Chapter 23 #2
When I woke an hour later, he was watching me. His eyes were warm and loving, a gentle smile tugged at his lips, so naturally I panicked. “That was great! Best hook-up ever! Great one-night stand. Wow. Meaningless sex never felt so good. At least getting a gift is good for that, ha ha!”
He kept looking at me the same way.
“I’m just saying!” I told him. “I know you want to keep this casual. Me, too. We both do. We’re agreed!”
He didn’t say anything about spending every day and night together. Which was good, because I didn’t trust him like that. I only trusted him like this. Yet the big jerk kept looking at me.
“Would you say something!?” I said.
“It’s only six,” he told me. “Let’s grab breakfast at the Barnacle. Nowhere else is open.”
That wasn’t exactly what I was hoping he’d say, but fair enough.
We slipped out of the house before his parents woke, and didn’t bother with a golf cart.
Instead, we strolled toward the village, holding hands like a couple of idiots in love.
Or, actually, like a couple of old friends who’d had a lovely, gift-fueled night of lust.
And I knew he agreed, of course, so there was no reason for me to say, “What is this?”
“What’s what?”
“This. Us!”
“That’s what it is, Pan. It’s us.”
“Okay, but…” I fiddled with the strings of his old navy hoodie I’d tossed on over my top and skirt. “Did you mean those things you said? About spending every day together and every night?”
“Of course not. That was just a lie to get in your pants.”
“Leo!” I made a face at him. “I’m serious.”
He stopped walking as we came to a turn in the path.
In front of us, the sun turned the horizon yellow and reflected on the calm ocean.
A few fishing boats were leaving the harbor, their motors humming and their wakes leaving interlacing patterns behind them.
But my gaze strayed to Leo, with his bedhead hair and swollen mouth.
“I’m sorry, Pan, but I meant everything I said.
Every word. I know this is gonna make your eyeballs ache but I can’t get you out of my mind.
I missed being friends, but I want way more than friendship.
And this has nothing to do with your gift.
I already knew I couldn’t live without you.
There’s still some apologizing and explaining to do, but let’s just be us for now. ”
“Oh,” I said.
“You don’t have to tell me that you feel it too,” he said.
Diary, I did feel it. I do feel it. But I needed the apologies and explanations. I needed to hear the reasons why he’d decided it didn’t matter that I’d gotten my gift. So I said, “I don’t know what I feel.”
To my surprise, he just smiled. “Then let’s date.”
“What?”
“Deja warned me to take it slow with you,” he said. “Let’s date.”
“It’s too late for that!”
“Why, because we slept together?”
“Because we’re friends. Friends don’t date. They fall into bed together then freak out.”
“Let’s go back to the beginning, Pan.”
“And do all the romantic stuff?” I asked, suddenly worried about disappointing him.
He laughed. “Pan, you don’t have a romantic bone in your body. You think romance is sharing a bowl of popcorn in bed while doing the crossword together.”
“That is romantic.”
He pecked me on the lips. “Just keep your buttery fingers off my Egyptian cotton sheets.”
For some reason, talking about his sheets convinced me that he was serious, and tears sprang to my eyes. I sniffled and blinked, then said, “Sorry. Allergies.”
“Yeah, you’re allergic to feelings,” he teased, pulling me along. “Let’s go stuff them down with food.”
I gave a watery laugh as we continued onward, bumping into each other as we walked too close together.
I had my gift and I had Leo, and although I didn’t trust either of them completely, I still felt waves of giddiness swirling from my heart.
Maybe I was romantic after all. And maybe, my gift was more important to me than I realized.
If only I knew what it was.
We chatted about nothing until we reached town and saw the damage caused by the earthquake or drones.
Shop windows were smashed, toys and clothing were strewn across the street.
Outside the gift shop, a picture book fluttered in the breeze—and dozens of fragrance bottles were shattered on the sidewalk in front of Deja’s shop.
“Dames,” Leo said.
“What kind of drones does that cop think did this?” I asked.
“I don’t see any bobolink feathers,” Leo said.
As I dialed Deja, we stepped around the branches of a fallen tree then glanced at a freshly dug hole in the park across the street.
The front door of the Barnacle was open, though the “OPEN” sign lay askew on the sidewalk.
I listened to Deja’s phone ring as we poked our heads inside and saw the owner sweeping up broken glass.
“Anything we can do to help?” Leo called.
“Almost done. Thanks.”
“What happened?”
“Best I can figure, some assholes from the mainland came over and trashed the place.”
As Leo responded, Deja finally picked up and croaked, “I’m asleep!”
“There’s been an accident,” I said.
“What?! What happened? Where’s Shrig? Oh, Dames, I told him not to trust that pickleball couple.”
“No, no!” I told her. “It’s not him. There’s a big mess in town. Someone broke into the shop.”
Deja swore. “There’s no crime on Beane Isle!”
“You better get down here. Leo and I will start cleaning up.”
“What are you doing with Leo?”
“Oh, and call every shop owner you know. At least half the shops look damaged.”
Deja made grumbly noises but agreed. Leo paid for coffees in paper cups from the Barnacle owner and we headed to Essence.
The front door was locked so Leo reached through the broken window to unlock it.
Inside, the chandelier was angled to one side of the shop, tied in place by the raffia string Deja used to wrap gifts.
Half the sample jars were scattered around, and someone had taken bites out of some of the candles. Who would do that?
We cleaned for ten minutes before Deja arrived, wearing a purple linen button-down over white track shorts and Nikes, her tan legs on display along with her makeup-less face. “Fuck me! What happened?”
“We don’t know,” Leo told her. “Probably mainlanders.”
“How did they even reach the chandelier?” Deja glowered at the ceiling. “And where the fuck is Shrig? He didn’t come home last night.”
Leo frowned at the skewed chandelier. “Without a ladder? You’d need to fly.”
“You think birds did this?” I asked.
“Sure, and moles dug those holes outside,” he scoffed, then he went still. “Oh! What if Trevor doesn’t have a bird gift—what if he has an animal gift?”
Deja picked a bottle from the wreckage. “What are you talking about?”
I explained, then said, “What if Trevor lost control of his gift?”
“Does that happen?” Deja asked.
“Maybe if, um, another gift interferes,” I said. “Like a new gift. A shitty new gift that messed with—”
“Let’s check with Trevor before you drive yourself crazy,” Leo interrupted. “I’ll run home for a cart.”
I watched him head outside, picking through the wreckage on Beane Street, chatting with people about the damage. Maybe I watched him a little dreamily. Shut up, Diary.
When I turned around, Deja said, “So you and Leo?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“Yeah what?”
“I don’t know! I guess we sort of—” I took a breath and started again.
“I mean, he said that he—and then I, I also said, or I didn’t say, but I, um, agreed, y’know, that we should, I guess, try a little romance.
Except I’m terrible at romance, like buttered popcorn, then we saw what happened here, so, y’know, the end. ”
“Oh, that old story,” she said. “What the fuck are you talking about?”
And that’s when Shrig strolled inside looking like he’d been mauled by a bobcat. His blue batik shirt was torn, he had twigs in his hair, scratches across his face, and what looked like a burgeoning rash on his bare legs.
“What happened to the store?” he said, scratching his wildly disarranged hair.
“What happened to you?” Deja said. “Did you get in a fight?”
“With a bobcat?” I asked.
Before Shrig could answer, Deja dragged him into the back room where she kept her supplies. As she fussed over him, I brought a glass of water. He gulped it down, then sat on the chaise lounge while Deja dabbed tinctures on his scratches.
“I fell in a hole,” he said. “I think.”
“You think?” I asked.
“I was crossing the beach with my board and I tumbled into, like, a pit trap full of vines. Poison ivy or—I don’t know—what gives you a rash?”
Deja began to rub ointment on his leg. “This doesn’t look like poison ivy or sumac.”
“What else could it be?” I asked.
“You stayed in the hole all night?” Deja said.
“No, I didn’t stay in the hole all night. I lost my phone when I fell, then I staggered into the woods—and I spent the entire night looking for a way out. I swear the trees were moving around to fuck with me.”
“How many edibles did you take?” I asked.
“None!” Shrig said.
Deja eyed him. “But really though?”
“No more than usual,” he said. “Now tell me what happened here.”
“I slept with Leo,” I admitted.
“Whoa!” Deja said. “He meant with the shop.”
“I no longer care about the shop,” Shrig said. “Tell me everything!”
“Is this a good idea?” Deja asked me. “Sleeping with another friend?”
Shrig leered. “Is it my turn next?”
“No!” Deja and I both answered.
As did Leo, standing in the front door. “If I have my way,” he continued, “it will only ever be my turn.”
“Anyway!” I bustled across the shop, before they could notice my blush. “Leo and I have to run.”
As I dragged him away, I heard Shrig saying, “So now they’re both off-limits?”