Chapter Seven
Gus
“You’re not listening, Wade,” I say in a hushed voice.
“No, you’re the one who isn’t listening,” he responds.
“I’ve heard everything you said—and I don’t agree.”
“There are no other options,” he growls.
“Wade, if you listened—”
“Enough, Gus. Seriously. I don’t want to hear it.”
I glance at Rhett, widening my eyes and silently asking are you going to help?
He sighs, shoving his hands into his pockets and walking over to Wade.
“If there’s a chance, shouldn’t we take it?” he says.
Wade looks at him, then back at me. “Seriously? Now you’re tag-teaming me?”
“This isn’t about that,” Rhett says. “This is about our freedom. Shouldn’t we do everything we can if there is a possibility?”
“Just to be disappointed again? I don’t think so.”
Rhett glances at me, shrugging.
“We don’t need him,” I say. “We can do it without him.”
“Doubt that,” Rhett says, walking back to me. “And I don’t think it matters anyway. He’s probably right.”
“What is wrong with you two?” I ask, throwing my arms up. Neither of them says anything, so I walk back to the house and knock on the front door.
Daisy pulls it open.
“Hi, Gus.” She smiles. “What can I do for you?”
“I was wondering if we could talk.”
“Yeah, of course.” She steps aside and lets me into the house I’ve been in plenty of times before. Agnes didn’t let us in here willingly, but all three of us snuck in as often as we could to find something to reverse the curse. We always came up empty.
“What’s going on?” Daisy asks, going back to the stove and mixing something in a pot.
“That smells really good.”
“Do you want to stay for dinner?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t…”
“Just because the others want nothing to do with me doesn’t mean you have to be the same.”
“Yeah, I know…” I scratch the back of my neck. “It’s just… we’ve been together so long, you know?”
“I get it.”
“That’s actually, uh… kind of what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah…”
She turns the burner off, wipes her hands on a towel, and turns to face me.
“Okay, what is it?”
“Don’t judge what I’m about to say.”
“I’ll try.”
“The guys and I have been desperate to find a way to reverse this curse…”
“You said there isn’t a way.”
“As far as we know, there isn’t, but we assumed Agnes had something lying around, and so we may have looked around a few times…”
Daisy raises a brow, smirking. “You broke in?”
“Uh… yes?”
She rolls her eyes. “I can’t blame you for that. Can’t say I wouldn’t have done the same. Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I may know where the answer is, but we could never get into it.”
“I don’t understand?”
“There’s a safe in Agnes’s closet…”
“A safe? No. I was in there just last week going through things. I lived here most of my life—there’s no safe.”
“It’s hidden behind a false wall,” I blurt out.
Her eyes narrow, and she purses her lips, then turns on her heel to hurry upstairs. I follow after her, knowing where I’m going. By the time I get up there, she’s already pulling the closet door open. Planting her hands on her hips, she looks around.
“I don’t see a thing.”
I squeeze in, our arms brushing as I lean into the small closet and press on the panel that’s hiding the safe. It pops out, and I move it to the side.
She gasps, her eyes widening when she sets them on the safe.
“I had no idea…”
“It took us a long time to find it,” I say.
“Wade and Rhett are stuck on not trying to fix this anymore, so they also didn’t want me to show this to you. They’re tired of being disappointed.”
Daisy looks back at the safe. “I don’t know what the code could be.”
“It’s only four digits,” I say.
“How do you know that?”
“It beeps when you press the buttons. We’ve heard her use it before. Didn’t put two and two together until a couple weeks ago, when we found the safe and tried to get into it ourselves.”
“Four digits?” she says softly, stepping forward and putting in a code. It blinks red. She tries another. Red again. “How many chances do I get?”
“Uh… there is a limit?”
“I wasn’t sure if this was like a cell phone and you only have so many wrong entries before it locks it.”
“I don’t know what that means…”
Understanding crosses her eyes. “Right, sorry. You aren’t very familiar with technology. Well, this safe looks old, so let's hope I get as many chances as needed.”
She steps further out of the closet, stopping in front of me.
She’s very close. So close I can smell the floral scent of her shampoo and see the different shades of color in her hazel eyes. Her lips are full, her skin flawless. Her light brown hair is pulled back in a messy ponytail, and she’s much shorter than me.
“You’re really pretty,” I breathe out.
Her cheeks turn pink. “Thank you.”
Smiling, I step back to put some distance between us.
“Do you think you could keep trying?”
“Hm?” she says, her eyes staring into mine. “Oh, the safe. Right.” She laughs, turning her attention back to it. “Yes, definitely. It does feel like something important is in there.”
“Thank you, Daisy.”
Her smile is soft. “You’re welcome, Gus.”
“I, uh… should go.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for dinner?”
Dinner sounds amazing, but…
“No, thanks. I should get back to the guys.”
I leave the bedroom and head for the stairs.
“You could sleep in here tonight,” she calls after me. I look back, seeing her in the doorway. “You know, so you aren’t sleeping in the dirt.” She shrugs, tugging at the hem of her T-shirt.
“I’ll… think about it.
“I know the floor isn’t much better than out there, but at least it’s clean. And you could take turns on the couch.”
“I’ll talk to them.” I smile but already know what the answer will be. Neither are going to agree. So, that’ll be my answer.