1. Gerard #2
“No, I’m looking for something more permanent.
Something with a kitchen would be great.
” Gerard took a deep breath that seemed to settle him.
He leaned on the upward handle of his suitcase to appear collected, but the wheels were unlocked.
The bag nearly went rolling into the bay.
Kellen caught it before it became fish food.
“How ’bout that?” said the man, unrattled by the wayward luggage. “Regina’s a woman you might want to talk to for somethin’ like that. I know she’s got a room upstairs. Dunno how keen she’d be to rent it out again, though, after last time.”
“What happened last time?” Gerard asked.
“Best she tell you herself,” he said.
He hated the sound of that, but he had no leads of his own.
“Where might I find her?” Gerard asked. Did he sound normal? When it came to booking his own lodging and ordering his own food, he was severely out of practice. When had he become the idea of a person instead of a real one?
“Opposite side of the island,” Kellen said, squinting against the early-autumn sun despite the trucker hat nested atop his unruly blond hair.
Gerard couldn’t help but be charmed by the way island sounded like ahhh-land, which is precisely how he felt at that moment.
Sweet, sweet, solid land. “Can take you over there if you like.”
“Really? That would be—” Gerard stopped himself. He probably shouldn’t trust a ride from the first stranger he met on the island.
“Ride’s right over there.” Kellen pointed at a nonthreatening maroon golf cart parked at the edge of the dock.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Chivalrously, Kellen hoisted Gerard’s suitcase and guitar by their respective handles with ease and led the way. They passed a sign that should’ve said VIRGINIA IS FOR LOVERS, but someone had vandalized it, casting a red, spray-painted s over the v, so it read VIRGINIA IS FOR LOSERS.
Acid churned again in his stomach. Was he a loser for running away from his problems instead of facing them head-on like the twenty-six-year-old he was?
Kellen clearly caught him looking at the sign. “Sorry ’bout that. Been meanin’ to clean it up.”
Since Kellen proclaimed himself the town’s vice mayor and a local tour guide to boot, he took the scenic route through town.
The bump and sway of another moving vehicle upset Gerard’s sensitive stomach again, but the press of his knee into Kellen’s on the tight front seat dampened some of that discomfort.
It had been ages since he’d been that close to a good-looking stranger without an NDA.
Nothing said sexy like a stack of legal papers.
As the cart picked up speed, they zipped past two seafood joints on opposite sides of the street and a stately church with stained-glass windows and an adjoining cemetery.
Gerard didn’t have to wonder long if it was the cemetery from the Hallowitz & Hart song, because as soon as they drove by the low-lying headstones, an ice-cream shop with a sun-faded pink awning appeared.
Above its roof, a blue water tower with a crab painted on it prodded at the newly graying sky. Gerard hoped a storm wasn’t blowing in.
“First time on Iping?” Kellen asked.
“Yeah,” Gerard said, spotting a gift shop with a green bike parked out front. Nervously, he pointed to it. “Get a lot of tourists around here?”
“Eh. Only in the summer and only for the day. Most of them clear out by fall. Surprised to see a city type like you here in October,” he said, brown eyes flicking over.
Was there interest in that inquisitive glance?
Gerard couldn’t tell. He’d spent so long suppressing his desires in public that he wasn’t sure he’d know flirting if it drop-kicked him in the face.
Romance would need to put him in a headlock for him to register it after what happened the last time.
“Change of scenery,” Gerard said, moving his knee onto his side of the cart.
They drove past nearly identical houses with white siding and red roofs.
Residents of all ages peered out their windows at Gerard with blank stares.
Nobody, not even the decorative jack-o’-lanterns perched on porch ledges, smiled his way.
A foreboding uncanniness crept into the cart with them like an unwanted hitchhiker.
“Don’t mind them,” Kellen said. “We had a bit of a scare on the island not too long ago. Folks are still catchin’ their breath from it.” The word are elongated itself to nearly two full syllables, like he was imitating a pirate.
“What kind of scare?” Gerard asked, wondering if he should’ve done more research before sailing here.
“Mainlander causin’ a ruckus. It was all a bunch of hooey if you ask me, but folks here jump right quick to protect their own. A blessin’ and a curse, you know?” he said.
Gerard didn’t know, so he simply nodded as if he did.
Eventually, they turned onto a road that stretched long between reedy streams, punctuated only by telephone poles staked into soggy ground.
“How long will you be here?” Kellen asked as they pulled up in front of an eggshell-colored two-story Victorian with the most beautiful wraparound porch.
The place reminded Gerard of the spooky antique dollhouse his grandmother had in her Florida condo when he was a kid, which he was allowed to admire but never touch.
“I’m not sure yet. As long as I can be, I think,” he said, trying not to picture what kind of chaos was ensuing back in New York in his absence.
Kellen furrowed his brow. “If you are here for Halloween, you should come to a li’l get-together at the school. It’s a masquerade party. Everybody dresses up and the kids go and collect candy. There might even be entertainment this year. A hoot is had all ’round.”
“Sounds good.” Gerard tumbled out of the cart and retrieved his suitcase and guitar.
“As the vice mayor, me and the wife are sort of the unofficial organizers on the island,” he said.
The wife. Gerard deflated slightly. “That’s really nice of you to invite me,” he said. But Halloween was weeks away. He wasn’t certain he could survive undetected until then.
“Give Regina a hello from the Marshalls.” Kellen waved and then took off.
When Gerard turned back to the house, the sun had disappeared behind a curtain of ominous-looking clouds, giving the Victorian a new dramatic backdrop. Breathing heavily, he gulped down his fear before climbing the steps and knocking on the deep-purple door.