“I don’t know.” Lisa is pensive, probably thinking about her own students and how different that would be. She’d have to plan lessons about this kind of stuff. Eighth grade is too young to be left alone with it. “This is two murders in one college in less than a year. Sounds urgent. But the mental health stuff takes time. You can’t fix it for her in one advising session.”
She doesn’t intend it, but Lisa’s words comfort Tony a little. Maybe it’s okay to not be okay. He lets the conversation pass him by as they walk farther up the trail, lets himself be still and quiet as he takes in all the green around them, the crunch of the gravel under his feet.
They reach the top in good time. Blake immediately groans in relief and falls into a seat on a boulder overlooking the river. What a drama queen.
Charlie unbuckles their backpack and takes out some water, and Lisa follows suit.
Tony makes for the water tower.
His feet still itch, and he can’t quite settle down. He doesn’t want to sit and talk about how nice the view is. He wants to keep going, even if it’s on a manmade structure instead of through the woods.
Daniel follows him.
They climb in silence, only their footfalls on the steps and the wind in the trees around them. Tony’s out of breath when they reach the top, which is as good a reason as any to stay quiet as he leans on the railing.
Coming up to stand beside him, Daniel lets their elbows brush together. He offers Tony some water, and Tony takes it, realizing he’s parched.
“So. No dice with Lily?”
Daniel shakes his head. “Nothing. I really don’t think it was her.”
“The murder or the knife?”
“Well…both? I mean, whoever did one did the other.”
“We don’t know that.” Tony reminds Daniel of his own argument, maybe a little snidely.
Daniel sighs. “Okay, you got me. Look, even if Lily did do both, I don’t think I’m in any danger from her.”
“And you don’t think she did it.”
“I think she’s upset and confused, and if she’s a danger to anyone, it’s herself.”
“Which isn’t something you can live with.”
There’s no answer forthcoming, but Daniel leans more heavily into Tony’s space.
“Is it worth me pointing out that we didn’t think we were in any danger from Stacy either?”
“It’s always worth making a good point.”
Tony glares.
“I promise I had my hand on my phone to dial 911 every minute of the meeting today. I’m not taking this lightly, Tony. I just…” Daniel sighs in frustration. “I let her down last year. I can’t do it again.”
“I wish I could say I didn’t understand.” Tony’s spent much of the last year feeling like he let someone down, be it Gianna because he didn’t see earlier what was happening to her, his parents for not telling them about it sooner, or Daniel for not being outer and prouder with him.
“So what do we do with the knife?” Daniel asks,
“I still think we need to tell Detective Taylor. At the very least, it’s a threat.”
“Maybe.”
“Think about it?”
“Yeah.”
“And not to pressure you,” Tony adds, “but maybe think about it fast? The longer you take to tell her, the worse it will seem.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Daniel looks away. Tony knows he’s not going to call the detective. “Are you holding up okay? I know this is asking a lot of you, on top of everything.”
Tony looks out over the valley. The hills beneath them are still green, dark and deep. They haven’t begun to turn the rich cornucopia of orange, yellow, and red the next few weeks will produce. Beyond the forest, the Hudson glitters in the distance.
“Did you go to the ocean much in California?” Tony asks.
Daniel shrugs. “Sometimes, I guess. It’s pretty cold around the Bay Area, so we didn’t do a whole lot of swimming there.”
“That’s a shame.”
“Eh.” Daniel makes a weighing motion with his hands. “I went a few times when I was in undergrad in LA. I ended up getting knocked on my ass—the waves out there were so intense. Not a fun time.”
“That tracks. I can picture baby Daniel refusing to have fun at the beach.”
“What can I say?” Daniel’s grinning his most self-satisfied grin, the one Tony doesn’t want to admit he finds seductive. Tony can hear it in his voice, though they’re both looking toward the Hudson and not at each other. “I’m a river guy.”
Tony shakes his head in mock consternation. The effect is probably ruined. He can’t quite pull his eyes away from the view, the broad expanse of the Hudson snaking its way past the forests lining the banks. “It always looks so calm, this far away.”
“That’s what I’m saying. The Hudson’s way calmer than the ocean. They’re both nice to look at, but I’m partial to the river.”
“Sure,” Tony agrees. “I mean…” He loses the words for what he’s trying to say.
Daniel turns away from the river and focuses on Tony entirely.
With substantial effort, Tony makes himself look Daniel in the eye. Usually, he loves this—the way Daniel looks at him, the clarity he gets from being with Daniel. But when he’s feeling unsure, or worse yet, unmoored, the clarity with which Daniel sees him can be hard to take.
“You think the Hudson’s safe and placid, right?” Tony asks. “I mean, I know you don’t. You think too much, but…people think so.”
“Sure.” Daniel nods slowly.
“But then when you get close, the water’s way too deep, or it’s polluted, or you’re right next to a shipping route, and the waves might drag you into a motor or something.”
“Okay.” Daniel drags the word out, clearly unsure where Tony’s going with this. “No skinny-dipping in the river. Got it.”
For a moment, Tony lets the thought distract him. There are places they could go for a swim, and the idea of Daniel’s pale shoulders and back freckling under the late autumn sun as they sneak into the water is unreasonably tempting. It sounds like an escape.
“I mean, we could—” he starts but then stops. “Um. No, what I mean is, the water doesn’t choose that, does it? The way some bits turn to poison, or the way the boats drag it in and it turns treacherous.”
“No.” Tony’s pretty sure Daniel isn’t saying a bunch of pedantic things about how water isn’t sentient and can’t choose things.
“I feel the same, sometimes. Like someone or something else came along and made me into something wrong and poisonous or pushed me up against some rocks or a boat until I had to give way and break into pieces.”
One of Daniel’s broad hands rests casually on the railing of the fire tower. “Fluids don’t break,” he says. It’s exactly the sort of comment Tony thinks Daniel would make, except his voice is soft and kind. “They reform themselves over and over, and if you give the water a chance, it can clean itself of any poison.”
Tony looks out over the Hudson again and lets his hand rest on the railing next to Daniel’s. “It’s so hard though.” Tony’s voice cracks a little, making his cheeks heat. “To keep putting yourself together again.”
In an instant, Daniel’s hand covers his, warm and comforting. “I know.”
He doesn’t add anything else, but he stands there, body angled toward Tony, looking over the Hudson with his hand resting gently on Tony’s until the sound of hiking boots on the metal rungs of the tower draws them apart.
There’s no reason Tony shouldn’t let himself keep touching Daniel. His friends all know. They talked about it two hours ago—how they all know. But something holds him back. Something keeps him a hand’s breadth away from Daniel, where people in his life before Daniel entered it might see.
Tony wonders if it would be different if he were with a woman. If there was never anything to keep…not hidden, precisely, but unspoken. He tries to picture it, having a girl he goes out with sometimes. Could he hold her hand in public? Could he kiss her on the cheek? On the lips?
He could. He’s sure he could. Absolutely. It would be easy because it would be a lie. It wouldn’t mean anything, and it wouldn’t reveal anything about Tony and who he is and what he wants.
He wonders when it got so hard for him to be honest about these things.
For a long time, he thought he was waiting, biding his time. But along the way, he turned himself into someone who hides away every vulnerable part of himself. Every part of himself that makes him feel , whether it’s Daniel, or the panic still thick in his chest at the thought of what happened in January when they both nearly died. When Daniel nearly hit the harsh waters of the Hudson and somehow, Tony was the one who dashed up against the rocks and decided not to put himself back together for months on end because no one but Daniel could see he needed to.
You gotta work on this, Anthony , he thinks to himself. Daniel deserves better .
“So, college man,” Charlie says, having reached the top at last. “What do you think of hiking?”
Daniel turns away from Tony with an easy laugh. “You know, some super pretentious people go on and on about the healing power of nature and how we need to get out there and forget our phones.”
He pauses a second for dramatic effect, and Tony knows before he says it, what Daniel’s going to say.
“I hate that they’re right.”
The group collapses into giggles, and they stay there for a while, looking out at the forest beneath them.