Chapter Eight
Travis
I hear the cars pull up around four.
I'm in the cottage, trying to stay out of the way like I said I would.
I told Kelly I'd help set up this morning, and I did—moved furniture, hung some string lights she bought, assembled a coat rack she'd ordered online and never gotten around to putting together.
She stood in the kitchen doorway watching me work, handing me tools when I needed them, and I tried not to think about how domestic it felt. How easy.
"You're good at this," she said at one point.
"It's just screws and brackets."
"I meant the whole... fixing things. Building things. You make it look simple."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I just kept working. But I felt her eyes on me the whole time, and I liked it more than I should have.
Now I'm back in the cottage, listening to car doors slam and voices carry across the yard. Women's voices, high and excited, the noise that happens when people who love each other haven't seen each other in a while. I hear Kelly's laugh, bright and loud, and something in my chest twists.
She sounds happy. She sounds like herself, the version of herself that existed before her grandmother died and some broken stranger showed up in her backyard.
I should let her have this. I should stay in here all night, let her be with her friends, stop inserting myself into a life I have no business being part of.
But I left my drill on her back porch.
I noticed it about an hour ago, after I'd already retreated to the cottage. It's sitting right there by the door, in plain sight, and Kelly's going to trip over it or one of her friends is going to ask about it and she'll have to explain why there are power tools on her porch.
I should just leave it. It's not that important. I have other drills.
But it was my grandfather's drill. One of the only things I kept when we cleaned out his house, back when I was nineteen and didn't understand yet that objects could hold ghosts.
I pull on my boots and grab my jacket. I'll be fast. In and out. Grab the drill, wave if anyone sees me, disappear back to the cottage. Simple.
The back door of the main house is around the side, not visible from the front where the cars are parked.
I can hear voices inside now, muffled through the walls—laughter, the clink of glasses, music playing softly.
Kelly put together a playlist yesterday, showed it to me on her phone.
"Galentine's vibes," she called it. Motown and nineties R&B and some songs I didn't recognize but she swore were essential.
The drill is right where I left it, sitting on the porch next to the coat rack I assembled this morning. I grab it and turn to leave.
The back door opens.
"Oh!" A woman stands in the doorway, wine glass in hand, eyes wide. She's Black, around Kelly's age, with long braids and a surprised expression. "Sorry, I didn't know anyone was out here."
"Just grabbing my drill," I say, holding it up like evidence. "I'll get out of your way."
"You're the cottage guy." She says it like a statement, not a question, tilting her head as she looks at me. "Kelly mentioned you."
"Yeah, I'm—"
"Travis, right?" She steps out onto the porch, pulling the door mostly closed behind her. "I'm Brit. I needed some air. It's already chaos in there and we've only been here an hour."
"Nice to meet you."
She's studying me in a way that makes me want to take a step back. Not suspicious, exactly, but curious. Like she's trying to figure something out.
"You look really familiar," she says slowly.
My stomach drops.
"I get that a lot."
"No, like..." She frowns, squinting at me in the dim porch light. "I swear I've seen you somewhere before. Do you have a brother? A twin or something?"
"No twins."
"Huh." She shakes her head. "It's going to drive me crazy. I'm usually so good with faces."
The back door opens again, and another woman steps out. Taller than Brit, natural hair pulled up, an energy that fills the whole porch the second she arrives.
"Brit, what are you doing out here? Kelly's about to open the—" She stops when she sees me. "Oh. Hello."
"This is Travis," Brit says. "The cottage guy."
"The cottage guy." The new woman—this must be Nicole, the best friend Kelly talks about—looks me up and down with absolutely no subtlety. "Well. Kelly undersold you."
"Nicole," Brit says, laughing.
"What? I'm just saying." Nicole is still looking at me, and there's something sharper in her gaze than Brit's idle curiosity. "So you're the one who's been keeping our girl company out here in the wilderness."
"I don't know about keeping her company. I mostly just fix things."
"Mm-hmm." She doesn't sound convinced. "You should come inside. Have a drink with us."
"I don't want to intrude—"
"It's not intruding if you're invited." She opens the back door wider, gesturing. "Come on. Kelly will be happy to see you."
I should say no. Every instinct is screaming at me to grab my drill and go back to the cottage and stay there until these women leave.
But Nicole is looking at me like she's already made up her mind about something, and Brit is still frowning at me with that I-know-you-from-somewhere expression, and if I run now it's going to look like I have something to hide.
Which I do. But they don't need to know that.
"One drink," I say.
The kitchen is warm and loud and smells like something good cooking on the stove. Kelly is at the counter, her back to me, pouring wine into glasses while a third woman sits at the table scrolling through her phone. The string lights I hung this morning cast everything in a soft glow.
"Look who I found lurking on the porch," Nicole announces.
Kelly turns around, and her face does something complicated when she sees me. Surprise, then pleasure, then something more guarded. "Travis. Hey."
"I left my drill outside. Didn't mean to crash the party."
"You're not crashing." She sets down the wine bottle and crosses toward me, and for a second I think she might hug me, but she stops a few feet away, like she's remembering we have an audience. "Everyone, this is Travis. Travis, this is Nicole, Brit, and Mona."
Mona looks up from her phone and waves. "Hey."
"Hi."
"Travis has been helping me out around the house," Kelly says. "He fixed the sink. And the heater. And about fifteen other things I would've screwed up."
"A handyman," Nicole says. "Useful."
"Do you want some wine?" Kelly asks me. "Or a beer? I think there's beer in the fridge."
"Beer's good."
She gets me a bottle and our fingers brush when she hands it to me. I see Nicole notice. I see Brit notice her noticing.
This was a mistake.
"So Travis," Nicole says, settling into a chair at the kitchen table like she's about to conduct an interview. "What do you do when you're not fixing Kelly's sink?"
"Nicole," Kelly says, a warning in her voice.
"What? I'm making conversation."
"You're interrogating him."
"Same thing."
I take a sip of my beer, buying time. "I'm between things right now. Figuring out my next move."
"Between things," Nicole repeats. "That's vague."
"It's accurate."
"Let me guess." She taps her finger against her wine glass. "Creative type? Writer, like Kelly? Or maybe something more physical. Construction. Personal training."
"Something like that."
Kelly catches my eye from across the kitchen, and I can see her trying to decide whether to rescue me or let this play out. I give her a small shake of my head. It's fine. I can handle a few questions.
"He's being modest," Kelly says anyway. "He's really good with his hands."
Nicole raises an eyebrow. "Is he now."
"Not like—I meant the fixing things." Kelly's cheeks darken slightly. "He built that coat rack by the door this morning. From a box. With instructions I couldn't even understand."
"IKEA instructions are designed by sadists," Mona says from the table, still half-focused on her phone. "That's not a low bar."
"It wasn't IKEA. It was some other brand. The point is, he did it in like twenty minutes."
"Thirty," I correct.
"See? Modest."
Brit is still watching me, that furrow between her eyebrows deepening. I can practically see her brain working, flipping through mental files, trying to place my face. She's got her phone in her hand now, thumb moving absently across the screen like she's not even aware she's doing it.
"You're sure we haven't met before?" she asks. "I really feel like I know you from somewhere."
"I don't think so."
"Do you have Instagram? Maybe I've seen you on there."
"I'm not on social media."
"At all?"
"At all."
"Huh." She looks down at her phone, then back at me. "What about TV? Do you do anything that would put you on TV?"
The question hits too close. I keep my face neutral, but my grip tightens on the beer bottle.
"Not really."
"Brit," Kelly says. "Leave him alone. He came in for one drink, not a background check."
"I'm just curious! He looks so familiar and it's driving me crazy." She holds up her phone. "What's your last name? I'm just going to do a quick search, satisfy my curiosity, and then I'll drop it."
"Brit—"
"It's fine," I say, even though it's not. "Howe. Travis Howe."
I watch her type it in. Watch her hit search. Watch her face change as the results load.
I should have left when I had the chance.
"Oh my god." Her voice is quiet, but something in it makes everyone stop. She's staring at her phone, then up at me, then back at her phone. "Oh my god. I knew it."
"Knew what?" Nicole leans over to look at her screen.
My whole body goes cold.
"You're Travis Howe." Brit holds up her phone, and I can see the image on the screen even from here—a team photo, my face circled in someone's article about the incident. "You play hockey. You're that guy who—"
"Brit." Kelly's voice is sharp.
"No, Kelly, look." She turns the phone toward Kelly. "That's him. That's the guy who beat up that photographer. I knew I recognized him. He's been all over the news."
The kitchen goes silent. I can hear the music still playing in the other room, something soft and sweet that doesn't match the way my stomach is turning inside out.
Kelly is looking at the phone. Then at me. Her face is completely unreadable.
"Is that true?" she asks quietly.
I could lie. I could say it's a misunderstanding, a case of mistaken identity, some other Travis Howe who happens to look exactly like me. I could buy myself a few more hours, a few more days, keep pretending to be someone I'm not.
But I'm so tired of pretending.
"Yeah," I say. "That's me."
Brit makes a small sound. Nicole is staring at me like I've grown a second head. Mona has finally put down her phone.
"I get that a lot," I say, and the words sound hollow even to me. "The resemblance, I mean. People confuse us."
"Travis." Kelly says my name like a door closing. "Don't."
"It is me." I force myself to meet her eyes. "I should have told you. I was going to tell you."
"But you didn't."
"No. I didn't."
The silence stretches out, horrible and endless. I watch Kelly's face cycle through emotions—confusion, hurt, something that might be anger. Her friends are frozen around us, witnesses to something none of them expected.
"Okay," Kelly says finally. "Okay, let's just... everyone sit down, please. Let's just sit down and—"
"I should go." I'm already backing toward the door. "This is your night. I shouldn't have come in. I'm sorry."
"Travis—"
But I'm already gone, pushing through the back door into the cold night air, walking fast across the yard toward the cottage. I hear the door open behind me, hear Kelly call my name, but I don't stop.
I can't. If I stop, I'll have to see her face. I'll have to watch the way she looks at me change into something harder and more distant, the way everyone looks at me once they know.
I let myself into the cottage and close the door behind me, leaning against it in the dark. My hands are shaking. My grandfather's drill is still clutched in my grip, cold metal biting into my palm.
She knows.
They all know.
I set the drill down on the counter and stand there in the dark kitchen, trying to breathe.
The cottage feels smaller than usual, the walls pressing in.
Through the window I can see the main house, the lights glowing warm and yellow, and I wonder what they're saying about me in there.
What Kelly's friends are telling her. What she's thinking.
She tried to stop Brit from saying it. She said his name like a warning, tried to protect him even then. But it doesn't matter. The truth is out, and there's no taking it back.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and look at the screen.
Kelly: Can we talk?
I stare at the message for a long time. My thumb hovers over the keyboard, trying to figure out what to say.
Not tonight, I finally type. Enjoy your party. I'm sorry.
Three dots appear. Disappear. Appear again.
Kelly: This isn't over.
I don't know if that's a threat or a promise. Maybe both.
I put the phone on the counter and sink onto the couch, dropping my head into my hands. The cottage is silent except for the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of my own breathing, too loud in my ears.
I think about packing. Loading up my truck, driving away, starting over somewhere else. It's what I should do. It's what I always do when things get complicated—disappear before the fallout, before I have to see the disappointment on someone's face.
But I don't move.
Because Kelly said this isn't over, and some stupid part of me wants to believe her. Wants to believe that maybe, just maybe, she'll hear me out. That she'll let me explain. That she won't look at me the way everyone else does once they know.
I sit in the dark for a long time, waiting for something I can't name.
And across the yard, the party goes on without me.