Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
ALIX
Sylvia’s van was a beast, plastered in national park stickers with a peeling decal that read I Brake for Mushrooms. Grace followed behind like she was bracing for impact, hands tight on the wheel.
Alix, sprawled in the passenger seat, grinned.
“Your aunt drives like she’s auditioning for Fast & Furious: Miami Edition. ”
“The second one took place in Miami,” Grace commented idly.
Alix shook her head. “Then maybe that’s where she learned these moves.”
Grace muttered something about traffic safety, but Alix only smirked.
She watched Grace as she drove, thoroughly entranced by the woman beside her.
Alix had seen her face a hundred times on video calls, pixelated and flattened, but the real thing knocked her off balance.
Grace was all warm tones and sharp lines, eyes like they’d been carved with intention, mouth too expressive for someone trying to act chill.
She was downright stunning, and Alix had been trying not to stare all afternoon.
It took Alix a full beat to remember how to move her own face.
The coral stucco bungalow sat under a mango tree that looked ready to crush the roof.
The yard was just as chaotic as Aunt Sylvia’s first impression: a rusted bike reborn as a succulent planter, a concrete pelican draped in Mardi Gras beads, a sign painted in bold letters — WELCOME (UNLESS YOU VOTED FOR HIM).
“Is your aunt secretly the best?” Alix asked. “Should we try to matchmake her with Phyllis?”
“She’s really something.” Grace snorted in amusement, but didn’t outright say no. “Um, just to let you know, don’t... touch anything inside.”
“What’s that mean?” Alix asked, already climbing from the car.
It all made sense once the door opened.
“Mi casa es su museo,” Sylvia declared, sweeping them in. She wasn’t kidding. Every wall and shelf groaned with collections: ceramic frogs, miniature typewriters, cruise ship plates, snow globes gone cloudy with age. A shadowbox labeled ROCKS THAT LOOK LIKE OTHER THINGS made Alix beam.
“This one looks like a potato. This one looks like Florida. It’s coral,” Sylvia stated proudly as she saw Alix inspecting the box. “From the Keys. Don’t tell the government.”
Alix loved her instantly.
As they walked through the house, she followed Grace, watching Grace’s hand brush the doorframe in passing, fingertips trailing along the wood. For some reason, Alix felt it like static.
Baby pinballed around their legs like a sugar-high toddler. In the kitchen, an altar of probiotic powders — GutGlow, HappyTummy, RegularPup — lined the counter. The freezer, Sylvia assured them, was stocked with emergency empanadas. “Grace, I know you’re healthy. You too?”
Alix glanced toward the freezer. “I try to eat my veggies.”
“Tia, Alix is vegan,” Grace said impatiently.
“Vegan, hmm?” Sylvia eyed Alix. “Ah, that reminds me. I do have some vegan brownies somewhere around here.” She waved toward the cluttered counters.
“Vegan brownies? I can’t wait to check those out,” Alix said politely.
“Good girl.” Sylvia patted her arm.
Alix exaggerated a swoon behind Sylvia’s back, making Grace smile.
The guest room nearly finished them. A queen-sized bed covered in flamingo sheets dominated the space. Atop the dresser, a porcelain doll in a sealed acrylic case watched with soulless eyes.
“Fresh sheets,” Sylvia said. “Do not touch the doll.”
“Why is the doll in a tube?” Alix whispered.
“Because she is haunted.” Sylvia stated flatly. “Found her in Ocala.”
“Does she watch you sleep?” Alix asked.
“Or just judge you,” Grace added.
Alix glanced toward the bed. “So, just the… one… bed?”
“Yes.” Sylvia nodded, cheerful and oblivious, then swept out of the room.
The door shut.
Silence, then a long look between them. Grace’s mouth twitched like she might say something.
Alix shifted her weight and adjusted the strap of her bag, pretending to study the room like it might reveal a second mattress if she looked hard enough. The walls were a polite beige. The comforter neatly folded. Nothing helpful in sight.
Her pulse did that unsteady thing again — too quick for how still she was standing. She tried not to picture it: Grace asleep beside her, close enough to share warmth, the quiet sound of her breathing in the dark.
She rubbed the back of her neck. “Guess I’ll take the side that doesn’t hog the blanket,” she said.
Grace laughed uncertainly, still looking anywhere but her.
Alix smiled too, though she already knew she wasn’t sleeping tonight if they were sharing a bed. And she wasn’t ready to fully unpack why that might be.
She found a bit of luck in the living room. She pressed a hand to the couch, felt the click, and unfolded a brand-new pullout bed. “Ta-da.”
Grace laughed, half relief, half disbelief. “You genius.”
“Oh, yes, there’s also this bed,” Sylvia said, as though she had magically forgotten that the pullout existed.
Grace and Alix made up the pullout together after Sylvia brought linens. Their hands brushed, sparking up Alix’s arm. She ignored it. Grace seemed to ignore it harder. Baby tried to claim the mattress until Grace shooed him off.
“You can take the bed, and I’ll take the pullout,” Alix said.
“No way, that haunted doll is all yours,” Grace said. “I’m taking my chances out here.”
“It’s probably more comfortable. I wouldn’t want to impose,” Alix tried again, desperate not to sleep near an object that was highly likely to be wielding a kitchen knife in the night.
“No, no, I insist,” Grace said, but Alix could see there was a hint of a smile.
The rest of the tour blurred by: seashell soaps in the bathroom, a corkboard labeled TRIPS I WILL TAKE, neon towels stacked high in the laundry room, a back porch teeming with plants, and a mason jar labeled ALGAE?? that glowed faintly. Alix peered into it with reverence.
Most of the backyard was taken up by a large pool.
“Don’t worry, it has a sensor that will tell you if Baby falls in,” Sylvia explained.
“What do I do if he falls in?” Alix asked, worry pitching her voice higher.
Sylvia looked at her with the kind of look normally reserved for small children asking ridiculous questions. “You get him out, dear.”
Alix exchanged a look with Grace that she hoped communicated her distress about the idea of fishing a gigantic Newfie out of a pool, including but not limited to having to lift a two-hundred-pound, soaking wet dog.
Sylvia left shortly before dinner.
After inspecting the empanadas, Grace gave up and ordered takeout.
Grace slipped into quick Spanish on the phone, and Alix tried not to stare too openly at her, or notice how attractive that sounded.
They carried everything out to the patio: containers of eggplant Papas Rellenas, oyster mushroom ropa vieja and yuca fries, mismatched plates, half a bottle of Rioja, and Baby, who begged shamelessly and who Alix nervously watched pace back and forth by the edge of the pool.
For a long time, they just ate. The kind of quiet that wasn’t strained, just the muffled symphony of plastic lids popping, silverware scraping, occasional appreciative groans. They poured second glasses, then third ones. By the time the bottle was gone, awkwardness had softened into ease.
In the glow of the patio string lights, Grace looked more at ease than she did on video calls. Her eyes reflected gold, her tied-back hair coming loose around her face. Alix watched her for a heartbeat too long, tracing the curve of her smile, the small gestures that screens never caught.
She found herself smiling and looked down at her glass, swirling the wine like it was fascinating. The crickets began their night song somewhere in the nearby bushes.
“Did you enjoy it?” Grace asked, gesturing to the table.
“It was ridiculously good,” Alix said, leaning back in her chair, her eyes closed in appreciation of the warm night and good food and better company. “Why do I live in LA again? I’m moving immediately.”
Grace’s laugh was small but real. “You’d miss it. Admit it.”
“I’d miss Phyllis,” Alix corrected, grabbing the last piece of yuca. “She’s the only thing keeping me grounded. Also, if we’re being honest, I don’t know if she could afford the house without me, so we’re stuck together for now.”
“Is Phyllis really the only reason you’re still in LA?” Grace asked.
Alix shrugged, swirling her wineglass.
Grace tipped her head, watching her with an expression Alix couldn’t name. Thoughtful. Curious.
The air shifted, almost visible in the space between them. A small charge, quiet but undeniable. Alix felt it at the base of her throat, a pulse that didn’t know how to hide.
She became aware of everything at once. The sound of the crickets. The faint clink of glass on wood. The warmth still radiating off the plates. Grace’s gaze steady and unhurried, like she was studying something she intended to remember.
It hit Alix then that she’d felt close with Grace while getting to know her, but they had never actually been this physically close before. Not without a screen or a phone or a thousand miles to blur the edges. Now there was only the night air and a few inches of table.
She should have looked away. She didn’t.
For one long moment, the world contracted to the sound of Grace breathing, the dark sweep of her hair along her collarbone, the lush curved shape of her mouth.
Grace finally looked down, a small smile playing there, and covered a yawn with the back of her hand. “We should probably go to bed,” she said, her voice low, a little rough at the edges.
Alix nodded, even though her body was still catching up to the idea of movement. “Yeah,” she said. “Probably.”
Inside, Alix quickly claimed the couch by fully flopping onto it, limbs spread like a starfish. “No, really, I’ll take the couch. You look like someone who requires three pillows and perfect darkness. Don’t deprive yourself.”
Grace muttered something about impossible Pisces but didn’t argue further.
They said good night in the living room, both shuffling their feet like teenagers. Grace lingered in the doorway. “You sure?”
“I’m sure,” Alix said, twisting onto her side with exaggerated confidence that hid the springs now digging into her hip bones. “Luxury accommodations.”
Grace shook her head but smiled, retreating down the hall. Alix stared up at the ceiling fan, every slow turn reminding her to breathe, to relax, to not make Grace feel weird with whatever was beginning to bloom behind Alix’s ribs.