Chapter Thirty-Seven
Everett
Everett: Hey, let me know how it goes with budget Sherlock. I’m thinking about you.
I send the text around four in the afternoon, but I don’t hear from Mila until around nine, when she FaceTimes me. Seeing her freckles on the screen makes my chest feel tight. Or maybe it’s her eyes. Or her hair.
“Hey, you.”
She smiles. “Hi. Sorry I didn’t answer your text sooner. It was a lot to type, and I figured I’d get my mom taken care of and call.”
“That’s okay.” I lie back on my couch. “So, how did it go?”
To my surprise, her face lights up. “Good. He had two items to show me that someone found in the alley right before the fire started. Both of them turned out to be mine.”
“What were they?”
“One was a necklace I lost that night, and it’s really special to me. I’m so happy to have it back.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. It’s a ladybug charm on a gold chain. We got the charms after Lydia died, and I never took mine off. I was devastated when I realized it was missing.”
“Oh, yeah. I think I remember those bug necklaces. Gabi had one too, right?”
“Right. I wonder if she still has hers. I should ask her.”
“So what was the other thing he had?”
“A ponytail holder.”
“Seriously? That’s it?”
“That’s it. And it was definitely mine.”
“So much for the mysterious new evidence.”
“Maybe not,” she says, her eyes widening, her tone full of intrigue. “Dan claims there’s a witness who saw someone leaving the bakery after it was closed but before the fire started.”
“It was probably me. Remember? I left to go move the truck.”
“Right.” She sighs. “Anyway, I think the guy was thoroughly disappointed in me. He was hoping to have enough juicy details to make a true crime podcast.”
“What about the witness? Are they willing to come forward?”
“Dan’s going to find out.” Her eyes sparkle. “Maybe there’s still time for a plot twist.”
“Embarrassing music you’d never admit to liking out loud,” Mila says the next night. We’re on FaceTime again, even though it’s after midnight and we keep saying we should hang up and get some sleep. “Go.”
“I believe I’ve already confessed to a substantial yacht rock playlist,” I tell her, stretched out in my bed now. “But I am not ashamed of it. You?”
“I know the words to every single song in any Disney princess movie ever made. You never want to watch Beauty and the Beast with me. I am insufferable.”
“I never want to watch a Disney princess movie ever, so we’re good.” Though truthfully, I’d watch anything Mila wanted to if it meant she’d curl up with me under a blanket. I’m craving the orange-blossom scent of her. “What other kinds of movies do you like?”
“Nineties rom-coms starring Julia Roberts are my favorites, hands down,” she says. “Pretty Woman, Notting Hill, My Best Friend’s Wedding… I could watch them all on a loop every day. She was always my favorite because she had red hair like me.”
“Can’t say I’ve seen any of those.”
“What?” Her outrage jumps off the screen, and she bolts upright so fast that she scares her cat out of the frame. “We need to remedy that as quickly as possible. What are your favorite movies?”
“I like a good heist flick. Or a crime thriller. Scorsese.”
“Which Scorsese do you like best?”
“Hmm. Maybe Goodfellas.”
“Never seen it.”
“Come on,” I scoff, “it’s a classic!”
“Our first movie marathon will be very eclectic. But you should know that I cry at everything.”
“Why doesn’t this surprise me?”
She looks thoughtful. “Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“What did you think of me back then?”
“Back when? I’ve known you for like twenty years.”
“Okay, not when I was a kid, but like… When I was a teenager. That last summer… When I kissed you.”
“I liked you.”
She waits for me to go on. “That’s it?”
I laugh. “What else is there?”
“Did you think I was cute?”
“Definitely. But you were my little sister’s friend and it didn’t feel right to do anything about it. I told myself you were off-limits.”
“You asked me to go to the beach with you that night.”
“Did I?”
She squawks in disbelief. “You don’t remember?”
I laugh. “It’s been ten years, Freckles. What happened before the fire is a little hazy in my mind.”
“Well, I remember everything. It was really hot that night, and you said we should go swimming.”
“Ballsy of me.”
“Not as ballsy as what I did.”
“That’s true.”
Her face scrunches up like she’s in pain. “God, I was so awkward.”
“Nah. I was into you. And if my world hadn’t exploded that night along with the bakery, you would have known it long before now.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“I still feel so bad about—about everything.”
“Don’t look back,” I tell her. “What’s past is past.”
She exhales, her eyes closing for a second. “Sometimes, it doesn’t feel that way at all.”
I don’t see Mila in person for the rest of the week.
We were supposed to meet up for lunch on Friday, but her mother developed a migraine and asked her to stay home.
On Saturday, she recovered but requested that Mila take her to do some outlet shopping two hours away.
Mila and I made plans to meet for a late supper together, but when they returned, the long ride in the car had given her mother such a bad ache in her hips that she was unable to stand and cook dinner.
Could Mila please take pity on her and stay in to make the meal?
“I’m sorry,” she says later that night on another video call. “I’m dying to see you.”
“You don’t owe me an apology,” I tell her. What I want to say is that her mother is going to keep doing this until Mila refuses to let herself be manipulated.
But I keep my mouth shut.
Sunday afternoon, I’m at my mom’s house fixing a leak in the kitchen sink when Mila sends me a text.
Mila: FREEDOM! I escaped the house and I probably have an hour.
Everett: Cabin?
Mila: I’ll be there in 15.
I slip my phone into my back pocket and test the faucet one more time. “I gotta run an errand. Can Merlin stay here?”
“Yes, but I thought you were staying for dinner.” Her tone is aggrieved. “I just took the pork chops out of the pan.”
“I’ll come back.” I’m already halfway out the door.
Racing out to my truck, I jump behind the wheel, execute a reckless three-point turn, and tear down the dirt road toward the cabin.
I arrive first and wait for her outside, leaning against the back of my truck. It’s wild the way my heart jumps at the sight of her stepping out of her mom’s car wearing my enormous John Deere hoodie, her hair in that messy knot on the top of her head.
She runs right for me and lassos my neck with her arms and my hips with her legs. Our lips crash together, and I realize too late that I haven’t showered today and probably smell like some combination of manure, gasoline, and fried pork chops.
Eventually, she slides back onto her feet. “I missed you,” she says, out of breath. “Is that dumb? It’s only been four days.”
“Not at all. I missed you too. So much that I went running out of my mother’s house to spend an hour with you when she just put dinner on the table.”
She laughs. “You chose seeing me over eating a meal?”
“To be clear, I expect to have both at once.” I pull her inside.
As soon as I enter my mom’s kitchen again, I get the third degree.
“What was that all about?” she asks the moment the door shuts behind me.
“What?” I pretend I don’t know what she means and head to the sink to wash my hands. Her suspicious stare feels like needles on my back.
“You running out of here like the place was on fire.”
“That’s a little dramatic.” My glance falls on a section of countertop my father replaced ten years ago with a laminate that doesn’t exactly match the original, giving it an unintentional two-toned look. “I think it’s time we fixed these counters.”
“Don’t try to change the subject. Where did you go?”
Merlin’s head is going back and forth between us like he’s enthralled with a tennis match.
I grab a plate from the cabinet and fill it with pork chops and mashed potatoes at the stove. “The hardware store.”
“For what?”
“For what?” I repeat.
“Yes, what did you run out of here to get at the hardware store?” She leans to one side, looking around me toward the door. “I didn’t see you come in with a bag or anything.”
“I didn’t buy anything.”
“You raced out of here at a hundred miles per hour to go to the hardware store, but you didn’t buy anything while you were there?”
“That’s right.” I dig into my food, already cueing up a compliment I hope will end this third degree. “Mmm,” I say around a mouthful, “so good.”
Mom rests her elbows on the table, arms folded. “Nice try. You look a little sweaty. Was it hot in the hardware store?”
Instead of answering, I get up to pour myself a glass of milk. Which I don’t even like.
“And your fly is down.”
I quickly zip myself up and return to the table.
“Are you going to tell me or not?” My mother is losing patience with me.
“Tell you what?”
“If something is happening between you and Mila Ferguson!”
“I told you, we’re just—”
“I know what you told me. What I don’t know is if you’re lying to me or to yourself.”
“I’m not lying to anybody!”
“So have you been seeing her?”
“You could say that.”
“How much longer is she in town?”
“A month.”
“Oh.” Sounding satisfied, she relaxes in her chair again. “That’s plenty of time.”
I cock a brow at her. “Plenty of time for what?”
“A haircut, for one.” She waves her fork in my direction. “You’re looking a little shaggy.”