Chapter 5
Dinner with Friends and Enemies
FIONA
“Oh, one more thing,” Tre says as I reach the exam room door. Like he has the right to ask me for anything. Let alone one more thing.
I look over my shoulder, eyebrows raised in silent question.
“Put in a good word for me with your nurse? I think she has the hots for me.”
I roll my eyes and walk out of the room.
God, he’s such an ass, I fume, already regretting agreeing to have dinner with him.
I don’t even want to! Sure, he made a couple of good points about having wormed his way into knowing information about what’s going on at the construction sites that I don’t.
And, sure. Half the people in town eat at his diner, but even so.
I don’t want to work with him. I simply want to make sure he won’t rat me out as soon as they start looking at him for the explosion on Bridal Mountain.
When I stopped by the gas station to get a cup of coffee on my way to work this morning, I heard mention that the construction site had been vandalized.
The gas station coffee is fucking horrendous—it makes me miss Seattle every damn day—but the only other place in town open early enough to grab a coffee before work is Betty’s, and I refuse to patronize Tre’s diner.
It didn’t sound like the details about what, exactly, was vandalized had leaked yet, but that won’t be long.
By this afternoon, I expect the entire town will know what happened, and they’ll have questioned Tre by the end of the week at the latest.
Fuck.
Maybe I should’ve said we’d meet tonight.
I could ask Tre to reschedule, but I don’t have his number—it should be on his intake form, but he left half of it blank.
Ewan probably has it, though. Goddamn Ewan.
Making friends with everyone. A freaking Care Bear could do a better job holding a grudge than my brother.
“Mr. Igoa is ready in exam room one,” Natalie says, and I jump. “Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No, it’s my fault. Uh, hey. You can tell me to mind my own business, but you aren’t… interested in Tre, are you?”
“Tre…? The guy who was in exam room two?” Natalie asks, and I nod. “God, no. He’s got a smile like a used-car salesman.”
I laugh. “Thanks. I needed that.”
It’s six-twenty when I park in the lot behind Betty’s Diner, and dread pools in my stomach. Talk of the explosion has been all over town. Coming here to speak to Tre is a big risk. But not coming is equally risky. Why did he have to be at the construction site?
I get out of my truck and walk to the diner’s back door, then make my way through the crowded restaurant and out the front, looking for whatever door leads to Tre’s apartment.
He said it was above the diner, but how the fuck do you get above the diner?
I wonder. Leave it to him not to provide specifics.
And leave it to me to be too annoyed by his presence to ask.
I walk down the sidewalk until I find another door.
It’s locked, but there are four buzzers next to it.
None of them are labeled, though. He’s so sloppy. Everything he does is sloppy.
I press the first buzzer and wait. Nothing. I try the second, and a woman’s voice says, “Hello?” with a staticky hum.
“Hi, I’m looking for Di— Tre.”
“He’s in number three,” the woman says, and the intercom goes silent.
“Thanks,” I mutter to myself as I press number three’s buzzer, and the static reappears.
“Carson?” Tre’s disembodied voice asks.
“Yeah.”
The disappearance of the static is followed by a loud click, and the door is unlocked when I try the handle.
I step into a small entry, shutting the door behind me.
It locks automatically. I climb the first flight of stairs and see the numbers one and two on doors to either side of the landing, so I climb the next.
Three and four. I sigh and lift my hand to knock on number three at the same time the heavy wooden door opens.
“Uh, hi,” I say, stepping back quickly.
Tre raises his eyebrows. “Are you always so jumpy?”
“Are you always such an ass?” I snap.
His chest rises and falls, and I swear he’s biting back whatever he wanted to say next. “No. I’m sorry. Please come in, Fiona.” He steps aside so I can enter.
I watch Tre warily as I walk past him into his apartment. He’s not even bothering to wear the sling I gave him yesterday.
His place isn’t what I expected. It’s actually neat and orderly, and not sloppy. The ceilings are high—they must be twelve or fourteen feet—and there’s a big open-plan room with the living area separated from the kitchen by a large island. There’s a hallway on the far side.
“Why aren’t there labels on the buzzers out front?” I ask.
“Do you have your name on a label outside your house?”
“No.”
He shrugs as if that’s a sufficient answer, and… I guess it is.
“I came. So what do you want? Why am I here?” I have no idea how to talk to Tre. For most of my life, all I’ve done is trade insults with him.
“Do you want something to drink?” he asks, walking to the kitchen, which doesn’t smell half bad. “I have beer and wine, sparkling water or—”
“I’m fine.”
Tre sighs and pulls two wineglasses from the cabinet. He fills them both with red wine before setting one in front of me.
“I said I was fine.”
He ignores me and says, “I’m making lasagna. You’re not vegetarian, are you? Ewan never mentioned… I should’ve asked. If you are, I can make something else.”
“No. That’s fine. I didn’t come here to eat, anyway.” I’m not sure why I came, but I don’t tell Tre that.
“Sit down.” He gestures at the tall chairs near the island.
“I don’t want to sit down, Dickie. I want—”
“Can you not?”
“Can I not what?”
“You know what, Fiona. Please, can you not?” he repeats, his grey eyes earnest.
“Fine. Why—”
“Can we just start over? Hi, I’m Tre White.” He extends his hand toward me and waits. Like he seriously expects me to take it.
“What? No. No, Tre. We cannot just ‘start over!’”
“Okay, why not? Because honestly, Fiona, I have no idea why we hate each other.”
“Of course you don’t! You know what, Tre—no. Never mind. It doesn’t even matter! I don’t know why I came.” I spin on my heel, heading for the door.
“Fiona, wait! Please.”
I stop. I should keep moving, but I don’t.
“Please. Just stay and hear me out.”
I turn back despite my better judgment.
“Sit down, have a glass of wine, eat dinner, and hear me out. If we get to the end of the night, and you still don’t want anything to do with me, I promise I’ll leave you alone.
I’ll forget about Saturday night, and you’ll never have to talk to me again.
Deal?” He’s got his hand extended toward me once more.
I look at it. “You’ll forget about Saturday night?” I verify.
“Yes.”
“Alright. Deal.” I press my hand into his momentarily. Just like on the mountain, his skin is warm against mine. This time he lets go first.
I take a seat at the island and slide the wineglass toward me, then pick it up and swirl it beneath my nose for something to do.
I don’t know shit about wine. On the infrequent occasions I buy it, I either let the people in the store tell me what to buy, I pick the one with the coolest name or label, or I buy whatever’s cheapest.
“Oh, you know about wine?” Tre asks.
I murmur noncommittally and take a sip. It’s actually not bad.
“This is a Cabernet Sauvignon from a local…” Tre continues, and I tune him out as I take another sip.
Not only do I not know about wine, I don’t care about wine. Go figure Tre does.
“You’re not listening at all, are you?”
“Hmm. What?”
“Nothing. Never mind,” he says. And he’s frowning slightly, like I’ve hurt his feelings.
What the fuck?
He turns away, muttering something about checking on the lasagna.
“So you and Ewan are… friends?” He mentioned my twin earlier. No, actually he mentioned my twin not having mentioned that I was a vegetarian. Like they talk all the time. Like they talk about me all the time. Like it would’ve come up if I were.
“Yeah. Is that a problem?”
“No.” I take another sip of wine. “Ewan can be friends with whomever he likes.” I’m not surprised.
Not really. But still. It’s Tre. My brother needs better taste in friends.
“Are you guys dating?” Ewan said no when I asked, but now I’m not sure if he was lying to me, because even though I assumed they were friendly, I didn’t expect they were the kind of friendly that would lead to them discussing me.
And if my brother is interested in Tre, I should at least try to be less obvious about hating him.
“What?”
“You and Ewan. Are you a couple? Friends with benefits? Some secret third thing?”
“No, we’re just… Your brother’s not exactly my type, romantically speaking. We’re really just friends.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“You seriously can’t imagine your brother being friends with me?” Tre asks, sounding wounded.
I shrug and take another sip of wine to hide my confusion.
“You know, people are already whispering that you were probably behind the vandalism,” I say, changing the subject.
“You coming into my office yesterday didn’t help matters, either.
People think you got injured while vandalizing the site.
If you and Ewan are such good friends, you could have asked him to ask me to come talk to you.
” Okay. I guess I’m not changing the subject after all.
“You want me to involve Ewan in this? I should pass him a note and ask him to give it to his sister, like we’re back in high school? ‘Check yes if you’ll go on a date with me.’” Tre stops abruptly. “Like that wouldn’t piss you off.”
“Alright. Fine. You’re right. That would’ve been dumb. Ewan would’ve asked questions. Point taken.” I fall silent, with no idea what to say next. This is uncomfortable. I want to leave. Instead, I pour myself some more wine.
A minute passes, and Tre stands in his kitchen with the overhead lighting shining off his blond hair.
Clearly, he has no better idea about what we’re supposed to say to each other than I do.
‘So, you hate evil douchebags too? Wanna be friends? We can blow some shit up together!’ isn’t exactly normal dinner conversation.
“Did you really build the bomb yourself?” Tre finally asks.
“Yes, Di—Tre. I really did,” I answer without hesitation. There’s no way I’m going to tell Tre that it was my dad who built it.
“Because that’s a thing they teach in med school?”
“Have you not heard about the internet?”
“Okay. Fine. You’re smart enough that you could’ve figured it out. I guess,” he says, sounding unconvinced. Which is great. Just great.
“You said you ruined their concrete? How does one ‘ruin’ concrete?” I’ll admit I’m a little curious, but mostly I want to stop him from asking more questions about the bomb I didn’t build.
“Do you know how concrete works?”
“You add water, pour it, and then it dries and hardens.”
“Okay. So, no.”
I open my mouth to reply, but Tre continues talking.
“Concrete doesn’t harden via the evaporative process. It cures because of a hydration reaction—a chemical reaction,” Tre clarifies.
I roll my eyes. “I know what a hydration reaction is, Tre. I’m surprised you do, though.”
“You really do think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
“I think you’re more of an asshole than an idiot,” I say truthfully. “But you’re a Venn diagram. There’s some overlap.”
“You know I have an engineering degree?”
“No. In what?”
“Material sciences. From Northwestern. I’m not stupid, Fiona.”
“You realize that just makes it worse, right?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Tre demands as the oven timer begins beeping.
“Nothing,” I reply quickly. “So you put something in the concrete to stop the hydration reaction?” I ask as he turns to pull the lasagna out of the oven.
“Yes. Sugar. If you add enough sugar to cement—which I did—it prevents the formation of calcium silicate hydrate, ruining the concrete.”
That’s actually… smart. It might be smarter than blowing up the gondola support column, though I don’t tell Tre that. I don’t want to admit that I’m a little impressed.
“You said you had other targets?” I ask as he sets the baking dish on top of a trivet. He would have a trivet. Leave it to him to defy my expectations in the most unfathomable way possible.
“Yes. I was going to destroy the bulldozers and the gondola cables, too. But then I saw you,” he tells me as he cuts and plates the lasagna, which smells amazing. Not that I’d admit that in a million years, either.
He sets a plate in front of me and refills my wineglass, which has somehow become empty again.
This is like being in a fun house. Nothing is quite what it appears to be, and I’m unsure if I’m about to walk into a mirrored wall. I don’t like it at all. I want to go back to the world where Tre is just some asshole I don’t associate with.
“Well. Are you going to try it?” he asks, coming around the island with his own wineglass and plate before sitting down next to me.
I want to say no. I know I should leave. Leaving would be smart. But if I were smart, I would’ve never come back to Kalomish.
I pick up my fork, slice off a piece, and take a bite. It might be the best lasagna I’ve ever had. It’s all I can do to not groan in pleasure. I could marry this fucking lasagna.
I take a sip of my wine. “It’s okay,” I say. “So. If we were going to work together? What would that look like?”