Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THANE
“Where are you going?”
“Tone.”
I jerk my head to the left. There’s a stranger in a gray trench coat shouting “tone” from the hood of my SUV.
“Good Lord, Sharky. You can’t sneak up on a stranger and shout things at him.” Lottie steps in front of me while she scolds the strange woman with bright pink hair under a winter beanie.
She has to be melting under all that shit.
“Well, Lottie, I hadn’t planned to announce my presence.” The odd woman taps the side of her nose twice, then winks, while Lottie heaves a breath so big her cheeks puff out on both sides.
“Thane, this is Sharky. Sharky, this is Thane and Kara.”
Kara waves, but steps closer to me. Then manners kick in and I offer my hand, which Sharky shakes while keeping her head down.
“Sharky, stop hiding.”
I step to the side to scan Lottie’s face, but I’m more confused than ever. She’s scrunching up her nose again. Is she disgusted by this encounter? Disappointed? Or is there yet another emotion she scrunches for?
“I haven’t vetted him yet, Lottie. You never know?—”
“Vetted? Me?” Surely this woman isn’t talking about me.
“Sharky is our local librarian.” Lottie steps back in line with me and Kara, making room for Sharky on the sidewalk. “Every few months, she goes through a new phase based on what genre she’s currently reading. Lately she’s been into cozy mysteries, and now she believes she’s a PI.”
“One doesn’t believe they’re a PI, Lottie. They either are or they aren’t. I am firmly into my training, so I am a PI.” Sharky finally lifts her head, and I’m shocked to find that she’s so young. Mid-twenties at most. I would have thought by her eccentric behavior that she was closer to the Carvers’ ages.
“Right.” I don’t know what else to say to that.
“I’m hungry,” Kara whispers at my side, but when I scan her face, she’s smiling more brightly than I’ve seen since she was a baby.
Perhaps I’m not so bad for her.
“And that brings me back to my question. Where are we going?” I direct my words to Lottie because quite frankly, I’m not sure how to address a woman named Sharky.
“See you around, Sharky. Thane and Kara are fine, nothing to investigate, I promise.” Lottie addresses her with a pleasant expression plastered to her face.
“That’s a lie.” I point at Lottie’s face as Sharky slinks off to…somewhere else.
“What’s a lie? And it’s rude to point at people.”
“Your face. What was that?”
“Ugh, Brad.” Great. I’m back to being Brad. “She was just playing nice. You don’t have to like someone to be polite. Her face wasn’t lying, it was being kind to someone she probably doesn’t have a lot in common with.”
“Exactly.” Lottie beams at my little sister and then throws a high five in the air that Kara meets enthusiastically. “You’re very intuitive.”
“Fine, Kara got all the emotional intelligence in the family. I don’t care to discuss private investigator librarian any longer.”
“Why is she called Sharky?” Kara asks, completely ignoring my request.
“Her real name is Avalon Sharkton, but everyone’s called her Sharky since she was a toddler. She had a bad habit of biting everyone—for years.”
“So, you’re making fun of her?” That doesn’t sound like my Charlotte at all, and I jam my hands into my pants pockets.
“No. God no. I’d never make fun of someone like that. She prefers to be called Sharky. The only ones who call her Avalon are her parents and Boone McGregor. I’ve heard that the two of them have an on-again, off-again thing going on. I can’t believe you’d think I’d tease someone like that, and to their face. Jesus, Thane.”
Her fists clench into little balls as she speaks, her stance widens, and her lips are tight.
“Are you…are you scolding me?”
“She’s handing you your ass for something,” Rafe says, walking into our circle. “What did you do?”
My fingers tap, tap, tap in my pockets. One, two, three, and four.
“Nothing. I’m trying to take them to lunch, then Lottie began walking off on her own, a stranger named Sharky started yelling ‘tone,’ and now here we are.”
“Ah, something like that,” Lottie says, but without the stance of a soldier she had a moment ago.
“I don’t understand the names around here. Sharky? Boone, for fuck’s sake? At least Avalon has a place in history.” Unlocking the SUV, I round the hood and open the door. “Get in, Charlotte.”
Nose. Fucking. Scrunched. Again. I might need to buy some patience before the month is out.
“Like Thane is a normal name.” Kara laughs but at least attempts to hide it behind her hands.
“My car is one block down.” Lottie stands frozen on the sidewalk.
“And I’m taking you to lunch.”
“Did you ask her to lunch?” Rafe and his intrusive freaking intrusions.
“Yes,” I say with a glare.
“No.” Lottie crosses her arms over her chest. Does she have any idea that it presses her breasts together in that tiny tank top she’s wearing? She might as well serve them on a platter.
Rafe’s attention hasn’t left Lottie, and it blows the lid off my internal volcano. “Don’t stare at her, Rafe.”
“In case you’ve forgotten, I’m gay.” He moves a step closer to Lottie. He’s testing me, the asshole.
“You are?” Lottie drops her arms as she takes in my friend.
“Yup. For most of my life.” Rafe laughs, and I pinch my nose to block him out. He sounds like a howler monkey.
“Charlotte. Would you please get in the car?”
Kara climbs into the back seat. “Try again, Brad.”
“Charlotte, would you like to go to lunch with us?”
Her cheek twitches. It’s going to take me a lifetime to learn all her expressions.
Somehow, that thought doesn’t repulse me.
“I would. But I still have my own car and can drive myself.”
“Get in the damn car, Charlotte.” My hand aches, and when I peer down, it’s gone white where I grip the door. This woman is going to give me arthritis.
“What about?—”
“Rafe can drive your car home. He needs to put away the groceries anyway.”
Lottie finally notices the bags in both of Rafe’s hands. She really needs to learn to be more aware of her surroundings. I could have been a murderer in that alley earlier, and she’d have had no idea and nowhere to run until it was too late.
My stomach cramps, and acid rises in the back of my throat. She doesn’t take security seriously enough. First with her company, then with her home, now with herself. My chest rumbles with another internal earthquake.
I’ve inserted myself into her company security software, so I get notices anytime someone tries to gain entrance through a backdoor in her cloud systems. Fucking Whac-A-Mole. But at least I’m close to figuring out who the fucker is.
Her bodily safety is now another measure I’ll need to reinforce.
“Are you okay?” Lottie asks when she’s finally close enough to get into the passenger seat.
“Yes. But you need a babysitter.” Leaning over her, I buckle her in and then slam the door.
“Thane.”
My face purses like the time Ophelia made me suck on a lemon for being rude.
“Yes, Rafe.” Patience. Patience. Fucking goddamn patience.
“Are you overwhelmed?”
“I… How the hell do I know? Lottie scrunches up her nose in so many situations, and not one of them is the same. How am I supposed to learn her facial expressions if she uses the same one for different emotions?”
“You give yourself grace and time. You’ll probably never respond to stimuli as she does, but you can learn, and it will get easier to decipher.”
“Will it?” I hate the vulnerability in those two words. Being vulnerable is a weakness, and I’m not a weak man—I can’t be. The world would swallow me whole if I were.
“It will. But a heads up?”
I finally make eye contact with my friend.
“You told a grown woman she needs a keeper. That isn’t going to go over well, so prepare yourself before you enter that car.”
“I didn’t say she needed a keeper. I said she needed a babysitter.”
Rafe laughs again. I need to buy some earplugs.
“I suggest you explain your reasoning for saying what you did. It will help smooth things over. Communication is key to attaining your goals, remember that.”
“Sure.” He says communication as though it’s easy. If I could successfully communicate in every situation, I wouldn’t hire buffers for my buffer.
Opening the driver’s side door, I’m met with icy silence from Lottie and a look from Kara that matches the pity flashcard.
Wonderful.
I start the engine, crank the AC, buckle myself in, then face Lottie. Kara leans forward and nods with a small smile on her lips. Is she encouraging me? She gives me wide eyes and an aggressive nod.
I guess she is.
“Charlotte, I said you needed a babysitter because you frightened me.”
Lottie whips her gaze to mine, and Kara sits back with a whispered, “Whoa.”
“How did I frighten you?” Lottie reaches out and places her palm on my forearm.
I can’t explain why it quiets my mind, but for the second time, it’s as though she’s turned down the volume in my brain until the narrator is more of a background buzz than actual words.
“When you didn’t notice that Rafe had groceries in his arms, I became aware that you have zero situational awareness. I could have been anyone in that alley, someone wanting to hurt you, and you wouldn’t have even known it.”
“What alley?” Kara asks.
“Thane.” The lines between Lottie’s brows disappear. “I’m sorry I frightened you, even though you’re the one who followed me into that alley. We’re in a very safe area, and I’m only distracted by…” She clamps her mouth closed and leans against the window.
“By what?”
“By you, Brad. Geez. Even I caught that one.”
I stare from my sister to Lottie. “I distract you?”
Lottie smacks her palm to her forehead, then tucks her hair behind her ears, but I don’t miss the delicate pink that creeps along her cheeks and down her neck.
“Yes, Thane. You. This. Us, it’s all very…distracting.”
That strange tingling sensation happens behind my ribs again, and I decide that I like it, so I put the SUV into drive. “For once, I’m enjoying being someone’s distraction. Where to?”
“You ask her to lunch, and you don’t even have a place in mind? Come on, Brad. We’ve got to up your game.”
I glare at my sister in the rearview mirror. “What do you know about game?”
“Absolutely nothing. Yet. But Lottie’s gonna teach me, and if she doesn’t, I know where to find Jenni.”
Pure panic causes a sheen of sweat to form on my hairline. I don’t need a flashcard for this one. Rafe saw enough of my panic attacks in college to help me learn that one quickly, and it’s not something you easily forget.
“Jenni is not to teach you anything.” My fingers turn white on the steering wheel.
They’re both going to give me arthritis.
“For once, I actually agree with you.” Lottie tuts. “Jenni should not be giving any…lessons on anything but hair and skin care, and when you’re older, how to make one hell of a margarita.”
“Fine. I’m hungry,” Kara says from the back seat.
“The Short Stack Café is about a mile that way.” Lottie points behind us, so after checking both ways, I pull a U-turn at the next intersection.
“Is this one of those places that will have a long story to go with it?”
She drops her shoulders and suddenly appears exhausted, and my volcano starts to bubble. I’ve experienced this before. Maids, caretakers, employees. This is what I do to them. I exhaust them with my…differences.
“You’re in Sweetbriar, Thane. There’s always a story.”
“What is it?” Kara leans forward again, and Lottie turns all the way around to face her.
Their words weave in and out of my mind as I drive. Something about the owner naming it after his wife, but it’s not important enough for me to retain.
Lottie is getting tired of me already. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last. But this is the only time I’ve allowed it to hurt me.
* * *
“How’d it go?”
I came out to the screened-in porch to get away from everyone. Unfortunately, Rafe beat me to it.
“Fine.” I drop into the chair beside him. “This furniture is uncomfortable as fuck.”
“That’s what happens when you pick everything out of a catalog.” He laughs as Boone walks up the back steps. I’d forgotten he was still here. “Hey, did you know his full name is Boone McGregor, or that he has a twin named Macallan, another brother named Jameson, plus a sister named Bailey?”
Great, I’ve hired a man named after a high-school hangover. “Why would I know that? What’s happening with the renovations?”
“Because that’s what you do, Thane. You make small talk with people who will be working on your home for months.”
I’m sure Rafe is smirking, but I don’t look his way.
“Hello to you too, Thane,” Boone says. “I had the structural engineer out here this afternoon. We should be ready to start on Monday.”
“Good.”
“You want a beer, Boone?” Rafe asks.
Beer, Boone. How is this my life?
“That would be great. Thanks.”
Boone takes the seat across from me, and Rafe hands him a beer from a small cooler at his side a moment later. I’m not much of a drinker. I leave that to my father.
We sit in uncomfortable silence for less than five minutes. Two hundred and seventy-eight seconds to be exact, before Rafe starts in on me.
“How was lunch?”
I open one eye to glare at him, then promptly close it again. How was lunch?
I replay every conversation, every light flickering overhead, every voice jarring my mind into one giant clusterfuck.
“Avalon said she met you today.”
I ignore Boone and think about Lottie and Kara. How they laughed while huddled together on one side of the booth. Even when they were laughing at me, it kept my volcano from bubbling over when what I really wanted to do was stand on top of the table and rip out the offending lightbulb that was flickering a million times a second.
“I’m not sure how lunch was,” I admit when I can’t stay silent any longer. Rafe has never pushed me, yet somehow, he’s always known that I’ll speak when I’m ready, and he’s a pillar of patience now.
“I had a hard time focusing.” I clench my fists and take a deep breath. The last thing I want to do is have this conversation in front of a stranger. “I was aware that Lottie and Kara were laughing and smiling across from me, but there was a fucking strobe light above my head. It didn’t appear to bother anyone else, but it’s all I could focus on. I could feel the light hitting my skin. Then people were yelling ‘tone’ when I ordered, and Lottie placed her hand on mine on top of the table and even though the light was still hitting me, I could hear her through the noise. I—I don’t know. I didn’t say much at lunch.”
Boone sets down his beer and leans forward.
“Thane.” Rafe says my name on a breath so heavy it could knock the siding off the house. “That’s all the sensory stuff I’ve been talking about since college. There’ve been so many advancements since you were a kid. You allowed me to install accommodations in your office. Why won’t you let me help you with everything else?”
“My sister babysits for a kid who has this stuff too.” Boone has a very deep voice, but it’s quiet and not too annoying. I reinforce my walls in case he says something dickish. “They replaced all the lighting in the house and made other accommodations too. I think he even sits on a spiky cushion or something.”
“That’s great, Boone, if I were a child.”
“This kind of stuff, the lights and sounds and overwhelm?” Rafe drags his chair closer to me. “That’s what I do every single day. You’re why I chose this path in the first place. You’re one of the best men I’ve ever known, but you’re so damn stubborn. You’ve learned so many coping mechanisms on your own out of necessity, but you’re making it so much harder than it has to be.”
“What do you mean you chose this path because of me?” Something’s lodged in my chest like a chunk of bread, even though lunch was hours ago. I continue swallowing, hoping it pushes past the resistance, but it only seems to grow.
“That’s what you latch on to? You’re not a narcissist, Thane, but you sure could pass as one for Halloween sometimes.”
I have no idea what that means. I know I’m not a narcissist. I’ve been called one enough times by women to have memorized the definition.
“You’ve always been goal-oriented, but I saw how you struggled in college. I saw how you kept yourself apart and secluded yourself then. It’s even worse now. When’s the last time you went out with friends?”
“I don’t have time for friends.” It’s so much easier when I can close them out of my little world.
“Do you know what your response was in college when I asked why you weren’t going out with so-and-so?”
I remember exactly what my response was.
“You said you didn’t have time for friends, but in reality, you struggled to see the connections you had with people. Unless they’re directly in front of you, you have a hard time acknowledging that friendship. And even in person, a hundred people could say hello to you, and have a long conversation with you, and you’d still go home believing you hadn’t left an impression on anyone. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No.”
Boone shifts in his seat. Good, I hope he’s uncomfortable too. At least then I’m not suffering alone.
“And that’s why I became an occupational therapist.” Jesus, Rafe can drone on and on. “You can’t help yourself if you don’t know how, but I do, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve been here for fourteen years, waiting for you to ask me for help. I can give you tools that will make things easier on you.”
“Tools? Like telling me to communicate with Lottie?” I ask, shaking my head. I did talk to her, but I have no idea if it helped or not.
“Exactly. Did it work?”
Next door, Lottie’s screen door slams shut, and I’m on my feet before she hits the grass. Our eyes connect for only a moment before she runs toward the lake.
All I know is that something is very wrong, and everything in me says to fix it as I run after her.