Chapter 16
Objectively, Niko could admit that his date with Skylar hadn’t been going great even before he’d kissed Merritt in the bathroom hallway.
It had probably been doomed from the get-go.
He’d never liked getting over someone by going after someone else—one, because it usually just made him feel worse, and two, it seemed unfair to the unsuspecting rebound.
Plus, there was the nagging feeling that he wasn’t even close to ready to move on from Merritt yet.
But what was he supposed to do? Pine for her from a distance, on the off chance she’d change her mind?
He was making too big a deal out of this. There was barely anything to get over. Just a crush and a couple of kisses. Never mind that kissing her felt like his cells were being rearranged.
It was weird, how her rejection had somehow burst a dam of feelings for her he hadn’t wanted to admit he had.
They were confusing, mostly built on glimpses of possibility, but it was like she’d taken a switchblade to a promising sketch, slashing the canvas to ribbons before a paintbrush had the chance to touch it.
Maybe it would’ve turned out ugly, but at least it would’ve been theirs.
Still, he probably would’ve kept wallowing indefinitely if Simon hadn’t dragged him out to a party where he’d bumped into Skylar again.
Their conversation that night had flowed easily enough, but once they were sitting across from each other at Last Chair, it was clear that any chemistry they’d felt was a direct result of the six-pack they’d split.
By the time he’d excused himself to the bathroom, Skylar had already been scrolling through her phone for several minutes, barely looking up.
Once he got back, though, there was no hope for recovery. He was so rattled and guilty (plus, he still really needed to pee) that he could barely put a sentence together. He heard her let out an audible sigh of relief when he finally flagged Simon down for the check.
The next morning, he got a series of texts from Merritt. The sight of her name on his phone made his heart thunder in his ears. He tried to hold out as long as he could before looking at it but lasted only about ten seconds.
Hey Niko—I’m so sorry about last night. the way I acted was completely inappropriate. it won’t happen again.
this is why I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to get involved. it’s not because of you. you’re wonderful. completely.
I’m sorry.
He didn’t know what to say to that, so he just wrote thanks and put his phone away. As an apology, it wasn’t great, and it only made him more confused about how she felt—though there was no way to spin it as anything but another brush-off.
That was that, then.
So, he did his best to avoid her. He forced himself to wake up for the six a.m. yoga class he knew she wouldn’t be attending, with the added benefit of missing Skylar, who usually worked the afternoon shift.
He put in long hours at work, either at the house, in his workshop, or at the venue where the Mr. Crested Peak pageant would be taking place, gratified to see the transformations, gratified for the way he got home sweaty and exhausted, gratified to pass out the moment his head hit the pillow.
On his weekly call with Yiayia, she chastised him for working too hard, telling him she could hear the fatigue in his voice.
“Go home,” she said in Greek, stern enough to shut down any protests on his end. “Your work will be there tomorrow.”
So he packed up early that night, returning home to find Jo drinking a beer and working on a puzzle at the kitchen table, music playing softly from their Bluetooth speaker.
He stopped short. Even though the song wasn’t familiar, he’d know the voice anywhere.
“Is this her?” he asked, his mouth suddenly dry.
“Shit,” Jo said, fumbling for their phone. “Sorry. I thought you’d be out later.”
Niko held up his hand before running it through his hair. “No,” he said. “No, uh, it’s okay. I don’t mind.”
Jo shot him a sympathetic look, then returned to their puzzle. Niko sat with them for a little, trying to help, a permanent lump lodged in his throat, but he was pretty sure the pieces he was trying to assemble didn’t actually go together, so he soon gave up and went to bed.
He felt haunted by what he’d heard, though.
It seemed unbelievable that he’d spent so much time with her, that she dominated his thoughts, and he’d never gone out of his way to listen to her music.
It wasn’t that he didn’t care—he just didn’t feel comfortable digging deeper into a past she clearly had complicated feelings about without her consent.
It was the same reason he still hadn’t looked her up.
But if they weren’t going to be close anymore, why did it matter?
He opened his music app and navigated to her artist page, her younger face staring back at him, direct and defiant.
He picked an album at random, and as soon as the opening notes played, his stomach lurched.
He did recognize this song—Helene had played it constantly when they were together. A lot of them, actually.
This new time-traveling wrinkle in their relationship unsettled him, but not enough to stop listening.
Over the next few days, he went through all three albums from start to finish, over and over.
He couldn’t stop. Her music wasn’t like anything else he listened to—it was rawer, angrier, more bitter and intense.
But it could be playful, too, and sexy, and hopeful, and joyous, and, above all, catchy, the unusual melodies digging their claws into his brain and refusing to leave even when he wasn’t actively listening.
He didn’t normally pay too much attention to lyrics, but hers were hard to ignore.
Knowing how guarded she was now, how hard it had been to get her to open up, it shocked him to listen to her confess bluntly about her failed relationships, her regrets, her doubts and fears and flaws.
He didn’t fully understand all of it, but it resonated down to his core, like she’d plucked a string deep inside him he hadn’t even known was there.
It was hard not to wonder which of her songs were about her ex, the guitarist. It was even harder to resist the temptation to look up his own band, see if he’d written anything about her in response.
He knew if he asked Jo, they would probably give him a detailed rundown, complete with citations, but that would definitely be crossing a line, if he hadn’t already.
And from dating Helene, he knew the discomfort of having your partner air out their issues with your relationship through art—though at least her work had been more obscure, shrouded in layers of metaphor.
Either way, his attempt to get her out of his system had backfired: she had crawled completely under his skin.
It would be lying to say another few weeks went by “before he knew it”—he was painfully aware of every day passing.
Still, he mostly managed to avoid seeing more than a glimpse of her.
Even his work for SummerFest didn’t involve her anymore, now that it was close enough that everyone had split into smaller subcommittees.
There was an early summer storm brewing as he drove back from her house one night, electricity crackling in the air. Sheets of rain had already started to lash against his car windows when he pulled into his driveway, the streets and sidewalks eerily empty all the way home.
When he opened the door, Jo and Simon were sitting at the kitchen table, Jo shuffling their tarot cards as Simon scrolled through his phone.
“So, when are you going to put in a word with Daniela for me?” Simon was asking.
Jo snorted as Niko set his work bag down and shrugged out of his overshirt.
“Come on,” Simon wheedled. “She’s so fine. Ask the cards if she likes younger men.”
Jo fanned out the deck for Simon to pick one. He did, then handed it to them: the grizzled, bearded figure of the Hermit. Jo grimaced. “Not looking good for you, man.”
“Maybe you’re reading it wrong. What about inverted?” Simon slumped back in his chair, resigned, as Niko sat down next to him. As soon as he did, all three of their phones buzzed at once.
Since Simon was already holding his, his face was the first to drop. “Oh, shit. Check your email.”
Jo and Niko exchanged concerned glances before grabbing their own phones.
At the top of his inbox was an email from their landlord, Dennis. He opened it, his eyes scanning it ineffectively, a few phrases jumping out at him: unfortunately and exemplary tenant and effective September 1.
Once he was able to make sense of it, his stomach lurched, his vision going blurry at the edges. He blinked several times in quick succession, but once the email came back into focus again, it said the same thing.
He looked up, dumbfounded. “We’re being evicted?”
“Of course he’s turning it into a fucking Airbnb,” Jo said, rolling their eyes.
“What are we going to do?” Niko asked, a frantic edge to his voice, suddenly feeling like no one was taking this seriously enough.
Jo and Simon exchanged a look.
“Well…we’re both leaving at the end of the summer anyway,” said Simon, his voice cautious. “So…”
“Right,” Niko said, feeling like he was a million miles away from his body.
“But I’m sure you can find another place in town, right?” Jo interjected quickly.
He took a deep breath, struggling to organize his thoughts.
He was paying well below market rate for this house, and he already knew what was out there for his budget: a poorly constructed studio in one of the new apartment complexes on the edge of town.
Maybe a spare room in an acquaintance’s house, temporarily.
Nothing that could compare to the home he had built here over the last seven years.
He’d have to give up his workshop and his furniture side hustle, which would eat into his income even more.
Anger coursed through him, then helplessness, then despair, all in quick succession.
But, to his surprise, a strange clarity settled over him, displacing every other emotion.
Maybe this was the push he’d been waiting for all along, signaling that his time in Crested Peak had come to an end.
He’d always known he couldn’t stay here forever.
Now he could finally stop postponing his mother’s offer of a stable office job with a salary and benefits and begin the next phase of his life, close to his family.
Plus—and he hated that this even crossed his mind—he wouldn’t have to worry about bumping into Merritt everywhere anymore. It was easy enough for him to steer clear of her now, when he was busier than he’d ever been in his life, but that wouldn’t always be the case.
“I think I might leave, too,” he said slowly, and he had only a split second to absorb Jo’s and Simon’s shocked expressions before their windows lit up with a flash of lightning, a huge clap of thunder shaking the house, and they were instantly plunged into darkness.
It was hard to interpret that as anything but a sign from the heavens. But in which direction, he wasn’t sure.
“Shit,” said Simon. A lighter clicked, and the candle in the center of the table illuminated.
Niko carefully made his way to the window that faced into town. There wasn’t a single light as far as he could see.
“I wonder if a transformer blew,” he said, but all he was thinking about was how Dev had mentioned that he and Olivia were going out of town for the weekend to a friend’s wedding. Which meant that Merritt was probably all alone in a pitch-black house.
She’d told him a story about a night on her first tour when the power had gone out in the hotel where she’d been staying with her band.
She’d been so freaked out that she’d asked everyone to stay in her suite, pillows and couch cushions and blankets piled high in the living room in a spontaneous slumber party.
It had stuck with him, because he couldn’t understand how someone so brave—to expose herself the way she did, to perform in front of thousands, and then to walk away from the thing she most cared about—could be so fearful at the same time.
He tried to keep himself occupied, building a fire in the fireplace as Jo and Simon lit candles. Maybe the power would come back on if he stalled long enough. She probably didn’t want to hear from him, anyway.
But as soon as he was done, seated by the dark window with nothing to distract him, he found himself reaching for his phone.
He wouldn’t have done it if she weren’t all alone.
Hey
Are u ok? Do u have power?
Her reply was immediate.
No, it’s out here too
I’m fine, but my phone’s about to die and i can’t figure out where olivia and dev keep the emergency candles and stuff
Thank you for checking in, though
Niko gnawed on his bottom lip.
we have candles
& firewood
I can bring them over
He saw three dots appear, then disappear, then appear, then disappear.
That’s okay, she wrote back. You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine.
I know i dont have to. i want to, he replied, almost immediately, before he could think it over.
It was a long moment before she responded.
Okay
Thank you
I really appreciate it
Niko’s heart thundered even louder than the storm outside.
He stood up, trying as hard as he could to keep his movements unhurried and casual. He picked up his work bag, then moved around the living room, throwing in a few unlit candles and a lighter.
Simon glanced at him. “Where are you going?”
“Um,” Niko said, pulling on his flannel. “I was just going to run over to Merritt’s. She’s alone and doesn’t have any supplies or anything.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” Simon deadpanned.
Jo raised their eyebrows. “I didn’t know you were still talking.”
“We aren’t,” Niko said. “Do you still have that backup portable phone charger thing?”
“Yeah,” said Simon. “It’s in the drawer next to the sink.” He and Jo exchanged yet another significant glance, but Niko couldn’t bring himself to care.
“You should probably take that, too,” Jo said, pointing to the six-pack of beer sitting on the counter, waiting to be loaded into the fridge.
“I’m just going to check on her. I’ll be back in an hour, tops,” Niko protested.
Still, he tucked the cans under his arm on the way out the door. Just in case.