12. Aurora
12
AURORA
WRECKING BALL, PARTY OF TWO
“T his is the life,” I said with a lazy giggle as I stretched out on the sand. The happy tequila clouds I was floating on let me drift far, far away from my current predicament.
The air was warm and the cares were few as Whitney and Willow lounged beside me. After a few hours of attempted demolition, we had retreated to the beach with margaritas in hand. We hadn’t actually gotten all that much done, but scraping off wallpaper that was older than the Library of Alexandria was far more pleasant with the girls by my side, partaking in my misery.
We blasted music that I hadn’t heard since high school and caught up on all the gossip I had been avoiding. Nothing bonded a group of friends quite like a solid afternoon of shit-talking.
When we had successfully stripped all the wallpaper from two of the upstairs bedrooms and prepared to paint, we decided the rest could wait.
The ocean was calling.
“I can’t remember the last time I was outside this long,” Whitney said. “ I mean, Miles forces me to go on walks every day, but I make them as short as possible. Maybe I’d be outside more if we had a beach house. You’d never get me to go inside.”
“I think this is the most time I’ve spent in the sand since I got here,” I admitted.
Willow sat up and looked at me as if I had just sprouted another head. “ It’s like . . . twenty feet from your house.”
I shrugged and licked the salt rim of my glass. “ I’ve been working on the house almost every waking moment.”
Whitney glanced toward Jack’s house. “ You mean when you’re not canoodling with your beach romance cliché?"
“I do not have a beach romance cliché!” I shrieked. “ Whitney is the only one with a cliché.”
“It’s true, Wander ,” Willow agreed. “ You totally have a cliché.”
“And look how well it turned out for me,” Whitney said, flashing her engagement and wedding rings. “ Don’t fight the clichés. If there’s just one bed, snuggle up and make it count.”
I glanced at the house. “ Is there a cliché for ‘too many bed frames and not enough beds?’”
Whitney laughed. “ That one’s called, ‘ Stop being stubborn and make out with the hot firefighter when he has you on his couch.’”
I immediately regretted telling them all the dirty details of the afternoon.
“I’m not looking to take home any souvenirs. I just want to get the house done and sold, so I’m not broke and I can move on with my life.”
“Back to Colorado ?” Willow asked.
I shrugged. “ Colorado or . . .” My voice trailed off as I stared at the paint palette sky. “ Anywhere . I just want to start over.”
Whitney wiggled closer and laid her head on my shoulder. “ Why not here?”
I didn’t have a good answer for that. Truth be told, I liked being away from Colorado . I had an inkling that I’d have a better relationship with my mom if there was some space between us. Like . . . a whole country’s worth of space.
“I mean, you can work anywhere,” Willow said between sips of her margarita.
I scoffed. “ I’m unemployed and I doubt there are many job openings out here. There’s a grocery store, a ferry terminal, a gas station, and a diner that quadruples as a fish market, pizza place, and coffee shop. Not exactly many prospects. Besides —housing prices are insane. That’s great for me trying to sell this place, but not great if I’m looking for somewhere to live.”
“Live with Jack ,” Willow said, as if it were the obvious answer.
I took another long drink of my margarita to keep chasing those happy tequila clouds instead of lingering on the swirling hurricane of thoughts about my next door neighbor.
I didn’t want to focus on how much I thought about him. How much I craved him. How much I bloomed under the heat of his gaze. How I breathed and let go of my stresses at his every word. How he wasn’t put off by my rancor; he’d simply shake his head and do what he knew I was too prideful and stubborn to ask for help with.
I needed to stop thinking about Jack . It was clear that the two of us were incompatible, regardless of the sparks between us. He wanted forever, and I wanted an orgasm that didn’t come from my housewarming vibrator.
Willow shrieked, snapping me out of the haze. “ You know what we should do?”
Whitney looked at her mostly empty glass. “ Make another round?”
“No! We should have a symbolic burning!” Willow waved her hands wildly as her margarita sloshed out of her glass. “ Build a bonfire and burn all your old plot notes! I saw your notebook in the house. We can throw in something from the house too. You know—a sacrifice to the goddesses of writing and home renovation.”
Whitney peered into Willow’s glass. “ How many shots of tequila did you put in yours, Wills ?”
“Come on, Wander ,” Willow urged. “ Wouldn’t it feel so good?” She smirked. “ Unless you plan on putting those plot notes to use and writing another book.”
I knew she was testing me. I had been holding on to my plotting notebook. It was a sacred text, full of scribblings from books past. It was an artifact. Something that I treasured. It was a log, organizing the moments where I bled out ideas, notions, and epiphanies from the depths of my heart for each book I had crafted.
The last set of handwritten outlines in the notebook belonged to the book that had both made and broken me.
Willow had thrown us into a game of chicken. I didn’t want to burn the notebook. Someday I might want to look back on it or show my kids that I used to be awesome. But more than I wanted that for future me, I wanted the girls to know that present me wasn’t playing around.
I was done.
“Fine,” I clipped as I casually sipped my margarita. “ Burn it.”
Whitney and Willow shared a look. They hadn’t expected me to say yes. Frankly , they were probably hoping it would snap me out of my funk, and I’d be able to write again.
I cocked my head toward the house. “ My ankle is killing me. You’ll have to go get it.”
Willow narrowed her eyes. “ Fine .”
Before I knew it, the girls had dug a pit in the sand and constructed a bonfire. They used old wood we found lying around, and a chair we accidentally broke earlier in the day. It all seemed safe enough to burn, and they had even done the due diligence of making sure fires were allowed on this part of the beach.
My plotting notebook sat in my lap as they danced around the mountain of wood slats and kindling.
It was a good thing the tequila clouds were back because they were the only thing keeping my sour mood at bay.
“Plotting notebook,” Willow said as she held out her hands as if this were some formal passing of the writing torch into the afterlife.
I plopped the heavy tome onto her palms. “ Light it up.”
Willow perched the notebook on the very tip-top of the wood pile while Whitney flicked open a lighter and ignited the kindling at the bottom.
It was an effigy of the old me. Watching it burn seemed poetic. It was exactly how I felt inside.
I was ready to dissolve into ashes and be carried on the wind to whatever was next.
“Cheers!” Whitney said as she plopped down beside me and raised her now-full glass in the air.
“Bottoms up, bitches!” Willow said as she knocked back her drink.
I followed suit and down the rest of mine. Ice clinked in the glass as the flames licked up the bone-dry wood. It would be burned to a crisp in no time.
“What the fuck are you doing?” a deep voice bellowed.
“Oh great,” I muttered as Jack came storming down the beach.
“I told you rest and ice,” he snapped as he stomped through the sand. “ It’s not a difficult concept to grasp, Roar . Rest and ice.”
“Ooooh,” Whitney said. “ Someone’s in trouble.”
Whitney and Willow snickered among themselves.
Jack loomed over the three of us. “ What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I’m doing everything you said,” I clipped. “ I’m resting. I’m elevating. I’m compressing.” I waved my hand in the direction of my wrapped ankle that was propped up on a pile of sand. “ You didn’t specify whether the ice was supposed to be on the rocks or blended.” I shook my glass. “ So I had mine on the rocks.”
Willow and Whitney giggled.
Jack pinched the bridge of his nose, muttering something profane and utterly frustrated under his breath.
“Be gone, fireman." I flicked my wrist away from us. “ We’re perfectly safe. You can get your panties out of a twist.”
“And you’re fucking drunk,” he huffed.
“Not drunk,” I said with a pointed finger. “ I’m happy. You should try it sometime.”
Jack snatched up the mop bucket the girls had used to bring the wood down to the beach and stormed to the water’s edge.
“Girl,” Willow said. “ What I wouldn’t give to be on the receiving end of that attitude. I bet he fucks like an animal.”
Jack thundered back up the beach and dumped a bucket full of ocean water on the base of the fire.
The three of us shrieked as ash exploded in a plume, coating us in gray and black soot.
Without a word, Jack turned and went back for round two. He doused it from the top this time, snuffing out the few remaining flames.
“What the hell is your problem, Wharton ?” I snapped.
He let a caustic laugh fly toward the heavens. “ Right now? You . Now get inside and stop trying to get arrested and burn down my beach.”
“Bonfires out here are allowed,” I shot back. “ We checked. ”
“Yeah? Well , open containers aren’t,” he countered, pointing at our drinks. “ Glass isn’t allowed either. Now get inside.”
Oh, I was about to rip into him. “ Just who do you think you are, telling me what—” I screamed as the world turned upside down and my face smacked straight into Jack’s very toned ass. “ What the hell!”
“I’m taking you inside and you’re going to sit your ass on a couch, put an ice pack on your ankle, and stop making stupid decisions,” Jack snapped. His footfalls were silenced in the sand, but turned heavy and angry as he stomped up the boardwalk.
All the blood was rushing to my head. “ And you just had to throw me over your shoulder like a Neanderthal ? What is wrong with you? I thought firefighters were the nice ones and cops were the assholes?” I had to pause mid-rant to breathe as my head throbbed. “ Aren’t firefighters supposed to cradle people when they carry them out? That’s a lot nicer. This is?—”
“More effective,” Jack said as he let himself into the house. “ Carrying people out of burning buildings isn’t pretty, Roar . You don’t get carried like a bride. You get thrown over a shoulder or dragged out.”
He upended me onto a couch. A dust cloud plumed around us as I was tossed onto the cushion. I coughed and waved it away.
The ice clinked as Jack stuffed my empty margarita glass into my hand. “ Now stop doing things that require rescuing so you don’t have to be dragged out of a burning building or from a fucking riptide.” He charged around the house like an angry bull, grabbing pillows and filling a plastic bag with ice, then wrapping it with a towel. He wedged the pillows under my ankle, elevating it the proper way, then gently draped the ice pack over it.
“Sit. Stay ,” he clipped as if I were a naughty house pet.
I set the glass on the coffee table and propped my hands up like paws. “ Woof .”
Jack rolled his eyes.
Whitney and Willow snuck inside, dumping their glasses in the sink. “ Sorry , Jack ,” they muttered together like contrite children trying to avoid being scolded.
“We’ll clean up the bonfire in the morning,” I said, extending an olive branch.
He just huffed. “ Rest and ice. I’ll take care of it. I don’t want anyone going for a walk and stepping on a rusty nail from that chair you tried to burn.”
He may have had a point . . .
“Goodnight, Jack ,” Whitney said as Jack let himself out.
Willow and Whitney held it together until the door closed, then burst into fits of laughter.
“Girl, we were scared to come into the house,” Willow said. “ The way he hauled your ass off the beach looked like he was about to fuck you into next year.”
“I mean, you guys could have demoed the rest of the house. Wrecking ball, party of two,” Whitney snickered.
I rolled my eyes.
“We’re still burning that notebook,” Willow said with a pointed finger. “ But maybe we’ll do it in the fireplace so Mr . Fire Safety doesn’t spoil the fun.”
I glanced at the fireplace. It was decrepit. Why did a beach house even have a fireplace?
“I haven’t gotten it inspected. It’s probably not safe to use. There could be flammable things in the chimney or something.”
Whitney wandered over and smoothed her hands over the aged bricks. “ It’s gorgeous, though. The house has so much character.”
I let out a sharp breath as the chill from the ice pack began to seep into my bones. “ Too bad the elements don’t care about character.” I looked around. “ I’m just trying to make it sellable. Get all the shit out and clean it up.” With a sigh, I added, “ But I kind of hate the thought of some rental company snatching it up and making it a big, white minimalist box.”
“You know what it needs,” Willow said as she settled into the chair across from me. “ Picture frame molding. Dark colors. There’s so much light from the windows in the front and the balcony facing the ocean. It would almost be too bright if you did the usual beach colors.”
“Something moody,” Whitney said as she trailed her fingers along the bricks. “ Especially with the hardwood floors and the brick fireplace. Who cares if it doesn’t look like a beach mood board? The house deserves better than mermaid statues.”
A laugh slipped as I closed my eyes. “ Maybe in another lifetime. If I were keeping it for myself, sure. But the buyer probably won’t have the same taste.”
“Fuck the buyer,” Willow said. “ It needs built-in bookshelves filled to the brim. And a bar cart. Definitely a bar cart.”
“I’m not buying a bar cart. The more I spend on the renovation, the more I have to pay back out of the profit. Besides , the bar cart wouldn’t stay in the sale. It would have to go with me. And I’m not driving one all the way back to Colorado . I’m pretty sure a bar cart is bigger than my car.”
Whitney let out a curious hum as the sound of stone scraping against stone filled the room.
“If you break it, you have to fix it,” I muttered as I closed my eyes.
“I didn’t break it. It was already broken,” Whitney said. “ This brick has an A on it.”
I whipped around. “ What did you say?”
Whitney was wiggling the loose brick straight out of the fireplace. “ There’s a cursive A stamped into the clay and it feels really light.”
Willow jumped up and peered over Whitney’s shoulder as the brick slid free. “ Holy shit, Wander . This house is awesome.”
“Is there a letter in it?” I asked as I eased off the couch.
“Why would there be a letter in it?” Whitney asked as she turned it over. “ I stand corrected. There’s a letter. So either Wander is psychic, or she knew this was here.”
“I’m going with psychic,” Willow said.
“Nope.” I heaved off the couch and hobbled over. “ We found one in the floorboards. A piece of the flooring was branded with the letter ‘ A .’”
With nimble fingers, Whitney carefully removed the folded piece of paper from the hollowed-out brick. “ Who is ‘we?’” she asked as she handed the letter to me.
“Jack was over here,” I grumbled.
Willow’s eyebrows lifted like she was watching otters mate for life or something. “ Awwww . Our girl’s all grown up and solving mysteries with her hunky neighbor.”
I rolled my eyes. “ No mysteries. No hunk. Just pieces of trash and a really annoying jackass.”
The three of us huddled around the decrepit paper as I held it out for us to read.
“Rowena, my darling. You have the gift of prophecy. Not of telling fortunes or divination, but of shrewd judgment, sapience, insightfulness, and prudence. Your mind is clear like the night sky, but your tongue is sharp like the swords of the knights of King William III .
“With prophecy comes the burden of discernment. Small -minded, self-serving creatures jump at the chance to burn prophets at the stake. They incite riots with ludicrous claims of heresy, masking the truth of the prophet’s claims. The accuser’s self-serving desire for control supersedes the duty of upholding what is good and right. Often , those boisterous, empty words are enough to draw the masses to action.
“You must take care to choose between the right words and the right time. Rarely can you afford the luxury of both. My darling, the villains often win the battle. Do not lose hope. Though it is unpleasant, I would be remiss if I did not forewarn you. The rumors of the trials in Salem are true. Prophets and judges cannot carry out their prudent duty if they no longer have breath in their lungs. The time has come to move in silence. Forces must gather and grow strong for the next campaign. The war is far from over.”
I remembered his words so acutely. They floated in my mind both day and night. I feared the professor I longed for in the most carnal ways was right.
Surely, he was right. He was always right.
If anyone were to take credit for my gift, it was him.
I should have been preparing to go into hiding, but not if he would not be there to hide with me. For what good is half of a heart?
“Holy shit,” Willow whispered. “ Was your great-aunt a witch?”
“No,” I said as I barked out a laugh. “ She sent weird birthday cards sometimes, but definitely not a witch. Besides , the house isn’t as old as the Salem Witch Trials .”
“I don’t think this is a letter,” Whitney said.
My brows wrinkled. “ What do you mean?”
She pointed at the top of the page. “ Who do you know that uses quotation marks in personal correspondence?”
“Writers,” Willow said. “ First person, past tense.” She wiggled her finger around the text. “ It looks like a manuscript, not a letter. If it were a letter, wouldn’t it be written to someone? You know, in the present tense?”
I looked at the letter one more time and tried to remember what Jack had told me about the historic period of the floorboard letter. “ These don’t match.”
“What do you mean?” Willow asked as she peered into the brick to see if there was anything else in there.
“The letter we found in the floorboard mentions things from the late 1700s.”
Whitney worked her bottom lip between her teeth. “ The Salem Witch trials happened at the end of the 1600s.”
“No way were these written by the same adult person a hundred years apart,” I said. “ Besides , the house is old, but it’s not that old.”
“Whoever it was had the hots for her professor,” Willow said. “ That’s always a bestseller.”
Whitney looked at me. “ What was that about no mysteries?”