Chapter 19 Easton
EASTON
Avery
I wanted you to hear this from me first in case it shows up in the news. Thomas just got off Devon Hunt’s yacht in Portofino. He’s with Sofia Leigh.
He’s with her or he’s WITH her?
They were holding hands.
The message from my roommate arrived just as we were heading home from dinner. Two hours later, curled up in bed, my stomach remains tied into a sick, tight knot.
This is not what I’d pictured.
I pictured Thomas lamely attempting to be a party guy with a bunch of models in heels and flimsy dresses, and quickly realizing that no one else wants to talk about telomere length and autophagy.
I never pictured him dating, replacing me with an actress who’s tan year-round and twenty-five at most, known better for her rack than her intellect.
I’ve looked the photo up just to be sure and yeah.
..they were holding hands. He appears to find her fascinating.
Do you hold hands with someone who’s just a one-off?
I’m not sure you do. Thomas didn’t hold my hand until we were officially a couple—not until we were walking along the Charles after I’d slept at his house for the first time.
He’d already talked about marrying me, for Christ’s sake. So does that mean he’s at that point with Sofia Leigh? And how long ago did they meet if he’s already holding her hand? I was on the fence about doing the “Key West photo dump” but no longer am.
Fuck you, Thomas. If nothing else, you’ll know I’m too busy being wined and dined by my road trip companion to miss you.
I post a photo Betty took on our first night, plus two from the Dry Tortugas and I tag Elijah, as instructed.
The pilot actually took a great photo of the two of us—one in which Elijah looks like a combination of Jacob Elordi and Henry Cavill, yet somehow better than both—but I choose not to post it.
It will look too obvious, especially now that this photo of Thomas and Sofia Leigh is out in the wild.
I can’t go from being a circumspect grad student who never posts pics of herself to one who posts every minute of her life like some beauty queen going through Bama rush.
I kick off my blankets as I send the screenshot to Kelsey.
I guess this explains why he had the sudden change of heart.
KELSEY
OMG. That absolute PRICK. Forget about the fake romance thing. Start a real one.
Does she mean...with Elijah?
I suspect Kelsey would be thrilled if I got together with her brother, but who knows?
Sometimes you can love people, but not love the DNA they’re bringing to the table, and I obviously bring a lot that’s questionable.
Alcoholism and criminality from my family members.
And just my general weirdness…the way I see science in everything and those strange facts I always used to share, regardless of whether anyone wanted to hear them.
KELSEY
I’m setting you up with Hawk’s best friend, Aiden, when we get to New Orleans. He’s really hot (don’t ever tell Hawk I said this), and I adore him.
Okay, I guess she didn’t mean Elijah, but I can’t fault her. If I had a brother, I wouldn’t want him to end up with me either. And, obviously, I’ve got no interest in going down that road myself.
I’m not counting Thomas out yet. Let’s give him a few more days to pull his head out of his ass.
I turn off the phone, then twist and turn in bed, half asleep and half awake, but equally distraught in each state. Thomas is going to get engaged to Sofia Leigh, and next year will be hell. Everyone at school will avoid me, and I’ll be politely pushed out at the year’s end.
My dreams when I fall asleep are not happy ones.
I’m at Kelsey’s wedding, and Elijah is there with an actress who looks like Sofia Leigh.
Then I’m walking across campus, fall leaves snapping underfoot as I make my way to the lab, and no one’s meeting my eye.
Sean is with them and his shoulder is bleeding.
I’m relieved that he hasn’t seen me, but when I turn to double check, he’s gone, and a tiny line of flickering orange catches my eye instead.
Fire.
It chases its way across the grass, reminding me of those cartoons where the flame is leading to a stick of dynamite, meant to take down a meddlesome mouse or a wily coyote.
It’s a yard back in St. Samuels, and it’s thrilling until the porch stairs light up.
There’s a Halloween display...pumpkins and hay bales.
When the fire hits those, it’s all over.
It’s burning the roof and spreading through the town, and it’s so hot that it’s almost unbearable, that my skin burns, and just as I think I should run to the ocean, I realize the Cabots’ house is on fire too.
And I threw the match.
I wake with a gasp, my heart hammering. I’ve sweated through my pajamas, but within seconds, I’m shivering. I strip them off, then curl under the blankets in fetal position, promising all sorts of things to myself while I wait to recover.
It didn’t happen like that. No one was hurt. I didn’t know.
Jesus.
This breakup with Thomas has upended any sense of security I had.
And picturing him with Sofia Leigh only makes the terror worse.
I want to wake Elijah, but obviously I can’t.
It’s not his job to comfort me, and he wouldn’t understand why the dream is upsetting.
I put on dry clothes, grab my blanket and pillow, and curl up on the couch.
I can just barely make out the sound of his even breaths on the other side of the door, and it’s enough. Eventually, I fall asleep.
When I wake, it’s light out but still too fucking early. Elijah stands over the couch with a brow raised. I growl at him as I pull the blanket over my head.
“Oh, I’m sorry, princess,” he says with a laugh. “I assumed the one king-sized bed you had was sufficient. Apparently not. Why are you on the couch?”
I’m not about to tell him that I was here to be closer to him. He’s arrogant enough as it is. His smile would be extra lopsided for weeks to come. “I had a bad dream.”
He frowns. “That must have been quite the bad dream.”
I want to tell him. I want to tell him everything, but even now it feels like information I’m not meant to share, and maybe it isn’t.
What’s the statute of limitations on a felony you committed when you were eight?
What about the felonies that came after that—at fourteen, at twenty-four?
“I’ve had it since I was a kid, ever since the Tuckers’ house burned down.
I dream that it spread and the whole town was on fire.
” Though it wasn’t the whole town I cared about.
It was you. You and your mom and your sister.
His eyes darken, as if he suspects. And maybe he does.
People have suggested my brothers were responsible for that fire, and they mostly were.
They showed me how to light the match, they said the fire would die out fast and that’s how we’d get back at Jason Tucker for talking shit about us.
Just a little scare, they said. And, of course, they ran.
They were completely out of sight by the time the fire hit the hay bales, not even bothering to suggest that I should run too.
I’d have been caught on ten doorbell cameras if it had happened a few years later.
I need a subject change, and fast, before I start giving shit away.
“So...Siesta Key tonight, right?” I ask.
He nods. “I got us another rental.”
“I don’t suppose you got your grandmother a different rental.”
He grins. “It’ll be hard for you to provide medical assistance if you’re not even in the same house.”
“Right,” I reply. “That’s what would make it hard—not my utter ambivalence. And I should point out that she lives on her own.”
“Right now she’s not my responsibility,” he argues. “And she has a live-in housekeeper, so she’s not entirely independent.”
I sigh as I climb to my feet. “At least we’ll only be in the car together for six hours.”
He raises a brow. “You’ve never traveled with my grandmother before, apparently. It would be six hours without any stops, best case. This will not be the best case.”
I shower and load the dishwasher while he packs the car. He’s been drinking from the same glass since we arrived. I run my thumb around its lip before I place it in the top rack.
I try to tell myself this is normal behavior.
We’re soon on our way, with Betty and Mrs. Cabot in the back. “So, where should we have breakfast?” Betty asks.
And so it begins...
We eat at a café, a long meal in which Mrs. Cabot drinks several cups of coffee and—just as we’ve paid the bill— announces she needs one more cup.
We’ve been on the road for maybe forty-five minutes at most when Betty suggests that they stop to show me Bahia Honda State Park.
Fortunately her second suggestion, a visit to the turtle hospital, is politely shot down by Elijah and rudely shot down by Mrs. Cabot.
Following this, we go to Robbie’s in Islamorada for lunch.
It’s eleven in the morning, and we are already eating again. At this rate we will reach Siesta Key roughly around the point that Kelsey is walking down the aisle in New Orleans. We’ll have had several hundred meals.
At Robbie’s, we’re seated next to a family drinking Red Bull and vodka, and they appear to have been at it for a while.
“Your brothers would fit right in here, wouldn’t they?” Mrs. Cabot asks me.
My brothers. My fighting, stealing brothers.
“I wouldn’t know,” I reply coolly. “I haven’t seen them in a long time.” I hear Kevin in my head, saying, “Good to know, Dr. Walsh” and suppress a shudder.
“Easton,” says Betty, with her phone open as if she’s filling out a form, “what are your love languages?”
My gaze shoots to Elijah. “Love languages?”
“How can you have all those degrees and not know this?” she asks. “I still don’t understand why you got all of them, either. Most people would be happy enough just to be a doctor the first time. Anyway, your love languages are how you want someone to show he cares.”