Chapter 28
28
Sloane
“Thank you again for letting us crash here,” I say as Sarah leads us into the basement of their house, where Beck’s waiting with a spread of food on the bar beyond a comfy-looking couch and a large-screen TV.
Like I need to speak for Davis.
I don’t.
I know that.
He didn’t even ride with me in the car on the way here.
He took his bike and followed us.
But manners come first, and I can’t exactly leave him out and just thank them for letting me stay here for tonight.
Apparently we didn’t find a cannonball.
Chuck and Rafael said that we found a mortar ball .
And since they can explode, it was obvious we had to clear out of the camper. It’s too close to the cabin, and we don’t know how big the blast would be if the cannonball—excuse me, mortar ball spontaneously went off.
And this was easiest.
And I’m grateful coming here is an option.
“Are you kidding? I’d be so pissed if I didn’t get to help.” Beck grabs a chip loaded with dip and gestures to us with it. “Did you really find a bomb? In a cabin? Did Thorny Rock put it there? Or is it some kind of replica and whoever lived in the house set it up to look like a crime scene under the stairs?”
“He’s like a gremlin, except when you feed him after midnight, he gets very chatty and embraces his inner child,” Davis tells me.
Sarah smiles. “Accurate. Beck. Put the food away. We’re all going to bed. The girls will be up in just a few hours.”
“But Rafael said they found bones .”
“No, we didn’t.”
All of us look at Davis.
He sighs and lifts his gaze to the ceiling. “Three days, okay? Give me three goddamn days before you tell anyone else we found bones.”
“He’s frustrated,” I whisper to Sarah.
“It’s so odd,” she whispers back.
“ I know .”
That earns me an unamused look from the frustrated man.
Beck crunches on a chip. “Oh, shit, I haven’t seen you look like that since?—”
“Don’t say it.”
“Denver. Not since Denver.”
“What happened in Denver?” Sarah asks.
Beck freezes.
Looks at the last bit of chip in his hand.
And then he very unconvincingly says, “Nothing.”
Davis shakes his head. “I’m sleeping in the pool house.”
I straighten. “I’m going with him.”
Beck and Sarah share a look, then they share a grin.
“This house is fucking magic,” Beck says.
Davis flips him off. “I’m staying in the pool house.” He looks at me. “You can have a guest bed in here.”
“You know that thing where the vast majority of my experience with men I’ve trusted has actually been with psychopaths? Like guys who toss my house, guys who gaslight me, narcissists, thieves, con artists, blah blah blah? How do I know you’re not going to go hunting for the treasure without me?”
Davis stares at me.
I stare back.
I don’t think he’d go look for the treasure without me, but also, I don’t think we’re anywhere close to it, and we’re already finding skeletons and unexploded mortar balls.
He strikes me as the type who’d sneak out to investigate whatever he thinks he should look at next without me to save me from danger.
Sarah’s eyes are sparkling with mischief again. “I’d tell you we’re setting the security system and he can’t get out of the pool house without us being notified, but I think he could, in fact, bypass the security system without us being notified. So I agree. You two should definitely share the pool house.”
Ever been in a room with a trapped animal?
That’s the sensation I’m getting as I watch Davis glower at Sarah.
She’s clearly not worried though.
She tosses her wavy dark hair, crosses her arms, and smiles at him. “You can be as mad as you want, but I will always take Ava’s favorite nurse’s side over yours.”
“I’m her favorite uncle.”
“You gave her that singing computer for Christmas. Just because she thinks you’re her favorite uncle doesn’t mean the rest of us agree.”
“Womp womp,” Beck whispers.
Sarah tucks her arm through mine. “Sloane, I’ll show you how to booby-trap the pool house so that you’ll know if he tries to sneak out too.”
“I can hear you,” Davis says.
“But that doesn’t mean you know all of my tricks.”
“I wouldn’t challenge him if I were you,” Beck murmurs to her.
“He can spend his time trying to un-booby-trap the pool house, or he can spend his time resting so he can treasure hunt better tomorrow. And this is perfect. Peggy can make herself comfortable in the pool house, and we don’t need to worry about introducing the cats to each other.”
I haven’t been inside Sarah and Beck’s house before. Cooper’s up the way, yes. Sarah and Beck’s, no. I’ve only been here for a campfire. Outside. Where they have a pool house with a bathroom, which is what I used when I needed to use a bathroom.
But I’m getting too tired to be curious, and so I barely take in the surroundings as Sarah leads me up the stairs, through an open-concept main floor with a large stone fireplace in the middle of the room, and out the back and around the pool.
“It’s heated, so you could swim if you want to, but I suspect you just want to be in bed,” Sarah says as she punches a code on the door and lets me into the cute little place.
“You do have a bed out here?” I ask as I glance around. The floor is marble, the walls painted a sunset orange, and there’s a wicker furniture set with ivory cushions around a glass coffee table strewn with packs of card games. Everything from Uno to Phase Ten to normal playing card decks. The back wall has a galley kitchen, and I spot the familiar door to a bathroom.
Sarah gestures to another door. “My dad scares Beck, so we set it up so that my parents can stay out here when they visit us here in Shipwreck. We get warning when they’re coming inside. Unlike Davis, my dad hasn’t figured out how to hijack and bypass the security system. Here. Let me get you extra blankets.”
“Thank you. Again. For everything. I don’t know how I can ever pay you back for?—”
“Sloane. It’s all good. Sincerely. No repayment necessary. We all need help sometimes, and we all get pulled into situations that aren’t entirely in our own control sometimes.” She smiles ruefully. “That was basically my whole childhood, in fact. So if I can help someone else for a couple days, I’m happy to do it. Especially when that someone has always been kind to my family.”
I’d say I was just doing my job, but I’ve seen Sarah and Beck and their kids out to eat and at various festivals in Shipwreck too. I’d call them social acquaintances if I wasn’t still somewhat intimidated by Beck’s celebrity status and Sarah’s celebrity parents.
Beck was my second-favorite in the band.
“Also,” she adds in a whisper as she glances at the door, “it’s not every day that I see Davis making a new…friend. Actually, in the five years since I met Beck, I’ve never seen Davis make a new…friend.”
A girlfriend.
She’s implying I’m Davis’s girlfriend.
“My family wants me to get married and I’m never getting married, so I took not-so-secret pictures of him and sent them to my family and told them he was my boyfriend. He’s playing along. That’s why we’re getting married on Saturday. It’s fake. To get my family off my back. Because he likes to do nice things for people. Or something.”
Sarah’s grinning as she leads me into the bedroom, her arms full of blankets. The bedroom is pretty. Soft lavender walls that remind me of my own bedroom, a rocking chair in the corner, and a fuzzy blue-gray rug under the queen-size bed, which is draped with a quilt.
“High five to the never getting married club,” she says. “Me too.”
“You’re married.”
“It’s Beck. He’s too fun for this to count as actual marriage.”
“That is not Davis.”
“Davis is fun. He’s just too reserved to show strangers that side of him, and if you’re not from the neighborhood, you’re a stranger.”
“So you’re a stranger to him?”
“I’m a level-two stranger. He tolerates me because I’m married to one of the people he’d trust with his life, and he has two more honorary nieces because of me. I’ve been with Beck for five years, and tonight’s the first time I’ve been at Davis’s house. Ever. Except it was a camper. And I’m pretty sure he doesn’t live full-time in a camper. I think. But still—first time. Tonight. And you’ve slept there. That makes you at least a level-three stranger.”
I set the backpack carrier with Peggy in it on the bed next to the pile of blankets. “Is that more stranger or less stranger?”
“Less stranger. Level one stranger is all people on the planet that he will never give the time of day to. Level two are those of us who know him by proximity to people he’s known his entire life. Level three is new. You’re the first level three stranger I’ve known in his life.”
People who like numbers sometimes make my brain fuzzy. Especially this late at night. “But he had a day job for a lot of years. Where he theoretically worked with strangers.”
“Level-two strangers. He trusted them as much as he had to.” She cocks her head, then grins at me as I hear it too.
Someone’s opening the door to the pool house.
“The fridge and cabinets are stocked. The, ah, nightstand is too. Help yourself to anything you find and let us—or Rafael—know if you need anything.” She squeezes me in a quick hug. “And I’m glad you’re safe. Ava would be heartbroken if she couldn’t see you anymore.”
It’s a nice sentiment, but all I hear is the nightstand is stocked .
We have provided condoms for your enjoyment .
It’s something Tillie Jean would slip into casual conversation too.
No pressure, just—if you need them, they’re there.
We don’t need them.
We absolutely don’t need them.
There’s no more touching and kissing.
There’s no sex.
I’m too tired for sex.
Davis stops in the doorway, all long, lean muscles with a tattooed story all over his body, his butchered hair still hidden beneath the beanie, eyes tired but alert, looking like sin on a platter.
The good kind of sin.
My favorite kind of sin.
“Booby traps all set?” he asks dryly.
Yep.
Too tired for sex.
So tired.
I’m going to fall asleep as soon as my head hits the pillow.
I won’t even know he’s in bed with me.
And I am the worst liar ever.
I have to do something about this.
Before I pile on even more regrets.