Chapter 24
Chapter Twenty-Four
After six minutes of pacing and texting furiously while she walked, I’d managed to wrangle Emma back into the house. Now, both hands were splayed as we sat on the couch, like she’d been trying to keep a child from eating a battery they’d found lying on the floor.
“I’m not mad,” Emma said. “I just wanna know.”
She also kept talking in partial sentences. I could almost see the smoke billowing out of her ears. Granted, I understood. At the very least, Hadrian had looked completely human tonight—which was a blessing, because explaining horns and teeth would have been difficult.
“Who that man is,” Another pause. She puckered her mouth into duck-lips, tilted her head, and raised one eyebrow. Then, she held up a finger. “For one. Two,” another finger went up. “Why is he so attractive. Three. Where did he come from?”
I sat with my hands pinned between my knees. A low vibrating sound came from her pocket. She retrieved her phone, texted in quick, snapping taps. “Um. Would you believe me if I told you he just kind of fell out of the closet one day—”
“I am not joking! Landry May Frederick! Focus!” She faced her screen away from me. It buzzed again.
“Yes, Mom!” I exclaimed with just as much enthusiasm.
She pointed a finger at me. The morning sun did wonders for her eyes. Almost burnt auburn with a gold ring around the outside. “You were dry humping a hot man in our living room.”
“My living room.” I didn’t say it with venom. Just to poke her.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not sure you’re cognitively able to own a home when you have men like that hiding in your life. You never told me!” She flung her arms wide. One hand smacked the window frame. I knew she was serious, because she didn’t so much as wince.
“Like—WHY? How? Where did you meet him?” She leaned across the table, eyebrows so high they nearly blended with her hairline.
“I swear on our dad’s grave, if he’s a serial killer—no, scratch that, even something as low as not putting his own shopping cart away, I’m going to bury him in the backyard and plant squash over his plot before fall. ”
“They would have actually needed to be planted about two months ago—”
“You get the point!”
“I don’t think it’s that serious, Em.” I kept my tone gentle. Now I was using the placating hands. She trembled like Donald The Chihuahua used to. “He’s not—”
My throat clogged. He’s not a bad guy insinuated he had not, in fact, killed someone. Or multiple someones.
“—going to hurt me,” is what I settled on instead.
“Hurt is subjective.” A flash behind her eyes, something to hide.
My posture softened. I leaned my elbows onto the table. As if making myself smaller would allow Emma to open up.
“Is this about, you know. Your mom?” I asked.
The room grew so quiet, I heard the air settle around us. The question hung like a swaying chandelier—any moment, that final wire holding it in place would snap and it would crash to the floor.
“No,” she breathed. Her pointer finger traced an idle path around the edges of her hand, where tan met porcelain. “I just want to make sure you’re making good choices and not going out and picking up a random off the street—”
“You’re changing the subject.” I reached out and started tracing a path, too.
When we were young, we would use our fingers as racecars and see which of us could complete as many laps as possible on her macules before the other.
I’d take a thigh, she’d take the other thigh.
We’d end in a fit of giggles and start over again.
A sigh. “My mom should have left Vince a long time ago.”
“He’ll get the house,” I muttered. My finger stopped tracing. Instead, I glared at the table. “He’ll get the cars. The kids are all gone. No child support. She’ll be kicked.”
Emma nodded. “I stopped by before I left.”
“How was she?”
“Terrible. Looked like she’d gotten stung by a bee and had an allergic reaction.
For every bag she packed, she wrote down something on a list. I read it.
” Emma leaned back in her chair and smiled.
“One said, ‘Pour instant potatoes in front yard.’ Another, ‘Slash three tires, not all four, insurance won’t cover it.’ ”
“A revenge list?”
“A very long revenge list.”
“Sounds like she’s handling it a little better than my mom did.” I thought of the bottles that had slowly piled up in the corner of her bedroom after my father left. “Is there anything I can do?”
She shook her head. “Not a thing. I offered to let her stay at my place. She agreed to one week and that’s it. Said she needed to do this on her own.”
“Well—”
The front door slammed open. The rattle of the stained-glass sheets made both Emma and I swivel in our seats. I really needed to start locking the front door.
Sayer stomped into the living room, a basket in his arms. A single tasseled kazoo poked out, lined with four bags of candy and a sign, taped to a popsicle stick, that read, Congratulations! in arching, rainbowed font.
“Surprise!” He held the basket in the air. His glasses slid down his nose. He walked to the island and dropped his present in the center of it. “I thought this would be fitting.”
“I thought—y-you aren’t supposed to be here?” I stuttered. I stood and examined the basket. Confetti lined the bottom. “What is this?”
Sayer removed his glasses, wiped them on his shirt, then pushed them back into place. “For you. Who else?”
I looked back to Emma. She smiled.
It clicked.
“You didn’t,” I muttered. “Did you tell him? It’s been thirty minutes.”
“Of course. I told him as soon as I went outside.” She got up and hugged me from behind, nuzzling her chin into my shoulder. “I knew you wouldn’t. Thankfully, he was already on the way.”
“Let go of me, traitor.”
“What’s he look like?” Sayer asked. He squinted, lips puckered. He leaned against the island and propped his chin in his hand. “Tall? Brooding? Does he smolder?” Sayer proceeded to smolder.
I covered my eyes. “This is excessive.”
“Did you have sex?”
“No! We did not!”
“Have you?”
“What are we, high schoolers?”
“Adults can gossip, too, Landry. Besides. I need to know what this man’s like. It’s not often I see you flush so pink.”
I pulled my shirt neck up immediately and glared at him. Then Emma. “You two are insufferable.” All I could think about was how Hadrian was probably eavesdropping and basking in my embarrassment.
I spotted a bag of peanut butter–filled pretzels in the basket.
Eyeing both of them, I snatched it up, then walked to the living room. “I will tell you about him on one condition.”
Sayer gasped. “Yes. Whatever it is.” He strode after me. “You would have told me anyway, but I like to humor you. I hope you know that.”
“You help me with the office and tell me why you’re here when you said you wouldn’t be.” Now, it was my turn to give an expectant look. “I’ll pay you both extra, of course. For listening to my woes.”
“My companionship is free. Off with the money.”
I ripped the bag open. Emma had trailed me, hand extended. She shoveled what I offered into her mouth. Crunched loudly. “I don’t need your money, either, Frederick. We help because we love you. And you let me use your Wi-Fi because mine sucks.”
“Fine,” I conceded.
Over Sayer’s shoulder, in the kitchen hallway to the left, a flicker of movement. Like a shoulder hiding behind a wall.
Before, I’d have felt a swell of discomfort. Or even dread. Now, it was only a warmth that started in my toes and buried itself in my blood before riding all the way to my chest.
I didn’t want to get used to the idea of him being here.
But I was starting to.
The next few days passed in a quiet calm—so much so, that I was starting to get nervous. One, because Hadrian had visited at night, each night, at his normal hour. The second reason made my skin itch.
My dad still hadn’t called me back. And Mom’s time limit was looming.
“Are you waiting for the Pentagon to call you?” Sayer heaved. “I heard they’re hiring. They would pay a lot more than—pulling—bushes.” He yanked at a dead rosebush in the front yard.
I suppose I was attached to my phone like Velcro this morning.
“You offered to help and wouldn’t take money. It’s not my fault.” I set my phone on the porch railing.
“I regret my choices.” Sayer pulled again—this time, the roots gave way. He teetered. The dead bush fell apart in his hand. “I hate gardening.”
“You heartless peasant,” I said in my best British accent. I started to lean against the porch railing. “How dare you disgrace these beautiful—ouch.” I hissed and yanked my arm back. Blood welled around an embedded splinter.
“I told you,” Sayer muttered. “Dangerous work.”
Just then, my phone vibrated twice. I hurried to catch it before it buzzed right off the porch railing. I swiped without looking at the caller ID, already walking away from Sayer for privacy.
“Hello?”
“Landry. How are you?”
I paused mid-step. “You got my message.”
“Of course I did.” Dad’s words were somehow cushioned and hurried all at once. Busy. I swallowed against a dry tongue. Waited for him to continue.
“You mentioned an estate lawyer,” he began. Shuffling in the background, similar to papers over a desk, and I imagined him in his office in Charleston, looking out at the tapered skyline. Which direction would he look today? Out toward sea or inland, where I would be?
“Um, yes,” I said. I kept my voice even. “I figured you would know someone.”
He cleared his throat. From the garden, Sayer looked up. Shielded his eyes from the sun and mouthed, Is it Vince?
I gave a pinched nod.
Sayer started taking his gloves off, but didn’t come closer. A car whispered by.
“I assumed another lawyer might do, yes, unless you want me to handle your affairs?” he assumed. As if he wanted me to admit I didn’t want him, when it was he that never wanted me. The thought soured as soon as it appeared.