18. Keeping Secrets
KEEPING SECRETS
Alittle over two months after his first day of volunteering, Jake returned to the town hall. He brought all his paperwork with him, each hour signed off by Robbie Eaton himself.
Sarah, the same woman who had once assured him the time would fly by, smiled when she saw him walk in.
“Congratulations,” she told him as he handed his documents over. “You did great work at the beach. The town is going to miss your help.”
“I think I’ll miss it too,” Jake admitted. “I got pretty used to the routine.”
“Well, you can always keep volunteering. No one’s going to stop you.” She laughed.
“No,” Jake said slowly, “I guess not. Hey, uh, could I have one of those papers that the supervisor is supposed to sign?”
“Oh, honey, you’re all done. You don’t need anyone to sign anything if you’re just volunteering out of the good of your heart.”
“I know, but my sister wanted to see what they look like. I should’ve copied one when I still had blank pages, but it totally slipped my mind.”
“Well, sure, then.” Sarah handed him a blank form, and Jake stuffed it into his previously empty folder.
He practically ran out of the town hall and back to his car, not stopping for anything until he got home.
Isabel’s little printer in the corner of the living room had sat unused the entire time he was there, but Jake booted it up anyway, praying that for once, something in his life would work without any tinkering.
A few minutes later, he had a dozen copied forms ready to hand over to Robbie like nothing had changed at all.
Robbie would figure it out eventually, but it might buy Jake an extra week or two; long enough to give them a few more uninterrupted conversations without worrying about their implications.
The beach was empty when he arrived that afternoon—not only was Robbie absent, but no one else was there either. He sat down on a log and watched the waves break against the shore as he waited for Robbie. A month ago, he would have relished this time.
With a sigh, he rested his elbows on his thighs and leaned forward. Up above him, seagulls flew past, calling to him before they disappeared beyond the horizon. A gentle wave washed across the sand, water dampening the toes of his sneakers before waning.
“I’m doing the best I can,” he muttered. “I already know it’s not enough, but I’m trying.”
“Talking to Mier?”
Jake jumped, jerking his head back to catch Robbie standing behind him, hands in his pockets, gaze fixed on the water stretching out before them.
“How long have you been there?” he asked sharply.
Robbie shrugged. “A minute, maybe two.”
“Sneaky little bastard. I was talking to myself, not the water, you dimwit.”
“I thought we agreed that the name calling was getting a little too comfortable.” Robbie grinned and patted Jake on the shoulder, which was enough to get him on his feet again.
“Yeah, well, old habits, I guess.”
“There’s no shame in talking to Mier, you know. It likes human connection. Look.” Robbie pointed to a fin that breached the water before diving back under the waves.
“What was that?” Jake asked. “A whale?”
“A dolphin. We’ve got whales, but none as small as that.”
“I’ve never lived by the water before.”
“I know. But you do now, and it’s time you learned how it works.”
“I’m only gonna be here for another few months. I talked to the realtor last week, and he’s coming by tomorrow to check out the house.”
Robbie raised his eyebrows. “Oh, wow. It’s happening faster than I thought it would.”
“It’s been over two months, Robbie.”
“Has it really? Your aunt’s going to miss you when you’re gone.”
“She’ll have a new life to look forward to,” Jake said.
“So will you, I suppose. Come on, Jake. Let’s get to work before it gets too dark.” Robbie held out a hand, and Jake took it without a moment’s hesitation. “You picked a good time to get in trouble with the law, you know. Any later in the year, and you would’ve had to work in the mornings.”
“I should’ve done that anyway,” Jake said, following Robbie into the treeline, where cleanup from a birthday party earlier in the day awaited them. “At least then maybe I could’ve avoided you a little easier.”
The sting was gone. Every little insult Jake tried trading with Robbie these days fell flat, and Robbie noticed it too. He must have, because he didn’t bother poking fun at Jake anymore at all.
Every afternoon for the next week, Jake continued to work at the beach.
Robbie didn’t say anything, and as long as Jake kept his mouth shut, he could keep volunteering in peace.
But Robbie was, if nothing else, sharper than Jake was sometimes willing to admit, and on a particularly peaceful Monday evening, he confronted Jake.
“When does your community service end?” he asked. “It has to have been around sixty hours by now, right?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess so.” Jake shrugged and looked down so he didn’t have to face Robbie and out himself as a liar quite so willingly.
“What are you doing, Jake?”
“Fulfilling my—”
“Stop. I’m giving you a chance to tell the truth, so take it before you make everything worse—again.”
“I didn’t want to stop seeing you every day,” Jake admitted, the words tasting bitter as they left his lips.
“You are done, then?”
Jake nodded.
“And you’re only here to be with me?”
Jake nodded again.
“Jake…”
“I just got used to it, that’s all,” Jake said quickly. “I wasn’t ready for it to end so abruptly. You get it, right?”
Robbie shook his head. “This has to stop.”
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have lied.”
“You do that a lot, but mostly to yourself. I don’t really care if you try to do it to me; just know that I see right past it. You have to remember that I know you better than anyone else here.”
“Almost anyone,” Jake said.
“Anyone,” Robbie repeated. An amused smile played on his lips, and Jake took this as his opportunity to ask a potentially volatile question he’d been avoiding for weeks.
“Hey, Robbie?”
“Yes?” Robbie’s eyes roved over Jake.
“When can I see your house?”
“Someday, maybe,” Robbie said cagily.
“You’re not embarrassed by how fucking huge it is, are you? Is it all modern and gross like your parents’ house?”
“No. I just don’t bring many people over. It’s a bit of a sacred space to me. It’s the one little corner of the world that’s just mine and no one else’s.”
“And I would ruin your peace. I get it.”
“You and everyone else.”
“I let you into my house.”
“Isabel let me into her house, you mean. And I’ve been there before.”
“Not in my room.”
“That’s true, but it’s hardly worth protecting, is it?”
Jake wanted to retort with something rude, but he saw the unserious smirk on Robbie’s face and stopped himself.
It wasn’t worth going a few steps back just to get a dig in at Robbie anymore.
“Just let me see the outside of it,” he insisted.
“I don’t even need to come inside. I just wanna see where you live. ”
“Maybe,” Robbie said, the reluctance in his voice unmissable. “I like what we’ve got going for now, though. It makes it easier to… to…”
“Keep secret? Or keep detached from our personal lives?”
Robbie’s smile turned wry. “Both. And with the way my parents have been lately, I think it’s best we continue with our little secrets.”
“It won’t be for much longer anyway.”
“Oh, yeah, the realtor. Let me know how it goes when you meet with him.”
“I will,” Jake said. The words left his mouth before he even realized how goddamn normal he sounded carrying on dreary domestic conversations with Robbie. “If you invite me to your house,” he added quickly.
Robbie rolled his eyes. “There’s a catch to everything with you, huh? Fine, but only on my terms: I get to pick when it’s the right time.”
“Fair enough.” Jake shrugged, and then a cheeky grin spread across his face. “Is it a mansion?”
“No.”
“Bigger than Isabel’s house, though?”
“Much.”
“Did you buy it or inherit it?”
“Jake, please.”
“Okay, okay, I won’t ask anything else, I swear.”
“Thank you.” Robbie tied up his bag of trash to take back to the dumpster.
“Oh, wait, one more thing.”
Robbie looked ready to swing the trash bag at him, but he held back. “Yes, Jake?”
“Do you have one of those showers with the rain head thing? I’ve always wanted to try that out.”
Robbie cast him a final warning glance before stalking off. Jake smiled. He was back on top.
Eaton’s Book Nook was lit up when Jake passed by it on his way home that evening.
He slowed his car to a crawl, peering into the windows as best he could from a distance.
He thought about pulling over and calling Robbie to let him know he’d left the lights on, but then he saw two people inside, both dressed to the nines in suits that probably cost more than Jake’s own car.
“What are they doing in there?” he muttered.
He saw a measuring tape slither back into itself, and then the Eatons turned around, Robert Jr. sweeping his hand out in some sort of gesture at the counter. Whatever they were up to, it didn’t seem to involve their son, and Jake couldn’t help wondering if that was intentional.
“No,” he said. “This is none of my business.”
Try as he might, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was up.
Thunder rolled overhead, and he pulled up to Isabel’s house, getting out just in time to be hit with a barrage of rain.
He ran inside, shielding his head with his arm, and stamped his feet at the door before pulling off his shoes.
“For Mier’s sake,” Isabel said as she came out of the kitchen, “did the rain really get that bad all of a sudden?”
“Yep.” Jake ran his hands through his wet hair, smoothing it back before the waves popped out again.
“Well, dinner’s on the table, but if you want to change your clothes and dry off first, take your time.”
“I’m good,” Jake said. “I’ve been working on the beach for the last few months, remember? A little rain doesn’t bother me anymore.”
“You’re a natural here.”
Jake shook his head quickly. “Please, no. I never want to fit in well enough here that someone like you is saying that.”
“Would it be so bad?”
Jake thought about it for a moment. He thought hard, going back to his old apartment, his old job, his old life. For so long, he’d wanted to return to that as quickly as possible—get back to normal. Eventide was a drip compared to reality. But Eventide was reality now.
“I just don’t think it’s true,” he said. “I’ll never fit in here even if I wanted to.”
“It wouldn’t be the end of the world, though, would it?” Isabel pressed.
“No, I guess not.”
She smiled. “Then you’re fitting in better than you think, and I believe the whole town would agree with me.”
“Not the Eatons.”
“Not even Robbie?”
“Fu—I mean, hell no.”
“Maybe you should ask him sometime. He’s a painfully honest man, and he would tell you the truth. You might be surprised, Jake.”
Jake was surprised by a lot these days, especially when it had to do with Robbie. “Yeah, maybe. Or maybe Robbie’s not the guy any of us thinks he is, and we’re all going to suffer for it.”
Isabel furrowed her brow. “Weren’t we talking about you fitting in?”
“Oh, uh, yeah.” Jake made his way into the kitchen to wash his hands. “Forget what I was saying before. I was just rambling.”
Robbie did have a way of making Jake suffer, except that this time Jake wanted what he’d said to not be true. He didn’t want Robbie to disappoint him. He wanted Robbie to stay exactly the same, if only so they could spend their last few months together pretending everything was all right.