Chapter 3
She’d agreed only because Silverton was more than an hour away, she did need to go there at some point, and she still hadn’t gotten comfortable navigating the narrow, winding mountain roads.
At least, that’s what Merritt told herself as she crossed the driveway toward Niko’s truck.
Walking through the house with him—the most time they’d ever spent alone together—she’d barely taken in anything he’d said, her attention centered on hiding how inexplicably frazzled she felt in his presence.
She’d tried to get over her distant fixation on him by shoving it to the back of her mind, like a Tupperware in the fridge, but, as those things often did, it had grown a life of its own while her back was turned.
She shot him a brief smile of gratitude as he opened the passenger door for her but stopped short before climbing in.
“Do you…what should I do with this stuff?”
He was already halfway around to the other side. “Oh, shit. Sorry. You can just put it in the middle.”
She started to move the pile of debris into the center of the bench seat—junk, but no obvious garbage.
A grubby pair of tennis shoes, loose ballpoint pens, a few CDs, an empty binder, a couple of beat-up baseball caps.
Her hand closed around a soft, paint-stained T-shirt, and she had the irrational urge to bury her face in it.
She quickly released it and finished clearing the space, hoisting herself onto the seat as he did the same.
The sunglasses in her purse weren’t prescription—she’d lost those almost as soon as she’d bought them—but the day was oppressively bright, and since she wasn’t driving, she swapped them out, the lines of the road going hazy.
They drove past the city limits in silence. She reached over and picked up one of the CDs, laughing in surprise when she realized what it was. “ABBA?”
Niko glanced at her, a little wounded, clearly interpreting her laughter as derisive. “What? You don’t like disco?”
She did, actually, but spending her formative years around the worst type of music snobs meant it had taken her way too long to realize it.
“It’s just not what I expected.” She slid it into the CD player, the car filling with the ethereal synths and shimmering keys of “Dancing Queen.”
He shrugged. “They’re my grandmother’s favorite. Reminds me of her.”
She flipped the case over in her hands, studying it, before sneaking another (slightly blurry) look at him.
He had a striking profile, but she already knew that, his angular jaw and brow perfectly counterbalanced by the prominent slope of his nose.
His posture was upright but relaxed, one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel, the other draped over the back of the bench seat.
She was grateful that the pile of junk between them prevented her from unconsciously shifting closer, his fingertips already inches from brushing her shoulder.
She had two doors in front of her, conversation-wise. Door Number One was businesslike small talk: focus on the task at hand. Door Number Two was more personal, a door he’d already cracked by bringing up his grandmother. She had to admit she was curious about him.
But that was the kind of small talk that inevitably led to big talk, the idea of which felt dangerous, since she wasn’t sure what she was willing to share about herself yet.
There was a third option, too: remaining silent and waiting to see what, if anything, he would ask her. But that felt less like a door and more like a long, dark hallway with an indeterminate destination.
Door One was safest.
“What are you going into town for?”
“I have a couple different stops. Picking up some light fixtures, some paint. There’s a flea market once a month that has good stuff sometimes—antique hardware, things like that. We should get there in time for that. You might want to check there for things for your house, too.”
Merritt hummed in acknowledgment. It struck her anew how absurd it was that last week they were virtual strangers, ignoring each other at every opportunity, and now they were on their way to stroll through a flea market together on a lazy Saturday, hand in hand.
Hand in hand? Where the fuck did that come from?
She flexed her fingers and rolled her wrists, one at a time, to bring them back to reality.
“Do you do this with all your clients?”
He shrugged without taking his eyes off the road.
She hadn’t realized she’d been hoping for him to pick up on the flirtatious edge of her question until she felt the sting of his deflection.
Why was she even bothering to flirt with him at all, intentionally or not?
Because he was handsome? Because he was there?
This was essentially a business trip, not a date, no matter how cozy the circumstances.
It would set a bad precedent for her to start thinking of him as some kind of annoyingly attractive Mount Everest she needed to conquer just for the sake of the conquest.
As their drive continued, her attempts at conversation dwindled, leaving them to contemplate ABBA’s greatest hits in silence.
She shouldn’t have worried. He didn’t ask her a single question.
Maybe Mount Everest was the right comparison after all. He couldn’t have seemed less interested in her if he were literally made of stone.
Niko craned his head and squinted. Merritt had disappeared yet again.
As soon as they’d approached the flea market, she’d wandered off, slipping into the crowd.
It looked like he’d had the right impulse to give her space on the drive over, a gesture made easier by the fact that he’d been so nervous about accidentally asking her something intrusive or inappropriate that his mind had gone blank.
He finally caught up to her a few rows over, where she was studying a stall full of antique mirrors. Her back was to him, her image refracted a dozen times from every angle, warped and distorted.
She caught his eye through her reflection and smiled. “Did you find anything?”
He shook his head. “You?”
She shook her head, too. “I don’t know if I’m ready for any of this yet. One decision at a time, you know?” She pivoted to face him, sliding her sunglasses off the top of her head and back over her eyes. “Should we head back? Is there anything left on the list?”
They’d already taken care of their individual errands before meeting back up to head over to the flea market. He’d walked into the tile store and seen her weighing two almost identical samples of dark-gray tile in her hands, running her thumbs thoughtfully over their smooth surfaces.
As he’d glanced around at the other customers, he quickly realized he wasn’t the only one observing her.
Watching her drift around the store and the market reminded him of a toy he’d had as a kid, where he’d used a magnetic pen to move tiny metal shavings around a cartoon man’s face, imitating facial hair.
Merritt was like that magnetic pen: wherever she went, it seemed like the people around her couldn’t help but turn to stare at her.
Not everyone—not even most—but enough. And there was always a question on their faces as they did a double (sometimes triple) take, their eyes flitting to her face and then away again, trying to study her without being too obvious.
But despite the furtive glances, not one of them went up to her.
He’d even thought twice about doing it himself, despite having a legitimate reason to.
He wouldn’t describe her aura as unfriendly, exactly, but something about the way she carried herself—all the time, not just now—screamed Approach with Caution.
Not like she’d attack, but like she’d flee, a startled deer seeking safety deep in the woods.
The night before, he’d mentioned to one of his roommates, Jo, that he was going to work on her house. All the color had immediately drained from Jo’s face, which was how Niko learned that he’d been living with a secret Merritt Valentine superfan for months.
They’d immediately pulled up a music video on their phone—Merritt’s first single, the one they swore he’d definitely know when he heard it.
A jagged piano rhythm blared from the speakers, pulsing and hypnotic, over a wide shot of an empty field at night, lit only by the full moon.
And then: teenage Merritt, almost unrecognizable.
Painfully young, painfully thin, the harsh lighting illuminating her like a ghost against the darkened surroundings.
When she opened her mouth, the hair on Niko’s arms had stood up.
Her voice was low and rich and buttery smooth, but with an edge to it—an unexpected bite of spice that burned the back of his throat.
Even though Niko could tell the song was good, something about the video had made his stomach curdle.
He felt creepy watching it, like he was doing something invasive, even though it had more than two hundred million views.
His other roommate, Simon, had grabbed the phone, reading out the top comments with a laugh: Where’s Merritt? What happened to Merritt?
Niko wasn’t sure what was so funny about it.
Once he was alone in his room later that night, he’d thought about looking for more.
Niko wasn’t the most tech-savvy person, but he knew even his limited search skills would probably yield more information than he’d know what to do with.
But half-buzzed, sprawled on his bed with his thumbs poised over the cracked screen of his phone, he hadn’t been able to do it.
It wasn’t because he wasn’t interested. It just felt wrong. Like he’d discovered something deeply personal about her, without him having to open up at all in return. He didn’t want to learn anything else if it wasn’t straight from the source.
If only he could untie his tongue long enough to ask.