Chapter 29 prozvonit
prozvonit
When drunk, Oliver Hale was like a parrot with no attention span. Every time either Juliette or I tried to keep his shirt on and tell him why, he’d echo back, “I need to keep my shirt on?”
“You need to keep your shirt on,” I confirmed.
“I need to keep my shirt on,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
Then he’d pause and go, “But what about my shirt?”
And the scene would just repeat again. Somehow, Juliette managed to shove a bottle of water and a granola bar down his throat to sober him up just enough so that when he started winking at poor unsuspecting tourists, Juliette and I could walk him out of the bar instead of dragging him.
The worst part was getting him out of the Jeep in the rain, which neither Juliette nor I did very gracefully, and by the time we slogged into the manor, we were all drenched and shivering.
She had one of his arms slung around her shoulder, and I had the other, and together we somehow got the two-hundred-pound grown man up the stairs and into the spare bedroom.
“You’re pretty,” he slurred, rolling over in bed, as Juliette pried off his shoes. Not sure which one of us he was talking to, but we didn’t really care. “And compe—compet—how do you say good at stuff?” he asked her, and she wilted a little.
“Competent?”
“Yes! That. You’re smart, too,” he added.
She rolled her eyes and placed his muddy shoes in the bathroom. “Like, thanks, I guess.”
“I can see why I get flittered.”
“Flustered?” Juliette suggested.
His attentions settled on her for a serious moment. Then he patted her cheek. “Don’t be.”
She pinned him with a thousand-yard stare.
Once we got the covers on him and he was snoring, I decided that whatever crush I had on Oliver had morphed into an endearingly agonizing sort of friendship—like a brother I didn’t want. I brushed his hair off his forehead as he snored.
Juliette quietly tugged on my shirtsleeve, putting a finger to her lips. “This way,” she mouthed, and motioned toward the window.
I blinked.
“Come on,” she insisted, and quietly pulled it open.
Outside was a small balcony that was protected by the eaves.
You would think, from the garden, that it was simply for decoration, but it turned out to be quite spacious.
There were even a couple of small stools out there, and an ashtray, though Juliette didn’t smoke.
I assumed someone had, a long, long time ago, since the ashtray looked quite old, too.
Quietly, I climbed out with her.
Lightning lit up the clouds in brilliant flashes of yellow and white. The rain had let up a little, though it was still a steady drone.
She said, “I used to come out here all the time to think. I can’t anymore because the only way out is through Oliver’s bedroom.” And she motioned back to the window.
“It’s so high.”
“Well, yeah. It’s away from people,” she replied, and checked her watch. “It’s already almost two. I don’t want you to have to drive me all the way into town again to take me home . . .”
I looked down off the balcony. You could see most of the garden from here, from the Hedges all the way to the Spiral. “You could sleep on my couch.”
“I’ll just stay in one of the other spare bedrooms,” she replied. “It’s not like I have to be home to, like, feed a cat or anything. That’s kinda why it was so easy for me to just drop everything and move up here.”
“All I have are plants,” I agreed. “It’s easy to carry them around.”
“I’d like a dog, I think,” she said, considering it. “Thank you, again, for coming to my rescue tonight. You’re a good friend, Sophie.”
A friend. I hadn’t really been called that in . . .
It had been a very long time. I hadn’t even considered myself a friend to anyone, not since Harrie, and certainly not a good one. But I didn’t hate the label like I thought I would. In fact, it felt . . .
It felt nice.
I tested a look over the edge, then decided against it and leaned back. “I think this is against every single safety code at Lilymoor.”
She stiffened. “Oh, please don’t tell Eula! I come up here to cry sometimes, because Yafir caught me crying in the employee bathroom six months ago and I’ve been mortified ever since. Sometimes you just need a good cry, you know? To selfregulate.”
I didn’t know, but I guessed Juliette handled things the way she handled them, and that was with a good emotional meltdown.
Which probably was a lot healthier than taking a job in a small town in Maine for a summer before deciding to blow up ten years of your life and fuck off back home because you were scared of something that could last.
Not that I knew anyone who was considering that.
“I like the view,” she went on. “I mean, not right now because you can’t see anything, but, like, when it’s sunny? It’s magical.”
“I can imagine,” I replied, and we sat there in comfortable silence as the storm rumbled on.