DRIVE LIKE IT’S YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD: Obnoxious red paper sign posted in the shop window of Regal Cosmetics in the South Harbor district. The shop’s owner has made multiple complaints to the police and during town hall meetings about speeding cars and loud music. (Personal photo/Josephine Saint-Martin)
Of all the things I’ve inherited from my mother—the secret-keeping, my inability to communicate in a healthy manner, love for fried food, and intense loathing of the word “y’all”—the one thing I wish she’d passed down was her ability to chitchat in uncomfortable situations. She’s very good at it, and even when she’s putting her foot in her mouth, she’s usually able to laugh it off and talk her way out of things. Gift of gab.
I could use a little gab when Lucky takes me home from Sunday dinner and—after I text Evie and find out that Mom is out of the apartment on another one of her “night drives” around the harbor—drops me off in front of the bookshop. I just don’t know what to say to him, not when he’s all clammed up and pushing me away.
He’s back to being intimidating and distant, and as I hand him back the sparkly tri-corn horse helmet, I’m weighing whether I should try to be gabby, like Mom, or serious, and tell him about all the things I realized in his garage.
But before I can speak up, a bright blue sports car with an obnoxious, thundering racing engine screeches its brakes in front of the shop. Hypnotic music thumps from the interior, and three pale, male faces look out at us. I don’t know the two in the front, but the boy with his arm hanging out the back window is more than recognizable.
“What do we have here?” Adrian Summers drunkenly says. His face is still bandaged from the wreck with Evie, and he’s got terrible bruises under both eyes. Two crutches are propped on the seat next to him. “It’s the littlest Saint-Martin and Beauty’s only one-man motorcycle gang. I smell collusion.”
“And I smell vodka,” Lucky says with feigned cheerfulness. “Do you have a liquor license for your bar-on-wheels? Gonna have to report you to town hall if you don’t.”
Adrian makes a sloppy shooing gesture to Lucky and points a water bottle at me, the contents of which aren’t quite clear. “You. Is Wild Winona home?”
All my muscles tense. “Go away, Adrian.”
“I need you to do me a favor. Go upstairs and tell Evelyn to come down here. She’s not answering my texts, and I need to see her.”
No way in hell am I doing that. The two guys in the front seat are staring out at us, chuckling, and they look as inebriated as Adrian. Not sure if they’re Goldens or some of his Harvard buds, home for the summer.
“She’s probably in class,” I say.
“On Sunday?” Adrian says.
“She has a test,” I tell him. Ugh, Lucky’s right. I’m a terrible liar. She’s only taking one class this summer, and Adrian probably knows it.
“It’ll only take a minute. Tell her to come down now,” he says, slapping the car door with his open palm twice. “Chop-chop.”
“No one’s telling Evie anything,” Lucky says.
“Stay out of this,” Adrian warns. “Not your fight.”
“Not anyone’s fight,” I say. “I’ll tell her you came by.”
“But I’m here right now, and I came all this way. Come on,” he says, “Go fetch Evie.”
“I’m asking you nicely to please leave.”
“What if I say no?”
Lucky swings off his bike. “Get the hell out of here, Summers.”
“Or what? You’ll punch me? Call the cops and get thrown in jail again? And why are the two of you always together? Methinks you got a little something going on.”
“Not your business, is it?” Lucky says.
Adrian grins. “I mean, sure, she looks nice with her clothes off, but we’ve all seen it. Not worth it, man.”
Adrian’s buddies in the car laugh along with him.
Lucky swears profusely and starts to lunge for the car, but I grab his arm.
“Keep talking like that,” I tell Adrian, hoping I sound braver than I feel, “and I’ll make sure to remind Evie what kind of an asshole you are, and how she made the absolute right decision to stay away from you.”
Adrian glares at me for a moment and then lazily points his water bottle at Lucky. “Haven’t forgotten about you. Gonna get you back for that window, grease monkey. Eye for an eye …”
Signaling his buddies in the front seat, Adrian gives up on us, and the car peels away from the curb—causing a lone SUV on the otherwise empty road to slam on its brakes and honk when they cut in front of it without looking. Then they speed down the block and disappear into the night.
“Goldens … entitled pricks,” Lucky grumbles. “You okay?”
I nod, feeling mildly creeped out. It was probably just boozy talk, nothing more. He won’t remember it tomorrow. Still. It weirds me out that we’re here alone. Maybe it shows on my face, because Lucky asks, “Hey. Do you want me to stick around, or … ?”
I shake my head. “We’ve got a security alarm. I’ll lock the door and set it. And I’ll text Mom. She’ll come home.”
“You sure?” he asks, wavering.
“Yeah,” I say, hoping I sound more confident than I feel. “She could be on her way back any minute, so I should probably head up.”
I need to check on Evie. Make sure Adrian isn’t harassing her via texts.
“I’m only a few minutes away, if you get freaked out or need backup, or whatever. Not that you can’t handle it yourself. But … you know.”
“Thanks,” I say, meaning it and hoping he knows it.
“And maybe you could let me know when your mom gets home? I’ll be up for a while.”
“Yeah, no problem. I will,” I say, then gesture upstairs. “I’m gonna …”
“Yep.”
“Good night.”
“G’night,” he says, still sounding concerned.
Everything I wanted to tell him from earlier gets lost under all this new worry. For a moment, I even worry that some of this is my fault—that maybe Adrian wouldn’t have even stopped and threatened us right now if it weren’t for me breaking the Summers & Co Department Store window. But I guess that’s not true; he would’ve come to see Evie regardless.
After Lucky revs his Superhawk’s engine a few times—his eyes on the street, as if he really wasn’t quite sure Adrian was gone—he finally straps on his helmet and drives away from the curb.
Letting out a sigh, I head around the bookshop to the back of the building and jog up the steps. It’s quiet now. Thank God. When I get to the top and stick my key in the door, I hear something in the distance that interrupts the quiet and gives me pause.
Racing engine. Thump of loud music.
They’re coming back.
My pulse rockets. I take the key out of the lock when the brakes squeal.
Then I hear something worse. A terrible sound I know too well.
Glass shattering.
Oh God. No, no, no …
Taking the steps two at a time, I race back down and sail around the bookshop to find the sports car speeding off in the opposite direction on the dark street, its red taillights two glowing eyes. And across the road, the boatyard office window is gone. Shattered. Smashed. Glass tinkling from the open window frame onto the sidewalk.
What did Adrian say? An eye for an eye?
Problem is, he took out the wrong one.
It’s like Summers & Co all over again, only this time it feels so much worse, because it—
Wasn’t an accident.
And it’s the boatyard window.
Not some retail object that showcases luxury goods, that can be replaced by the richest man in town with the snap of his fingers. No. The simple warehouse office window through which a big, happy family laughs.
This is personal.
An old man in a truck slows as he sees the damage.
“Hit and run!” I shout.
He pulls over at the curb, confused. I know the feeling. And that’s when I remember the black cat.
Oh no!
I race across the street, holding up my hand to stop another approaching car, and crunch over broken glass, peering into the boatyard offices. I can’t see! There are too many ambient streetlights making too many shadows. My heart’s in my stomach, thinking about the poor animal. Lucky will be devastated if anything bad has happened to it.
One of the shadows shifts—above. On a tall filing cabinet.
Thank God.
I reach through the broken window and coax it into my open arms, snatching the warm body as it tries to lurch past me in a panic. Claws dig into my shoulders, but I don’t care. “I’ve got you,” I tell it, quickly moving to the side alley where it’s less chaotic. “You’re okay. Let’s call your big brother.”
I’m shaking as I pull out my phone and scroll to Lucky. He answers on the first ring, and I bluntly say, “Come back. Adrian broke the front boatyard window and drove away. Call your parents. I’ll call the police. I’ve got your cat.”
I don’t even have to, though, as I already hear the wail of a siren competing with the shrill boatyard security alarm. I stand numbly in the dark alley, petting the twitchy black cat as scattered people begin jogging toward the dark, gaping hole in the building. And then it’s:
Evie, racing down from the apartment.
Police lights.
Lucky’s Superhawk.
His parents.
My mom.
An ambulance, which isn’t needed, but sticks around—just in case.
A city clean-up crew.
And crowds of gawking people, well past midnight.
Mom opens up the bookstore and makes coffee for the Karrases and the police. Kat is furious. The black cat is relieved to be allowed to retreat into one of the boat-repair bays, away from all the chaos. And for the first time, I learn that it has a name. Saint Boo. Boo for short. The cat with seven lives at this point.
“I was twelve,” Lucky explains when I question his name choice, the only chance I get to talk to him alone amongst the chaos for a few minutes. “And I swear to God, if Boo had been hurt by a flying piece of glass or ran out into traffic, I would’ve killed someone.”
I believe him, and we both know who that someone is.
But now that the shock of it all is fading away, there’s another emotion that’s settling in, especially for Lucky’s father: worry.
“Is it the money?” I ask. “To repair all this?”
He shakes his head. “I think it’s more about being in a fight with Levi Summers. It’s just a window, but a war with him could ruin our business.”
My stomach twists.
It should have been our window.
It should have been our war.
I don’t know what to do, but I’m a little scared, and I think maybe it’s time to reevaluate my part in all this. No way can I let my original mistake cause an entire war that ruins a family business. Everything was so easy when we stepped into town. I had the three-step Los Angeles plan. Graduate from high school before my grandmother comes back from Nepal. Save up money. Prove to my father that I’m worthy of being his apprentice.…
Now I’ve already dipped into my savings to start helping Lucky pay for the window. And I can’t even get up the nerve to email the stupid magazine about the internship because I’m a secret vandal and the nude photo of my mom, and, and—
Tick, tick, tick.
Breathe.
I’m going to figure this out. I will find a way to fix things somehow. But I know one thing. Whatever happens, I will not allow the Karrases to lose their business.
Los Angeles or not …
Mom doesn’t know that I was coming back from Lucky’s house when the boatyard window was broken. But she knows that I was outside the bookshop when Adrian drove up and demanded to talk to Evie. And Mom is pissed. And a little scared.
“If that really was Adrian who did it … ,” she says a day later, when we watch four people installing a new window across the street.
“Of course it was him! Who else would it be?” Who else would hurl a crowbar at a window after drunkenly threatening people with that eye-for-an-eye speech? I don’t understand how the police can’t get fingerprints off it, but apparently they can’t. He must have wiped it before he threw it.
Or someone in the police department is covering for him.…
“Why would an Olympic rower from Harvard be vandalizing windows in Beauty?” Mom says. “Evie? Would he really do that?”
“I couldn’t really say,” Evie murmurs.
Oh, but she could. She could say, all right. Evie doesn’t want me to tell Mom—I think because she’s so embarrassed that Adrian’s such a toxic stalker, even though it’s no reflection on her, duh—but she swore me to secrecy when she showed me all the drunken texts he sent her that night. Forty-three. Forty-three! And that’s on top of eleven phone calls. Who does that? A maniac, that’s who.
Then again, who throws a rock through a historic department store window?
Maybe I’m a maniac too.
Which maniac came first, the chicken or the egg?
After I insist again and again that it was Adrian, begging her to trust me on this one, Mom relents and tries to call up Adrian’s father through his business number—just to talk—but he’s not taking calls. And he’s not the kind of guy to whom you can march up and demand justice. You can’t just ring his doorbell. Guess when he’s the one whose property is destroyed, he’s available. When it’s his son who’s doing the destroying … well, he’s a busy man.
Take a number.
When Wednesday rolls around, Mom locks up the store at noon for our half-day closing and walks next door to Freedom Art Gallery, where several neighborhood shop owners are gathering to talk about security. Hate to break it to them, but they are in zero danger from Wreck-It Ralph. Adrian doesn’t care about their windows.
Evie is remarkably quiet about all of this. Pretty sure she’s far more upset than she’s letting on, but she says she needs time to think about things. So I’m giving her space. But I’m also thinking about those forty-three texts.
Maybe we’ve all got our ticking time bombs.
While Evie closes out the accounting up front, I pull all the empty book carts to the stockroom and line them up for receiving tomorrow, when we’re supposed to be getting a big shipment from a distributor. At least that’s what I start to do, until someone knocks on the stockroom door—the one that opens to the side of the house between the street and the alley.
Delivery people don’t knock. They ring the bell.
Cautious, I unlock the door and peek through the crack to find Lucky’s face staring back at me over a deep-red T-shirt. My heartbeat quickens.
“Hey,” he says, one side of his mouth quirking upward. “Saw Winona heading to the neighborhood meeting next door. My mom’s there too. Not sure if I’m still banned from these premises … ?”
“In Winona’s eyes? I don’t know; in this time of crisis, it’s hard to tell. Would you like to risk it all and come inside for a minute?” Please.
“Isn’t it you who’s taking the risk? I’m not banned from seeing you.”
I shrug, attempting to look casual, and open the door. “And I’m not good at following rules. Welcome to the stockroom.”
“Sorry to disappoint, but I’ve been back here. Lots.”
“You have?” I say, shutting the door behind him.
“Your grandmother lets me browse the new stuff before it goes out on the shelves.”
She never let us come back here when we were kids. Never. Honestly, I’m surprised she allowed kids in the bookshop. She dislikes noise and disorganization.
“She also lets Saint Boo sleep in here sometimes when we go out of town.”
Mouth open. Jaw on floor. “Beginning to have some serious suspicions that the Diedre Saint-Martin you’ve been acquainted with over the last few years is some kind of pod person,” I tell him. “The grandma I know and love dislikes pets. She’s also a rule-obsessed harpy who ruined my mom’s life, and mine by extension, and listens to too much fiddle music.”
“She does have a disturbing preoccupation with fiddling. Wonder if they fiddle in Nepal?”
“You must’ve missed her weekly postcards on the singing bowls and the flutes.”
“Maybe she’ll like that more than the fiddling and decide to stay. Never know …”
No chance.
“So …” I’m relieved he’s standing here, an arm’s length away. And anxious. And oddly fluttery. It’s the first time I’ve been alone with him since Sunday dinner—minus broken glass and police cars—and I’m trying to hide all those feelings that are now tangled up in the new worries that have descended with Adrian’s drunken stunt, so I busy myself with the empty carts. “How is Saint Boo? And what’s the update on the window? I saw them calking it yesterday afternoon. Is it costing your parents a fortune?” Should I be completely sick to my stomach? Because I am.
“Boo is fine. As for the window …” He squeezes one eye closed.
“Oh boy. That’s what I thought. I’m already downing expired Benadryl I found in my grandmother’s medicine cabinet to make me drowsy enough to sleep at night.”
“That sounds super not good,” he says, frowning. “Don’t do that.”
“Evie says it’s safe for cats and dogs and babies, so I figure it’s okay for Josies.”
“Look, the window is mostly installed and should be finished up by tomorrow. It wasn’t cheap, but it was no Summers & Co by a long shot, so stop taking expired allergy medicine. Seriously. Okay?”
“Okay.” I tap my fingers on the receiving table, a little nervous. “Any word from the Summers or the police?
“There isn’t such a thing as CCTV in Beauty, and no private security cameras caught them. The lady who owns Regal Cosmetics on the corner said she’s willing to testify that she saw a blue car drive through here at that time, but she didn’t see the actual crime. And neither did we.…”
“But we know he did it. And they never had me breaking the window on camera either.”
“But they had my confession,” he says. “And Adrian will flay the skin from his body before he confesses.”
“Then what happens next?”
“I don’t know, honestly. My dad’s a little worried. I think some of the damage is covered by our insurance, but mostly he’s concerned about Levi Summers and how it affects us long term, businesswise.”
“He’s your father’s biggest customer?”
“Pretty much. But it’s more than the actual dollars he pays us. If he takes his business away and tells other people to do the same …”
I nod. “Yeah, I get it. He can have you guys blacklisted.”
“That’s one way of putting it. He’s got a lot of influence in this town. Owns a bunch of property. The department store. The newspaper.”
The magazine, I think, but I definitely don’t say it out loud.
“What are your parents going to do about it?” I ask.
He scrubs the back of his neck and shakes his head, shrugging with one shoulder. “They’re just waiting to see how things shake out.”
“Lucky?” I ask in small voice. “Do you think I should tell them that I broke the department store window? Would that help?”
His brow lowers. “Absolutely not. You said you wouldn’t, Josie.”
“But—”
“We already talked about this.”
“Why, though? Wouldn’t it be better for your parents if Levi Summers knew I did it? I don’t want to ruin their business—this is my fault.”
“What about LA? What about your father not taking you in if you have a police record? What about your mom putting you in a car and dragging you out of town before your grandmother even comes back—what about that, huh?”
Oh. Did I say that in the police station? Wait …
Is he worried I’m going to leave town again before Grandma comes back from Nepal? I try to catch his gaze with mine, but he won’t look at me. His eyes light everywhere but on my face, and that’s how I know for certain.
He’s worried I’m going to leave.
Well.
To be honest, so am I.
“Okay, hey,” I say. “I won’t tell them I smashed the department store window.”
His shoulders relax. “Okay.”
“It’s going to be fine.”
“It’s going to be fine,” he repeats.
I’m not sure either of us believe that one hundred percent, but we’re trying.
He taps his fingers on one of the book carts and looks around the stockroom at shelving filled with boxes of supplies and fixture parts—pegs and old signage and book stands—until his gaze pauses on the open door near the receiving desk. “That’s new. Used to be sitting off its hinges and the inside overflowing with junk.”
“Mom and I put it back on and I cleaned it out.” I brush off my hands and walk to the walk-in closet. “Darkroom. See? A very rudimentary, very tiny one.”
“You develop film in here?”
“Yep.”
“How does it work?”
“Like this …”
He follows me inside. “Wow. Close quarters.”
Man, he’s not kidding. I should’ve thought this through. “Uh, well. It’s normally just me in here.”
“Right, yeah. Cool clock,” he says, pointing to the wall. “Analog?”
“That’s my timer.” I try not to bump into his arm as I shuffle around him to flip on a lamp that sits on a makeshift plywood desk under the slanted part of the ceiling in the corner. Then I scoot past him, shut the door, and close a floor-length curtain over it.
“Cozy,” he says.
“That’s to ensure no light leaks in here from cracks,” I tell him, a little nervous.
“Ah.”
Best to stick to the technical details. “It already had ventilation, because someone started to turn this into a restroom at some point. So that’s my fan going outside. Shelves below the desk for all my pans. Tools here. And I’ve kind of got things divided into a dry side here, and a wet side here, for my chemicals, see?”
“Looks dangerous.”
“Only if you stick your face in it, so don’t do that.” I flip on the safelight bulb that’s installed in the overhead socket, and the closet glows red. “Ta-da! That’s what I use when I’m developing. Magic.”
“Whoa,” he says, turning his head to look around. His red shirt blends in with the walls. “It’s like we’re in a strip club.”
“Uh …”
“Obviously I’ve never been in a strip club.”
“Makes two of us. Does Beauty even have one?”
He snorts. “We still have strict bathing suit laws on the books. Technically, I think the town has the right to put you on trial for being a witch if you show your stomach on a public beach.”
“Beauty, Where Modern is Just a Word We Use for Our Furniture.”
“Beauty, Where IKEA is a Little Too Progressive,” he says.
I chuckle and try another one. “Beauty, Where Tabasco Sauce is Sort of Unnecessary, Really?”
Then he says: “I’ve been one of your anonymous Photo Funder subscribers since you started the account.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he says, lashes covering eyes that stare at the floor between us. “I wanted to, but I was worried you’d think it was weird. Especially after what Adrian said about nudes at the party and him flashing that pic of your mom.”
My brain tries to make sense of it. “I started that account last summer. I was living in …” Where? I can’t even remember where Mom and I were. “Massachusetts.”
“Your grandmother told me about it.”
I stare at his shirt, the color of it disappearing in the safelight’s eerie glow. My pulse swishes inside my temples so loudly that I can’t think straight. “She told you about my photography subscription account? You’ve been following me online for … a year?”
“Well, your photos. You don’t really say anything personal—just the photo descriptions. You don’t even have a recent selfie posted, so it’s not like I’ve been spying on you.”
“I don’t care about that. I care about the fact that you’ve been there all this time and haven’t said anything to me. This whole time? We could have been talking all this time? Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know.…” His brow furrows like he’s a little unsure, and he finally admits, “I wanted to get back in touch with you somehow, but I didn’t know how to go about doing it. When I found out about your website, at first, I thought it was the perfect way to reconnect. But then I lost my nerve to speak up, so I just sort of stayed in the shadows. I’m sorry. I should have told you sooner.”
“You should have told me!”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m not mad, I’m …”
“What?”
“I don’t know. I guess I’m hurt that you didn’t reach out to me and say hello,” I say, getting flustered. “No one in my family communicates normally, so I was led to believe … I thought your family moved away from Beauty, okay? I didn’t even know you were still here. We could have been friends online. Mom and I have come to visit every year or so—were you at Evie’s dad’s funeral?”
“We were out of town that weekend. We went to the wake the night before—”
Oh. Mom and I didn’t make it into town until late that night, after the wake.
I shake my head, “It doesn’t matter now. You should’ve told me it was you online.”
“I’m sorry, okay?” he says, a little angry … a little desperate.
We were so close, yet so far. Connected by my photos but separated by his anonymity. The sorrow of this catches me off guard and tightens inside my chest.
“I checked that old email account of mine for years, hoping you’d reply to my last email. You don’t know how lonely I was, Lucky.”
“About the same as me?” he challenges, dark eyes narrowing. “Or maybe a little less, seeing as how you got to leave, and I was stuck here, all alone. You were off seeing the world, but I was trapped.”
“Lucky, Mom and I were literally living in Section 8 housing before we moved to Beauty. Do you know what that is?”
“So? You haven’t been trapped. You’ve traveled. You’ve seen things.”
Oh, I’ve seen things, all right.
But … But. I guess I never thought about it that way. Maybe he has a point.
He lifts a hand. “Now look at you. Don’t even want to be here anymore. All you think about is running off to Malibu to live with a man you don’t even know—that’s how much you hate it here?”
“Hey!” I snap. “You may remember that people are circulating nude photos of my mother around town and saying that it’s me, making kissy faces at me when I walk down the street—okay? And this jet-setter life of mine that you’re painting in your mind has been gossiped about and criticized at Beauty High since the day I walked through the doors. So don’t make it sound like I’ve had the red carpet rolled out for me.”
“And don’t make it sound like you haven’t had anyone to help you fix that. Because both me and my family are now shouldering the load for you.”
“Didn’t ask you to. Have said a million times that I will turn myself in.”
“If you do, I’ll never forgive you.”
Breath comes faster through my nostrils.
He wants honesty from me? Fine. Let’s do this.
“Is that why you did it?” I ask.
“Did what?”
“Is that why you took the fall for me? For the department store window? Because you’re scared my mom’s going to take me away again, and you’re trying to keep me here?”
Surprise widens his eyes—just for a moment. It’s quickly replaced by anger.
“I did it for a lot of reasons.”
“Oh really?”
“Really.”
“Name one,” I challenge.
“Okay, fine. You want to know one reason why?”
“Yes.”
“One reason I did it is because what happened at the party that night was shitty, and you were upset, and that made me upset, and Adrian Summer is obviously a complete asshole, so, yeah. It was unfair that you were going to get dragged through the mud for a stupid window that his dad can afford to replace a million times over. So I thought, what did it matter if I got dirty? Because unlike you, I actually do deserve to get punished. I’m not good. I’m a scarred-up monster who nearly got his little cousin killed because I wasn’t watching her when I should’ve been, so what does it matter? That’s one reason why I did it,” he says, his face a rocky cliff being thrashed by a sea of dark emotions. “Because I deserve it.”
I blink.
The red safelight glows above our heads in the cramped darkroom, but the light inside my head is clear and bright: Lucky hasn’t gotten over the fire at the lake house. The rumors. The bad reputation. The sullen attitude. The detention. I watch the turbulent emotions swirling around his face until they change into something else that I can’t quite identify.
“I should go,” he says in a rough voice, eyes on the floor, trying to move around me.
I block the door with my body.
He looks shocked.
I’m surprised, myself.
“You can’t live in the past, always thinking about the lake house fire,” I tell him. “You’re not a monster, and you don’t deserve to be punished for something that happened years ago. Your cousin survived. You survived.”
“Some days it feels like it just happened yesterday, and everyone still blames me for not watching her.”
“You can’t really believe that.”
His chest rises and falls as he gazes down at me, blinking in tremolo. “Oh, okay. So I guess you’re going to tell me what I can and can’t believe now?” he says, as if he desperately, secretly wants me to but is far too proud to ask.
“If you’re going to believe stupid things, then, yes. That’s my duty as your friend.”
He snorts softly. “Oh, you mean like your stupid love curse?”
“Hey, tell it to my mom. She’s the one who says it’s ruined all the Saint-Martins’ love lives.”
“Has it, though?” he asks as if he’s eager not to talk about himself anymore.
“I’ve never been in love, so don’t have any firsthand experience.” I try to make a lighthearted joke. “Guess I was too busy traveling the world—and I guess you were just plain busy. Maybe not with Bunny, but I know there have been other girls. Come on.”
He frowns. “Are you accusing me of something, here, or … ?”
“No. I don’t—” I huff out a breath. Wow. I sound like a jealous girlfriend, accusing him of cheating. That went in a weird direction, and he’s still upset, and I’m doing this all wrong … and I wish I could take it back.
“I don’t know why I said that,” I finally admit.
But I do. I wish it would have been me and not those other girls.
I can’t say it, though. Not that. I can’t be that teeth-gratingly honest.
It’s quiet. Still. Almost stifling. We’ve been in here too long, breathing all the air in the small space.
“I need to go,” he says softly. “Move.”
“No.”
He’s surprised by that.
He exhales a hard breath through his nostrils. Silent. Studying my face. The longer he stares at me, not saying anything, the faster my heart races. I try to look anywhere but his eyes. The sharp shadow under his jaw. The bob of his Adam’s apple when he swallows. The line of his collarbone against his T-shirt.
Warm fingers graze mine.
My hand trembles as if it’s a rabbit caught in a snare. I know he can feel it, because I’m looking between us, and I can see the tremor as our fingers twine. I’m a little bit terrified. But I don’t move away.
“Josie,” he whispers near the top of my head.
No choice now.
When I tilt my face upward, he’s right there. So close. Sharing the last of the air in the tiny room. Both of our faces lit up like we’re at the last subway stop at midnight; both of us gripping each other like we don’t want to get off.
“Move,” he whispers.
I shake my head slowly.
His eyes are hooded and lazy as they survey my face. He leans closer, closer, and says against my lips, “Move … Josie.”
And when I open my mouth to tell him no, he kisses me.
Softly, once.
Again.
Then I kiss him back.
And that’s the tipping point, right there. He lets go of my fingers to cup my face, and we’re kissing each other like there truly is no air left in the tiny closet. As if we’re locked in some kind of escape room and fighting for our lives—our very survival depends on the maximum amount of pleasure we can derive from one deep, long kiss, and my God, are we going to endure.
A hurricane could hit. Tectonic plates could grind and shift below our feet. A legendary sea monster could rise from the harbor and wrap its tentacles around ships, trying to drown the people of this town, and we wouldn’t care.
We would endure.
I wrap my arms around him like I do when I’m on the back of his bike, only it’s a hundred times better holding him from the front, especially when he presses his weight against me and we both fall into the door together. I lose my balance and grab the darkroom curtain, but one of the curtain rings pops open where it’s attached to the rod above the door—then another. One, two, three … And the fabric starts to fall down on our heads.
“Oh shit,” he says, untangling us from the falling fabric, one hand on my lower back, pulling me away with him.
“It’s okay,” I whisper. “I can fix it. Not broken.”
He’s breathing heavily. So am I. And for a moment, I think he’s going to let go of me, and I’m about to shout that I really do not care about the stupid curtain, and then—
Then he’s pulling me closer. Good lord, he feels nice. I feel nice.
We both feel nice.
He’s nuzzling my neck, close to my ear, and I really, really want him to kiss me again. The tremble in my hand is gone. It’s been hijacked by a wave of warm tingles that spreads all the way up my arms and lights up each one of my cells from the inside out, and—
“Josie?”
Muffled voice. Stockroom. Evie.
We push away from each other in a panic, breathing like marathon runners. Seems we’ve failed the escape room and must now face the consequences.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.
He pulls down his T-shirt to cover the front of his jeans.
Well.
Evie calls my name again, and there’s no way in hell we’re sneaking out of this darkroom. No. Way.
She’s going to know what we’ve been doing in here, and—
Oh my God.
I just made out with Lucky.
My best friend.
And you know what? I’d do it again.
Maybe I am cursed, after all.