Chapter 33
The lights were off when she got home, and she leaned the scooter up against the outside wall and took off her sneakers before creeping inside, barefoot.
The floorboards were cool against her skin as somewhere in the distance, empty thunder rolled quietly, roaring its own frustration at the lack of rain over some other struggling town.
Her mouth was dry from cigarettes and beer and she was headed to the kitchen for a glass of water when she heard the creak of the basement door opening.
What the fuck? Not caring who she woke up, she switched on the hall table lamp and held it, a weapon if she needed it.
As the space lit up, a figure spun around.
“Shit, you made me jump.” His voice was familiar. “I didn’t hear you come in.” Anna stared as Lucas, dressed only in boxer shorts, closed the basement door. “You nearly gave me a heart attack,” he continued with a half laugh.
“What were you doing down there?” She felt sick. Mom had brought him home with her on the first date. His chest was matted with darker hair than she expected, running from his waist and spreading out to the edges of his muscular shoulders.
“I was hot and needed some water. Came downstairs and heard something. Thought it was coming from under the house. Like a raccoon maybe. Went to check.”
“And?” She didn’t put the lamp down, and it didn’t go unnoticed. He looked at her and the lamp and then her again.
“I couldn’t see anything. Maybe my imagination. We drank too much wine.” The half laugh again. “I’m more used to beer.”
“If you were loaded, you should have gone home.” Anna hadn’t moved. His skin was covered in a sheen of sweat. From the heat or from fucking Mom?
“She’s a grown-up.” He met her gaze, stepping forward. “As are you.”
“Is that the only way you can get laid? Get them drunk first?”
“Wow.” His smile turned into a shocked laugh. “That’s quite a statement. She said you wouldn’t be happy about me staying over. I promised to be gone before you got up, but I guess that’s blown now.”
Anna put the lamp down, and her heart thumped as he came closer to her, all strong limbs and body hair and masculine energy.
“What’s your problem, Anna? It’s okay for you to go and have a good time, but not your mom?
She didn’t even know you were out. Seems to me,” he continued, “like everyone around here is so nervous of upsetting you and no one will say why, while you go around acting like some mean, spoiled teenage princess rather than a grown woman who should be helping her family out.”
Her heart raced and she felt sick, her forehead prickling.
She wouldn’t have a panic attack. Not in front of him.
She pressed herself against the hallway wall, but he stayed close, pausing right in front of her, so close that she could see the rash of freckles on his chest under the coiled hair.
“Maybe you need to get laid yourself,” he said quietly.
“Might make you less of a bitch to be around.”
At last, he turned away, heading to the stairs to return to Mom’s room, but Anna stayed frozen where she was, pressed against the wall, her T-shirt slick with sweat and legs shaking, and then her terror turned to rage.
First the man in the bar and now this. She wanted to scream like a banshee and leap on his back, pounding him and tearing his hair out.
She wanted to exact revenge on every man who’d ever hurt a woman on him.
She wanted to take out her own lack of memory on him.
She wanted to be anything except afraid.
“Lucas.” She walked over to where he paused on the stairs. She came in close, suffocating her own panic at the proximity of him with her ice-cold anger. “Enjoy your night. Because tomorrow you’re going to end it with my mom. Ghost her, whatever. But you don’t come back here again. Never.”
“What?” He stared at her, confused.
“If you don’t leave Mom alone, I’m going to tell her you tried to fuck me.”
His eyes widened, shocked. “Anna, listen—”
“Or worse, I’ll say I saw you looking in Caroline’s bedroom when she was sleeping. Watching her. And maybe Mom’ll believe me or maybe she won’t, but she won’t take the risk. I know her. She will always put Caroline first.”
She smiled then, razor-sharp, and he flinched as if it were truly cutting into him. She didn’t move, staring him out, and eventually he backed up.
“You really are a piece of work.” He looked afraid, and for the first time in a long time Anna felt a rush of something close to power.
“And you really are a piece of shit. So sleep well, then make your excuses and get out of here.”
She waited until he vanished upstairs, unnerved, and only then did she let out the breath held deep in the pit of her lungs, the rage inside evaporating almost immediately as if escaping with the air.
Fuck you, Lucas, she thought as she finally got to the kitchen and drained a large glass of water.
Fuck you and your shitty little town. Back in the hallway, she listened out for the murmur of conversation upstairs, but there was only silence.
She was about to turn out the light when she looked at the basement door. What had Lucas heard down there?
She suddenly remembered what Melissa had said when she’d showed her the party video—that the kids used to get in through the basement window that didn’t close properly.
It made her shiver, the idea that someone could creep into their house at night, loitering down there, maybe waiting for the right moment to strike.
It was bad enough knowing there was a man upstairs; she couldn’t take the worry that there was someone downstairs too.
Shit. She needed to check it out for herself.