What We Bury (Hangmen Trilogy #1)

1. Sage

ONE

SAGE

“Glad you came?”

Amy’s looking at me over her cup like she’s just won an argument I didn’t know we were having. She’s curled into Tyler’s side by the bonfire, her blonde hair somehow still in perfect beachy waves three hours into the ocean wind. I should hate her for it, but she’s too likeable.

“Yeah, yeah. You were right.” I roll my eyes as I grudgingly concede. “It’s been a nice night.”

Brock’s house is obscene—the guy whose party this is.

It’s three stories of glass squat at the top of the bluff like they’re waiting for the ocean to bow to them. The wraparound deck could host a small wedding, and the Edison bulbs cast everyone in warm, expensive light, like a Vogue spread on how to do summer in the right tax bracket.

Amy told me on the walk over—new money. Family beach house. One of them, apparently, which almost made me trip on the path.

I tug at the hem of Amy’s borrowed sundress and try not to look like a girl wearing another girl’s clothes at a house she has no business standing in.

The dress is shorter on me than on Amy, and the little pink jellies she loaned me pinch at my heels, so they’re sitting in the sand beside me while I keep fussing with the fabric, hoping no one notices I don’t belong here.

“You needed this,” Amy says, taking another sip of sangria. “Even if you’re exhausted.” She makes air quotes with the hand that isn’t petting Tyler’s thigh like he’s a dog she’s gentling. “When was the last time you sat around a fire?”

“If I can count the grill at work—a few hours ago.”

“That definitely doesn’t count.” Tyler grins at me over the rim of his Solo cup. His teeth are perfectly white, just barely outshining the smug.

“Fire-adjacent, then? It’s hot in that kitchen and I am exhausted.” I stretch my feet out in front of me, examining my toes in the sand. “I’m pretty sure I’ve permanently lost all feeling in my feet—eight-hour shift.” I wiggle them down, hiding them from view.

Amy laughs. “Of all the jobs in this town, you chose that one?”

“It pays. Barely, but it pays.”

Tyler chuckles, tightening his arm around Amy. “Around here, surviving Gull’s earns respect.”

“Only if Frank approves,” comes a voice behind me. “And Frank’s approval is basically a local ordinance.”

I turn too fast. The reflex is still new—every time someone speaks behind me my whole body braces for impact. Working on it.

The guy is tall. Broad shoulders that don’t seem to know they’re broad. Sun-streaked hair that looks like it came from being outside instead of from a bottle. He’s wearing a button-down with the sleeves pushed up his forearms, and when he smiles, lines fan from the corners of his eyes.

He sits down on the sand beside me instead of looming over me, and something in my chest unclenches by half a notch.

“You know Frank?”

He smiles. “Sure, I do. Everyone in town does. He’s basically part of the furniture at Gull’s.”

“So I’ve heard.”

“You must be Sage.” He extends a hand. “I’m Brock. Tyler’s been threatening to introduce us for two weeks.”

“If you’re Brock, then this is your party?” His handshake is brief and dry.

“Guilty.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. But you are guilty of having a lovely home.”

“That old thing.” He laughs like mansions by the sea are no big deal. “It’s my parents’, technically. Perk of my DNA.” Brock leans back on his elbows, easy as a guy who’s never had to convince a room of anything. “So Gull’s, huh? First shift?”

“How could you tell?”

“You’ve still got that ‘I just survived something’ look. I had it for six months at my first real job. Wore off eventually.”

“That’s encouraging. I think.”

He grins. His front teeth overlap, just slightly. Just enough to make him human. He shifts a millimeter closer and my chest goes tight.

In for four. Hold for four. Out for four.

The therapist I could afford for exactly three sessions before my checking account staged an intervention walked me through this. Your nervous system is going to react to safe men the way it reacted to the dangerous one. Don’t punish yourself for the reflex. Just breathe through it.

I breathe through it.

“What about you?” I ask. “Does Tyler keep you around as decoration, or do you also have a job?”

“I work for myself. Freelance marketing consultant. It’s mostly corporate nonsense, but it lets me work anywhere with WiFi.”

“Hence the bluff with the view.”

His grin widens. “Hard to beat the commute.”

“Don’t let him be modest,” Amy says. “He also makes excellent sangria, takes annoyingly gorgeous sunset photos—you should see his Instagram—and he once rescued a dog from a freeway.”

“That’s generous,” Brock says. “I almost died for a stray who ate an entire bag of Milky Ways in my backseat—called her Mars after that.”

“Your dog is named Mars?” I ask.

“Felt thematically appropriate.” He pulls out his phone, swipes, and turns the screen toward me. A scrappy terrier sits on a kitchen floor wearing a cone of shame and looking delighted. “Remorse has never been her strong suit.”

I laugh before I can stop it. It shocks me, because I don’t think I’ve laughed like this in over a year. Amy doesn’t even pretend not to notice. She’s beaming at me, openly, like she’s just watched me take a first step.

Brock looks down at the sand, fast, like he’s giving me the privacy of not being watched. The decency lands somewhere it shouldn’t.

Keep it together. Normal girl at a normal party. Don’t let the past dictate the future.

The mask fits so well tonight I almost forget I’m wearing one. Almost.

When my cup runs dry, Brock pushes up. “Refill?”

I open my mouth to say I’ll come with you, because the rules are the rules—don’t let anyone bring you a drink you didn’t see them pour. Before I can, he holds up both hands.

“Sealed only. I’ll bring you whatever you want and crack it in front of you. My mom drilled it into me when I was sixteen. The talk had visuals. I never recovered.”

He says it lightly. Like a joke. But there’s something underneath—the rhythm of someone who’s said it enough times that the line is automatic, polished, ready for exactly this moment.

I don’t know if I’m relieved or suspicious, but I push the feeling down.

“A beer, then. Whatever you’ve got.”

He comes back with two bottles, still sealed. Pops his own in front of me and hands me the unopened one with a small mock-bow that should be cheesy and isn’t.

“Smart mom,” I say, accepting it.

“She is.”

Amy makes a pleased sound. “I love that you guys are getting along. I knew you would.”

Brock rolls his eyes and laughs as he leans in. “Not sure if you’ve noticed this about your roommate, but Amy has strong opinions about people being single.”

“Because it’s a waste!” Amy protests. “You’re funny, you’re nice, you have a great job, host an amazing party. Plus, look at you.” She waves a hand in his general direction. “It’s like keeping a perfectly good sports car in the garage.”

“Hey, what am I? Chopped liver?” Tyler asks, bumping her playfully.

“You’re gorgeous and taken. We need to pair all your friends up so we can have a girl gang and bitch about you guys while you go do he-man stuff.” She turns back to me. “What do you say? Ready to take him for a test drive?”

I snort into my beer. “I’m not sure it’s complimentary to refer to a guy as a car?”

“A nice car,” Amy clarifies. “With good mileage and a solid warranty.”

Brock covers his face with his hands. “This is why I don’t introduce you to my dates anymore.”

“Because I’m honest about your marketability?”

“Because you have no filter and the subtlety of a foghorn.”

I’m laughing harder now, and it feels strange and wonderful.

“See?” Amy points at me triumphantly. “Sage appreciates honesty.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” I protest, chuckling when they both ignore me.

“Sage doesn’t know how dangerous it is to encourage you,” Brock says, but he’s grinning.

We talk and I let myself relax. At some point Brock says something dry enough that I laugh again, the kind of laugh that surprises me on its way out. Amy looks at me like I’m a science experiment that has gone shockingly right.

The music shifts. Couples start drifting toward an open patch of deck.

“Want to dance?” Brock asks.

The no is on my tongue before he finishes the question.

“Pretty sure my feet would mutiny. Maybe next time.”

“Sure.” No pressure. He shrugs like I just declined a stick of gum. “Talking’s better anyway.”

That’s twice he’s accepted no without flinching. My nervous system doesn’t know what to do with that.

“I think so.”

He stretches back in the sand. I tuck my legs under me and feel the breeze lift the hem of my dress. My hand goes to my knee automatically.

By eleven, I’m done. The sangria, beer, and eight hours on my feet have caught me, and my body has filed its formal notice. I shove my feet into the jelly shoes and push up from the sand, slinging my clutch—also borrowed from Amy—over my shoulder.

“I’m gonna head home. I’ve got to function at work tomorrow.”

Amy untangles from Tyler. “I’ll come with—”

“No, stay.” I gesture at her to stop. “It’s not far.”

She hesitates. “No, I can’t let you do that. We girls stick together.”

“Stay. Please. You’re having fun.”

“At least call an Uber.”

I mentally tally the hit to my severely depleted bank account and feel my eye twitch. “It’s twenty minutes. There are streetlights. I’ll text when I’m in.”

“I’ll walk her,” Brock says, already standing. “It’s on my way.”

It is not on his way. He literally lives here. We both know it.

“You don’t—”

“I want to.” Easy. Open. “I was hoping to keep talking.”

Tyler chimes in from his sand throne. “Brock’s a renowned gentleman. Boy scout. Helps old ladies. Adopts felonious dogs.”

Amy bounces. “Yes. Please, Sage. I’ll sleep better.”

I open my mouth to argue and find nothing there. Every objection I have is about the last guy, not this one—and none of them are things I can say at a party without clearing the deck.

“Fine,” I say. “But if I trip in these shoes, you’re not allowed to tell anyone.”

Brock raises two fingers to his brow. “Scout’s honor.”