Chapter 16 #2
“I don’t know. You ever just—want to start over?
Go to a new place, become a completely different person?
Date a ton of people, go out of your element, push yourself a bit?
” I asked. My eyes shuttered. Little by little, my brain quieted.
I could almost see it. A new town, states away. Doing exactly as he’d said not to do.
“I did. For a while. Leave, I mean.”
My eyebrows rose.
“Sometimes dreams are better as dreams. Because once you have them, you realize you were running from something. Not chasing the dream itself.”
My eyes met his. Measured the inhales and exhales when I felt it again: that flutter in the recesses of my chest cavity, like an awakening.
Sometimes dreams are better as dreams.
Which was a shame. Because sometimes, when I went to sleep at night, I’d hoped that I’d dream of him.
One morning, the universe decided to break up my monotony, if only for a little while. I’d hoped for an email from Irene.
I was sorely disappointed. I received a text from someone else instead.
IVAN: I understand picking someone to represent you as a seller is important. Remember that I can always give you the contractual agreement to look at without actually signing.
I chewed on it. Weighed my options while I stripped more wallpaper in the dining room and bubble wrapped the tea set for safekeeping before I decided to respond, fingers trembling—but only a little.
LANDRY: We aren’t taking down any walls
IVAN: Understood
LANDRY: Send me the contract to look at please. I’d like to list sometime in the next couple months
IVAN: Sounds good. I really appreciate you taking the time to think about it.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t think about that first dream while I waited for those three little bubbles to appear, telling me that he was either typing or sending the file.
How that thing, which I still wasn’t so sure had been Hadrian or just a figment of my imagination, had hovered inside the sunroom door while Ivan inched closer, closer.
Instead, I counted to ten, flipped my phone over, and went about my day.
The day Ivan was scheduled to show, Hadrian found me in the library before dawn.
I’d just started hand sanding a piece of baseboard trim, right next to the built-in bookshelves, to see how it lifted.
Emma wouldn’t stir for another few hours, and the idea of uninterrupted silence was too enticing to pass up.
Then again, I’d have plenty of silence when she left today.
She said she’d be gone again for a week this time, maybe a bit more, she wasn’t sure.
I never had asked specifics on the vacation time she’d taken; there were days I’d caught her sitting at her laptop with spreadsheets pulled up.
Others, she’d help organize Aunt Cadence’s paperwork like a madwoman.
Now, the more I thought about it, the more guilty I felt. I knew her position allowed flexibility, but I’d not appreciated that she’d taken her free time—where she could have gone anywhere but here—and come and helped me instead.
I hadn’t invested any real time with Emma. I’d callused myself, expected little, but given little, too.
“You woke early,” Hadrian said.
I sighed. Most of the books had been removed from the shelves, stacked in the hallway, and labeled by genre and shelf position, leaving me with nothing but a wall of emptied built-in bookcases.
I caught the flash of his buttoned shirt, those same rolled sleeves. My mouth went dry. As if my midnight ramblings somehow amplified how very human he looked in the morning light.
Completely human, just as he’d been in that room the first time I saw him. The picture from the library come to life, save for that one thing I couldn’t put my finger on.
I paused my hand sanding. “How come you don’t look like Krampus right now?”
He glared at me.
“Do you know what Krampus is?” A grin slithered over my mouth.
“No. And I’m afraid I do not wish to.” He took a seat on the floor next to me. His knee almost touched mine. If I bent to the left, they’d probably touch. “Here I was, thinking you might have been happy to speak to a beautiful face instead of a monster.”
I faced the bookcase. He didn’t know how right he was. Still, it worried me, the changing. First it had been what he’d been able to hear—and now this?
“Why is that, do you think?” I flipped the sandpaper over and started on the corner of the bookcase. The paint dusted away easily enough. If only the baseboards were the same.
“I do not know all the answers, unfortunately.”
“Do you think it’s being out of the room?” Whatever had locked him in, maybe?
“Perhaps. Here.” He reached over and slipped the sandpaper out of my hand. I don’t know why I let him, but I did. He leaned in with all his weight and gave the sandpaper two solid swipes. The baseboard came away stripped.
I glowered. My little patch looked pitiful in comparison.
“And here I was, thinking you were just a creature of night. You missed your calling, Hadrian. Should’ve been a handyman.”
His eyes—mismatched in color, one gray and one yellow—met mine. “Is that so?”
“You’re meant for fine, hard labor with muscle like that.
” I took my sandpaper back. And that wasn’t because the flex of his triceps branded itself into my memory.
Teasing, I gave a wry look. “You know, when you’re not stalking around the house, brooding like a creepy boogeyman, I could use the extra set of hands. ”
His jaw clenched. “I would have you know, brooding is a full-time job.”
“Is that so?”
“Someone has to count the cobwebs at night. Hang from the rafters and stare longingly at the moon. Follow an unsuspecting woman down the hallway in case danger should arise.”
I pictured Hadrian wearing a cape, like Dracula. “Very vampiric of you,” I goaded. “Do you flinch at garlic, too?”
He huffed. “I abhor garlic.” Then, “I pay no mind to physical labor, if you must know. I’d much rather make money from something that stations itself and doesn’t require my constant attention.”
A businessman to his core, I thought, the obituary coming to mind. When I said as much, his nose wrinkled. “And you know this how?”
“Believe it or not, women read in this day and age.”
His eyes rolled. “I meant from where did you read it.”
I almost preened at his attempted insult. Instead, my expression softened. I thought of his photograph. Everything that I hadn’t found yet in order to hold up our deal.
I situated myself to face him. “I may have snooped through the Colleton library. Found a few articles and pictures of you, for proof you weren’t lying to me. That you did exist at one point.”
An evil grin curled over his mouth. He looked almost like a hyena. My stomach dropped—not out of fear, but anticipation. “Ah. And what did you find? Portrait wise?”
“Nothing outstanding.” I felt like this was a test. I couldn’t stifle the tingle that started at the base of my spine.
“Is this why you have a printed picture of me at thirty-three hidden inside your nightstand?”
My breath caught. “You didn’t!” I winced, then lowered my voice and bent forward. “You went through my things?”
“It was not just you, dearest. I may have gone through much of your aunt’s things, too.” He shrugged and looked at me from under his lashes, which were the richest of honeyed browns. “But I suppose everything is yours now.”
The sandpaper crinkled in my hand. My face immediately lit on fire. All I could think of was my nightstand. Dumbly, I said, “What.”
“I told you, I roam.” His voice took on a rough quality, smug to the point of a rumble.
Looking at Hadrian felt—too susceptible. Because I didn’t know what to feel quite yet. Or if what I was feeling was even okay.
I shoved at the mental image of Hadrian, either in his creature form or as himself, snooping. In his defense, I should have thought about how he could go through anything in the house. Heat curled in my chest at the thought of him rifling through the closets, drawers, my bags. All of my things.
He must have seen the tortured look I tried to hide, because he said, “I’d be wary of looking at my portrait too much before you fall asleep. You might dream of things you wouldn’t wish to.”
His expression suggested anything but unpleasant dreams.
I was going to light on fire. Right here. Nothing but charred rug would be left in my wake.
“Do not look so near to death, Landry. I find it quite enthralling. It’s flattering that you find me so attractive, even with the lovely set of horns I possess from time to time.
” He bumped his knee against mine. “Who knows, next time I think I should fulfill this character you’ve painted me as and grab your wrist from beneath the bed instead of just crawl out from under it. ”
The thought of him—grabbing my wrist—pulling me down—I shouldn’t have blushed at the thought, shouldn’t have started to picture him with slightly parted lips and—
“I’ll hit you with a lamp,” I said, but it was too wispy to be a threat, “if you try to do that.”
He laughed. Actually laughed, deep from his chest—the sound was beautifully intoxicating. Like he knew what I was picturing. It only electrified the air, the space he took up, emphasized the looseness to his shoulders and the dip of his arms, the swoop of his thighs.
I tried to straighten, to puff up a bit.
Anything to quell the burn now crawling up my spine.
“All right, since you’re so keen on snooping through people’s things, did my aunt have anything to do with you being trapped here?
Did you find anything?” My words cracked.
I cleared my throat and scooted back until the crushed velvet of the armchair pressed between my shoulder blades. That should be enough distance.
His expression solidified a bit. “No, it was not her. I heard her once or twice in more recent years—your aunt, I presume—while I was confined, but not much else.”
“Who, then? Trapped you?”