Chapter Four
Sam
Game night is at my place tonight. The chili has been on low since the afternoon, and Autumn decided a night of Hunt a Killer requires Frito boats and root beer floats, which is how she comes up the back stairs at six with two grocery bags hanging from her hands.
She gets the Fritos onto the counter before I get to her.
"Sam."
"Mm."
Her back meets the edge of the counter and my mouth finds hers. She laughs into the kiss, both hands coming up around my neck as I move between her legs.
"There are people coming at seven-thirty."
"We have time."
"There's chili on the stove."
"It'll keep."
Her fingers slide into my hair and pull hard enough that I stop caring about the chili altogether. I lift her onto the counter, and her knees come around my hips before her phone starts buzzing against the wood beside her.
She ignores it.
I kiss her again.
The phone buzzes a second time.
Autumn makes a sound against my mouth that has nothing to do with me and pulls back far enough to look over my shoulder.
"That's Anna."
"She can wait."
"Anna cannot wait."
I start to kiss her again, but she catches my face between both hands. Most of her lipstick is gone.
"If I don't answer that, a woman's entire career gets decided by four men in a room in Los Angeles before we've even had dinner."
I glance at the clock over the stove.
"We still have time."
She follows my eyes and gives me a look before sliding off the counter. "You are not helping."
She kisses me once on the way past, answers the phone and disappears into the living room.
I go back to the chili.
The first few minutes of her call come through in pieces while I stir.
"Six years ago. She was nineteen."
I turn the heat lower.
"The clip isn't the problem. The clip is a stupid thing a teenager said."
Someone on the other end talks for a while. I can't make out the words from the kitchen, but whoever it is isn't happy.
Autumn doesn't interrupt.
When she answers, her voice has changed. The woman who was sitting on my counter a minute ago is gone from it. No laugh tucked beneath the words. No room left in them for anybody to misunderstand her.
"No. I'm not going to make her say she was wrong about that, because she wasn't."
I stop with the spoon against the side of the pot.
The person on the phone starts again.
Autumn lets them finish.
"She's going to have to say what she thinks now. Out loud. That's how she gets through this."
I've heard about her work for months. Calls at two in the morning, people panicking in bathrooms, executives who need to be physically separated from their phones before they make things worse. Until now, most of it has been stories told over a drink.
This sounds different.
"Anna, the tour opens in weeks. Nine weeks of sorry does nothing if she doesn't mean any of it."
Another stretch of silence.
"Send me the sponsor list tonight."
Her voice softens at the end.
"I know. We'll fix it."
The call ends.
I look down and realize the chili has been bubbling hard enough to spit onto the stove. I turn the burner off just as Autumn comes back into the kitchen, barefoot now, phone still in one hand.
She leans over the pot and breathes in.
"That smells amazing."
I set the spoon down. "Come here."
"Sam."
I put a hand behind her neck and kiss her.
She lets me for a while before both palms settle against my chest and she pulls away, forehead resting under my chin while we catch our breath.
"We do not have enough time for what I want to do with you right now."
I look down at her.
She lifts her head, still flushed from the kiss. "Where are the bowls?"
"You're asking me about bowls?"
"We have people coming."
I don't move.
She gives my chest a light push and heads for the cupboard herself. "You can either help me or keep staring at me, but if you pick the second one, dinner isn't making it onto the table."
I pick the spoon back up.
"I'm helping."
"Sure you are."
She gets the bowls down while I finish the chili, and for the next half hour we manage to keep our hands mostly to ourselves.
At seven-thirty, the door opens without anybody bothering to knock.
Bex comes through first with the game under one arm and a bottle of wine in the other. I take the bottle before she drops either one.
"Thanks."
"You could knock."
"I could."
Marisol is right behind her with Lucia and enough bags for a weekend. I get one off her shoulder while Lucia goes straight past me toward the living room, already asking where her crayons are.
"Bottom shelf," I call after her.
Summer and Colt come up still talking about something that started in the car, and Dom follows them with a six-pack. He opens my refrigerator, finds room without asking and puts it inside.
"Good to see you too."
He shuts the door and looks at me. "Hey."
That's about right.
Within five minutes, whatever order Autumn and I managed to put together is gone. There are coats over chairs, Marisol's bags against the wall, Lucia on the floor with her crayons and Bex opening cabinets.
Autumn is beside me at the counter building Frito boats when Bex reaches around us for the wineglasses.
"I can get those," I tell her.
"You weren't."
"I was getting the chili."
"Excuses."
She starts pouring, and when she gets to Summer, Summer puts a hand over the top of the glass.
"None for me."
I'm reaching for bowls, and I almost miss the way Autumn stops beside me.
Almost.
She looks at Summer. "Summer?"
Summer presses her lips together, and Colt's expression gives him away before she says anything.
"November."
The bag of cheese in Autumn's hand hits the counter.
"November?"
"We waited until everything looked good before we told anybody."
Autumn stares at her.
"You're pregnant?"
Summer starts smiling.
Autumn is around the counter before I can move out of her way.
She gets both arms around Summer and holds on. Bex starts yelling loud enough that Lucia abandons the crayons to find out why. Marisol covers her mouth, makes it approximately three seconds before she starts crying, then gets pissed off because she's crying.
I move the open wine out of Lucia's reach just before she backs into it.
"Why is everybody yelling?" she asks.
"Summer's having a baby."
That earns us more yelling.
Dom gets to Colt first. He shakes his hand, looks at him for a second, then pulls him into a hug. Colt laughs and claps him on the back before Bex gets hold of him.
"You knew?"
"For nine days."
"Nine days?"
"I was told not to say anything."
Summer looks over Autumn's shoulder. "See? He can follow instructions."
"Nine days," Bex says. "I would've exploded."
"You almost did, and you didn't even know."
Autumn finally lets Summer go, but only far enough to take her face in both hands and look at her again. Whatever passes between them doesn't need the rest of us.
I reach above the refrigerator for the bottle I've been saving.
I bought it a couple years ago, then never found a reason to open it. Bex sees the label.
"You've been hiding that?"
"From you specifically."
"Asshole."
I open it anyway.
Everybody gets a glass except Summer. When I hand her water, she takes it and bumps her shoulder into mine. We raise whatever we're holding. Nobody makes a speech, which is probably for the best because Dom would try and Colt would interrupt him.
Summer stands in the middle of my kitchen with one hand low on her stomach while everyone talks over everyone else.
For a minute, I just watch her.
Then Autumn nudges my hip with hers.
"You're staring."
"I'm allowed."
She looks at Summer, and her expression softens.
Bex eventually remembers the game tucked under her arm and drops the box onto my coffee table.
"Nobody touch anything."
Colt is already reaching for the lid.
She slaps his hand away.
"What the hell?"
"There's an order."
"It's a game."
"It's an investigation."
He looks at me for help.
I carry the chili into the living room. "You're on your own."
By the time everyone has food, the coffee table is buried under witness statements, photographs and enough fake police paperwork to make me regret agreeing to this.
Lucia stays on the couch with her crayons while the rest of us take over the floor. Autumn settles beside me with her legs folded under her, eating out of a Frito bag while Bex tries to keep Colt from accusing the first person whose photograph he doesn't like.
For a while, I pay more attention to Autumn than the murder.
She's quiet, going back through the same few pages while everybody else argues over suspects. When she reaches across me for another statement, I hand it to her before she has to ask.
A minute later she stops reading.
"He's lying about the car."
The room goes quiet.
Bex shifts closer. "Who?"
"The brother."
Colt sits forward. "I knew it."
Autumn glances at him. "You thought he was guilty because of his haircut."
"It was a suspicious haircut."
Summer takes his drink out of his hand. "You're done."
Autumn turns the police interview so we can see it.
"He brings up the car twice when nobody asks him about it. Make, color, where he parked it. People don't usually volunteer that much detail unless they want you looking at the detail instead of something else."
Dom leans forward from the couch. "So where he was is a lie?"
"I don't think so."
She pulls another statement over and lays it beside the first.
"I think he's protecting somebody."
"How can you tell?" Dom asks.
Autumn taps one of the pages. "Look at who he keeps talking about. Then look at who he doesn't."
Everyone leans in again.
I watch her rearrange the papers until the mess starts making sense to her. Her hair works loose around her face as she reads, and at some point she starts stealing chips from my bowl instead of reaching for her own.
"Do you do this with actual people?" Dom asks.
Autumn looks up. "Do what?"
"Know they're lying."
She reaches for another statement. "People are terrible liars. They over-explain."
Bex looks immediately at Colt.
He points at her. "Don't."
She hasn't said anything.
Autumn smiles before going back to the evidence.
A while later, her hand lands on my thigh.
"Wait."
She reads a line again and points toward the locked tin that's been sitting in the middle of the table since we opened the box.
"Try those numbers as dates."
Dom takes the tin and turns the dial.
A few clicks later, the lock opens.
The room erupts.
Colt accuses Autumn of having secretly played this box before. Bex wants to know how nobody else saw it. Marisol empties the tin onto the table and announces that the photograph, key and hardware-store receipt inside have somehow made the entire thing worse.
Autumn is already reaching for the receipt.
Her hand is still on my leg.
I don't think she knows it.
I leave it there.
The game keeps going for another hour, but after that nobody stays entirely on task. The murder competes with dinner, Summer's news and three other conversations that start and stop around the room.
I'm clearing empty bowls when Summer finds another bottle of wine.
"Sam, where's the corkscrew?"
"Second drawer."
Autumn pushes herself off the rug before I can put down the plates. "I've got it."
She passes behind me on her way to the kitchen and pulls the drawer.
It catches.
Without stopping, she lifts the front slightly and pulls again.
The drawer opens.
I stop with the bowls in my hands.
"Hang on. That one sticks."
Autumn already has the corkscrew.
She glances at me. "You have to lift the front."
Then she takes it back to Summer.
I set the bowls on the counter.
The room is quiet.
Marisol looks at Bex. Bex looks at Summer, who's standing there holding the corkscrew.
Lucia keeps coloring.
"Autumn opened it."
Marisol smooths a hand over her hair. "She did, baby."
I look at Autumn. She's already back on the floor, reaching for another piece of evidence.
Summer catches my eye.
Then she turns to Colt and starts telling everyone about the tire he changed last week with the help of a YouTube video.
Colt objects immediately.
The room comes back to life.
I take the bowls into the kitchen.
A few minutes later, Bex follows me in.
"Need ice."
"Freezer."
"I know where your freezer is."
I rinse another bowl. "Congratulations."
She gets the ice tray, then opens the refrigerator.
And stops.
I'm standing close enough to see what she's looking at.
The snickerdoodle creamer is in the door.
Autumn mentioned liking it once. I saw it at the store a few days later and put it in the cart.
I haven't thought about it since.
Bex closes the refrigerator and turns toward me.
Her eyes stay on mine.
"What?"
For a second, I think she's going to say it.
Whatever it is.
She doesn't.
She takes the ice back into the living room.
I dry my hands and follow her.