25. Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Five
Now
Working alongside Sage instead of Theo is strange, as if I’ve both traveled back in time and shifted into an alternate universe. But at home—at his home; I need to stop thinking of it as mine—we fall into an easy routine. He cooks; I wash the dishes. He mows the lawn; I water his ferns and hang potted impatiens on the front porch. He reads biographies in his wicker armchair while I recline in my hammock, munching on Red Vines and enjoying the fact that my mother has forgotten to cancel my phone service.
I know better than to get comfortable here. I know that at some point, I’m going to have to gather up my things and move along—out of his house, probably out of Amity. Out into the world, where I’ll forge a path that wasn’t paved for me by a man.
But today, after two weeks of working at the Wilsons’, I’ve received my first paycheck. It came out to five hundred eleven dollars after taxes, and by depositing it, my bank account has gained a comma.
It’s not nearly enough for me to get out of Theo’s guest room. Even so, seeing that money hit feels ten times better than anything Daniel ever gave me to “keep myself entertained.”
I’m buzzing around the front porch, cheerfully spraying water over my new flowers, when Theo calls. I balance the phone between my shoulder and ear and greet him with, “Guess what?”
“What?”
I grin at the way he says it, matching my enthusiasm. “I got paid today.”
Theo whistles. “Look at you, moneybags!”
“Scoop Shack is still in business, right? Do you want to go after dinner? I’ll even buy.”
“We can,” he says, “but I also told Quinton I’d go to the bar with him tonight.”
My entire body stills. The hose is arcing water into the middle of the porch, nowhere near any plants. “Oh. Yeah, of course,” I say, feeling stupid. Of course he has things to do besides hang around with me every night. He has lasting friendships, a business, a family. It’s not his fault that I don’t. “I might just go on my own, then. It’s stupid humid today.”
“Well, you can come with us,” Theo says, as if I should have already known that. “I’ll tell him to bring Sage.”
Sage and I have been getting along at work, and I’ve filled her in on the basics of what brought me back to Amity. It isn’t like with Theo, where we’ve had to navigate our cataclysmic ending and untangle layers upon layers of complicated feelings—work that isn’t even close to done, and that fills me with anxiety whenever I dwell on it too much.
True female friendship, when you have it, is simple and constant: you can drift apart and come back together, and nothing will have changed in the meantime. I had forgotten what it was like.
Quinton is a different story.
“No, he still hates me,” I respond. “I’ll stay ho—here.”
Theo sighs. “He doesn’t hate you.”
“I doubt he wants me around.”
“What if I want you around?”
I turn the faucet off and begin coiling up the hose. “You don’t have to sound so desperate.”
His soft laugh fills my ear. “I’ll beg if you want.”
A flame ignites in my chest. My mouth dries out, and I stumble through a response. “I—yeah. Okay. I’ll get dressed.”
“Sounds good,” Theo says, so damn smug , and the line goes dead.
***
Amity has a handful of bars, but the most popular one is called The Hutch. When Theo and I pull into the parking lot, it's already half-full, and I recognize Sage’s car a few spots down from us. My heart rate is a little elevated, my body humming with anxiety, neither of which are helped by the fact that Theo eyes me appreciatively when I fall into step beside him.
“You look nice.”
I glance down at my cutoff shorts and cropped tank. The memory of Daniel calling me white trash flits briefly through my mind before I shove it away. Initially, I had put on linen pants and a blouse; then I looked in the mirror and realized that I would get laughed out of The Hutch, or at least stared at, if I showed up like that. So I put on one of my new outfits instead, knowing that even if I wasn't used to showing midriff or most of my legs anymore, at least nobody would think twice about it.
Except Theo. He appears to have been thinking about it, continuously, for our entire walk across the parking lot.
“Thanks,” I manage, slipping past him when he holds the door open for me, and I swear I can feel him looking at my ass.
We find Sage and Quinton at a high-top near the bar. The last time the four of us were together, we were sneaking cheap beer down by the pond; tonight, the waitress who takes our order doesn’t even bother to card us. After she leaves, the three of them complain that everything on the menu has recently gone up by two dollars.
“You could never find alcohol this cheap in New York,” I tell them.
Quinton’s face immediately clouds over, Sage looks away, and Theo winces. I'm not exactly sure why this doesn’t go over well—at this point, Sage and Theo are well aware of where I’ve been, and I assume one of them has relayed the details to Quinton. I didn’t realize it was a taboo topic.
“I always wanted to go there,” Sage says, leaning into it. “I’ve still never been.”
“I liked it,” I say, which is true enough. There was plenty to do, plenty to see. I needed a place like that to stay busy while I waited around for the pockets of time Daniel occasionally made for me. There were experiences I’d had in New York that could never be replicated in a place like Amity—experiences like being surrounded by people but feeling completely alone. “But it is expensive.”
Quinton settles back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. He’s not in uniform today. “What did you do up there?” he asks, and I can tell that he already knows the answer.
I trace my fingertip along a stain on the oak table. “I worked retail in Raleigh, but I couldn’t find a job in New York.”
He cocks a brow, unimpressed. “Really? Nothing?”
"I tried for a while," I say. "But I couldn't find anything, and my boyfriend at the time didn’t—”
“Nina.” Theo leans forward, shaking his head at me before directing a glare at Quinton. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“Well, wait,” Quinton says, still in that practiced, falsely congenial voice. “I’m curious. Your boyfriend...who became your fiancé, right? He had money, so you didn’t have to work? Lucky break.”
“Quinton, you promised you’d behave,” Sage admonishes him.
“I’m sorry,” he says, but he doesn’t sound like it. Not at all. He turns his hard eyes on me, dropping the nice-guy act. “I just find this whole thing pretty damn convenient. You were shacked up in New York City with a rich guy, zero responsibilities, and all of a sudden you’re back in Amity working for the Wilsons?” He pauses, drumming his fingers on the table. We sit in thick silence. “That doesn’t make sense to me.”
Beside me, Theo’s shoulders are drawn taut, his jaw clenched tight. Half of me is grateful for his restraint; the other half wishes he would jump in.
“It didn’t work out,” I say vaguely. “I had nowhere else to go.”
“Weren’t you back here to plan the wedding?” he shoots back. “Sounds like it was working out fine until you ran into Theo and found out he’s rich now, too.”
My cheeks flame hot—with anger, with embarrassment, with frustration at being so wildly misunderstood. Sage covers her mouth with her hand, and it’s the last straw for Theo.
“Quinton,” he barks. “Shut the fuck up.”
Ignoring both of them, Quinton zeroes in on me. When I broke up with Daniel, he was so angry. Seething. The look Quinton is leveling at me now... it’s pure, cold hate. “Do you know what you did to him?” he asks, jerking his thumb toward his best friend, then his wife. “To her, too? Theo’s family had to get a lawyer. Sage had no idea what was going on.”
“I was a teenager." My voice rises steadily, each word louder than the last. “My parents took me to Raleigh. They took my phone. I couldn’t do anything about it.”
“You’ve been an adult for a long time,” he shoots back, unmoved. “And still, you only came back once you found a new meal ticket.”
“Enough!” Theo thunders in a tone that I have never, ever heard come out of his mouth. Sage, Quinton, and I stare at him in silent shock. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”
Over his shoulder, I can see the waitress heading toward us with a full tray. In a split second, I make the decision that I’m not going to be here when she arrives. I push my chair back, grab my purse, and ignore the waitress’s startled expression when I brush past her. I fully expect to hear footsteps behind me; when I get all the way to the front door and haven’t heard Theo’s voice, I turn back around.
He’s still at the table. I can only see the back of his baseball cap from here, but he’s leaning across the table toward Quinton, jabbing the air with a finger. Quinton puts his hands up in surrender while Sage looks chastened.
I don’t need defending.
I don’t need forced apologies.
I turn my back on them and walk out the door.