Chapter Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Eight
It had been a busy day, especially for a Monday. Nick could tell that summer was here, from the uptick in tourists as much as from the rising temperatures that kept people inside and as close to the air conditioner as possible. Folks up north were trapped in their houses by snowstorms in the wintertime, but in Florida it was the opposite. Summer brought the most oppressive weather, though it inexplicably brought the tourists as well.
Well, they could have the outdoors this time of year. Let them rent the kayaks and stand-up paddleboards and slowly broil in the hot Florida sun. Nick wished them well and hoped they had enough sunscreen. (And enough bug spray, if they were heading to Cemetery Island.) The only outdoor activity on his docket was another day of fishing with Vince on Wednesday. But the plan was to head out well before sunrise and be back by midmorning, when the humidity really settled in like a wet blanket over your face.
Nick followed the last customer to the door, flipping the latch with satisfaction. It had been a long, busy breakfast rush followed by a slightly tamer but still hectic lunch crowd. It didn’t take long to set the seating area to rights, stacking chairs on tables so he could mop the whole floor later. But for now, he had banana bread to make for tomorrow.
The kitchen was sparkling clean; Ramon always left the place spotless after the lunch rush. Nick took a moment to enjoy the silence of the empty café and the tranquility of a perfectly clean kitchen, knowing he was about to mess it all up. Then of course he’d clean it. Again. There was something so comfortable about a routine that never changed; it was something he could rely on.
And in the back of his mind, there was Cassie. She wasn’t supposed to be part of his routine. No pressure, no strings, remember? Yet his favorite thing in the morning was her smile when she walked through his door. And his favorite thing in the evening was the way the sunset threw golden light in her hair, and the way she nestled into the hollow of his shoulder, fitting like a piece of him he hadn’t realized was missing.
Maybe once he was done here he could give her a call. See if she wanted to watch the sunset.
Of course, that was about all they could do, he remembered with not a little bit of irritation. He couldn’t go into her house, and with Elmer hanging out like a Peeping Tom, she couldn’t spend much time at his. Too bad he couldn’t hang a sock on the door, let Elmer know to fuck off for an evening…
But that gave Nick an idea. With the first batch of banana bread in the oven, he reached for the green spiral notebook on that upper shelf. He flipped through it till he found the photo of Elmer and his wife. The facade of the café looked mostly the same except for the neon ghosts Nick had added a couple years ago.
“Okay, Elmer. Let’s make a deal.” He tossed his phone to the counter before flipping over the first few pages. “I bake whatever you tell me to, and you give me a night alone with Cassie. Sound good?”
The answering buzz came immediately, sending his phone dancing across the counter. Pound cake. Lemon, if you have the stuff for it.
Nick’s smile lifted the right corner of his mouth. “Oh, I’ve got the stuff for it. You’re on.” It didn’t take long to find the recipe—it was pretty basic, like everything else in that notebook. But there was nothing wrong with sticking to the basics. He threw himself into baking, trying to take his mind off the fact that he hadn’t heard from Cassie since she left the café that morning, right before lunch. No pressure, no strings. They were both adults, with careers and habits formed long before they came into each other’s lives. He was cool with that.
But he also missed her. He’d meant to catch her before she left, ask when he could see her again. But she’d left right as things started to pick up at lunchtime. She was there when he took a customer’s order, but by the time he’d turned the order in to Ramon she was gone. It was fine, he told himself as he poured the cake batter into a set of loaf pans. It was her routine these days, since her laptop still wouldn’t hold a charge at home. Spend the morning at the café, charging up, then work at home in the afternoon. As he mixed up a batch of lemon icing to drizzle over the top of the pound cake, he reminded himself that he and Cassie were fine.
But no pressure and no strings also meant no progress. And while Nick had been fine with those kinds of relationships for as long as he could remember, he suddenly felt stifled. Not by Cassie, but by the lack of her. Things between them felt like they were stuck in first gear, and Nick suddenly wanted to put the hammer down. See how fast they could go.
Maybe they wouldn’t go far. She wasn’t committing to him the same way he wasn’t committing to her, and for all he knew she was still planning to sell the house and go back to Orlando.
But so what? Her leaving town didn’t mean they had to end. Orlando wasn’t that far away, and people did long-distance relationships all the time. All he knew now was that he liked his life with Cassie in it and didn’t want to think of a life without her. They could make it work. They would find a way. Maybe he wouldn’t mind a few strings after all.
Yeah, he was definitely calling Cassie tonight. They had things to discuss. And things to do that didn’t involve talking.
There was a knock at the outer door to the café right as the timer went off for the cakes. Nick ignored it, letting the knocking continue while he took the loaf pans out of the oven. There were always going to be Those People who thought that because they were on vacation, rules didn’t apply to them. Rules like closing times: they wanted a coffee and it didn’t matter that the coffee shop had closed hours ago. Couldn’t he just open the doors and serve them anyway? People seemed to pack extra audacity when they went on vacation.
The kitchen was filled with the aroma of buttery sugar and lemon, making Nick’s mouth water. He hoped Elmer could smell it. It was a little more effort than the banana bread he could make in his sleep at this point, but he had to admit Elmer was right. Totally worth it. He set the loaves to cool next to the finished banana bread. He’d ice them tonight and then pack it all up later, ready for tomorrow.
He fired off a text: hope I did it justice , before glancing around, gearing himself up to clean the kitchen. He’d just started stacking dishes in the sink when his phone buzzed with a response; he dried his hands on a kitchen towel before throwing it over his shoulder and picking up his phone.
Perfect. Smells just like I remember. You’re not bad at this!
Wow. Rare praise from Elmer. Nick smiled, a warm feeling blooming in his chest.
Meanwhile, someone was still knocking on the fucking door.
Nick threw the kitchen towel to the counter in a private display of temper, then he sucked in a deep breath through his nose as he barreled through the swinging kitchen door and into the café proper. He knew how to deal with folks like this—snarky and just this side of rude—but his annoyed stride halted when he saw a familiar blond ponytail through the front window. Libby.
Why the hell was Libby knocking at the café like she didn’t know he was closed? But the look on her face made Nick’s heart stall in his chest; something was wrong. Now he couldn’t get the door open fast enough, unlocking the latch and throwing back the bolt with nerveless fingers.
“What is it?” The words tumbled out of his mouth as he pulled open the door. “Is it your grandma? What’s wrong?”
Libby shook her head, ponytail swinging frantically to keep up. “It’s Cassie.”
“Cassie?” His heart gave a great thump, nearly stalling in his chest. “Is she okay?”
Libby shook her head. “We need you. Come on. Nan’s at her house right now.” She looked over her shoulder, toward the Hawkins House, and ice pooled in Nick’s stomach.
“Okay.” He darted out the door, closing it behind him before he realized—keys. He needed his keys to lock the door. And he should probably take his phone too. “Hold on.” It only took a moment to dash inside, back to the kitchen, to scoop up his phone from the counter and his keys from their hook. His hip caught against the corner of the counter on his way back out, more than one stool crashing to the ground, but he didn’t notice the pain.
As he stepped onto the sidewalk, pulling the door closed behind him and fumbling with his keys to lock it, he glanced back into the café; had he turned the oven off? He didn’t give a shit; the whole place could burn down for all he cared. Cassie needed him, and nothing was going to get in his way.
But he had the presence of mind to fire off a text ( Is the oven off? ) while he was still under the awning before he locked the door. He could only hope that Elmer’s range reached to the sidewalk, and he practically sagged with relief when he got an immediate reply ( All good in here; go help your girl! ). He was already heading up the sidewalk, his long strides forcing Libby to trot to keep up with him, as he stowed his phone away along with his keys.
“What’s happened?” he asked. “Did Mrs. H turn on her?” Just the thought of it had him seeing red. Cassie had bent over backward to try to understand her ghostly roommate, and now this? Mrs. H could fuck with him all she wanted; he was used to it by now. But if she’d done something to hurt Cassie…
But Libby shook her head. “It’s not Mrs. H,” she said. “It’s Mister H.”
“Mister?” Nick stopped short, facing Libby. “Where the hell did he come from?” But something clicked in his brain. The bees, the buzzing…the aggressive static. The masculine, outdated thinking.
Holy shit, it was Mr. H after all.
Libby filled Nick in on everything on the rest of the walk to Cassie’s house.
“From what we’ve been able to figure out, Mrs. H has been keeping him at bay all this time. First while she was alive, and then…afterward.”
“Strong woman.” Nick conveniently forgot that he’d hated Sarah Hawkins all of five minutes ago. “Bet he hates that.”
“Yep. And then Cassie came along, and then you came along. Mr. H wants to control Cassie, and he’s trying to get you to do that for him.”
Nick had to scoff at the notion. “Fuck that.”
“Exactly.”
They reached the Hawkins House, and the sight of Cassie sitting on the top step filled Nick with relief. Whatever was going on hadn’t touched her yet. She looked fine. She looked…
Pissed.
She came storming down the steps of her front porch, her face like thunder. “Absolutely not,” she barked as she met Nick at her front gate. She put her hands on the gate, as though that would keep him out. She glared past him to Libby. “I told you not to get him.”
Libby tsked. “Nan said to get him, so I got him. That’s how it works.”
The front door opened, and as though summoned, Nan Simpson stood on the front porch in all her pink-track-suited glory. She looked out into the yard, taking stock, then nodded. “Good,” she said. “The boy’s here. Let’s get this started.”
Nick looked up at Nan, then to Libby and finally to Cassie. “What exactly are we getting started?”
“An exorcism,” Libby replied cheerfully. “Haven’t been part of one of these in a while. Should be fun.”
“They’re not fun .” Nan shook her head at her granddaughter as Libby pushed open the gate to head into the house. “Go inside, double-check everything. Tell me if I missed something.” She looked back at Nick and Cassie, who were still rooted to the spot, the gate firmly shut between them again. “Come inside when you’re ready. It’s time C. S. Hawkins crossed over for good.”
As the front door closed behind Nan, Cassie heaved a sigh. Then she turned her attention back to Nick, worry etched in her expression. He reached out, smoothing a thumb across her forehead. She closed her eyes at his touch. “I really don’t want to involve you in this,” she said, her voice soft.
Nick shook his head. “Don’t care. I’m in.” He took her hands in his—her fingers were freezing, despite the heat of the late afternoon—threading their fingers together.
Her face softened, and that only strengthened his resolve. “I don’t like what he does to you,” she said. “I don’t want to put you through that.”
“I don’t love it, either.” Even now, on the other side of the gate but this close to the house, Nick could hear the static, a faint buzz in the back of his brain. It dared him to cross into the yard, even as everything inside him urged him to turn and flee. But he was stronger than that. And it was time to tell her. Everything. “Cassie. I want to be with you.”
She blinked up at him in surprise. “What happened to ‘no pressure, no strings’?”
“You happened.” He reached for that lock of hair that always fell out of her messy bun, catching it to twirl it between his fingers. “Give me all the pressure. All the strings. Lay it on me.”
He bent toward her, over the gate. She caught her breath, and then he caught it, brushing his mouth over hers. Her kiss lay waste to the thick wall he’d built around his heart, around his soul. He didn’t need it anymore. When they came up for air, he pressed his forehead to hers, breathing her in. “I want to be with you, Cassie,” he said again. “I know that there’s a lot going on right now, about to banish a ghost from your house and all, so my timing is absolute shit. But you have no idea how good it feels to say that to someone. How good it feels to feel that way. I know you still might be leaving town, so I don’t want to pressure you. But…” He was babbling now, his thoughts spilling through his brain and out of his mouth faster than he could keep track of them. But these feelings were so new, so strong, that he couldn’t hold them back.
Cassie pulled back, her brown eyes studying his, and Nick wanted to lose himself in those eyes. Hell, he already had lost himself. He just needed Cassie to find him.
“I want to be with you too.” Her words sent his heart soaring, but her face was still worried. She threw a glance over her shoulder, to the house where everyone was waiting for them. “But I don’t want you involved in this. There’s got to be another way.”
Nick would like that too, honestly. But…“Apparently Mr. Hawkins only really appears for me. So if I can help get him out of here, then that’s what I’m going to do.” He took a breath and, very deliberately, unlatched the garden gate. Then he stepped through, into Cassie’s front garden.
The static took up residence in his head almost immediately. Buzzing that was almost painfully loud. But Nick wasn’t afraid of it anymore. Now he knew what it was: C.S. Hawkins dialing in, trying to find the right frequency to get Nick to do his bidding.
Wasn’t gonna happen.
“Nick.” Cassie’s voice broke through the static and calmed his heart. She squeezed his hand. “Are you sure about this?”
He squeezed back. “It’s for you. I’m in. I’m all in.”