NOW
There’s a story in As Evening Falls about a woman who picked a magic purple flower to give to a man she loved. After she accidentally dropped the flower on her way to see him, it was scooped up by a lark, who flew away. Every so often, she would see this lark, still with the flower in its beak, fresh as the day it bloomed. As the weeks went by and she gradually lost interest in the man she’d fancied, she enjoyed searching for the lark and her stolen flower. “Until one day,” I tell Alex, “after she had fallen completely out of love, the lark transformed into a young, beautiful earth god. He’d been waiting for her heart to be her own again so that she could then give it to him. After she gave him her love, he returned the flower, which she wore in her hair, and its magic kept her young with him for hundreds of years.” The story claims that they live together beneath the swift-moving waters of Twinstar Fork, which is why larkspur grows in such abundance along its banks.
The sun is a low fireball flinting off the water of Twinstar Fork now, trees losing their green as they darken to silhouettes. The cooling air clings to my lungs.
I bend forward, plucking a stalk of purple larkspur. “Not symbolism,” I tell him. “A story.”
He shifts closer, examining it. His eyes, haltingly beautiful, slide to mine. He has dark limbal rings, and looking into them, I feel as if he takes something; as if, every time I meet his gaze, he siphons off a little piece of me to keep.
I don’t have time to stand here on a riverbank and pick larkspur with him. Don’t have time to eat calzones with him, or snipe at each other.
Next Monday is May Day—Beltane—one of my busiest workdays of the year. I have hundreds of artificial flower crowns to make in advance (fresh flowers for an occasion like this would take up all the room in my fridge). It’s also when the night market is supposed to launch, which we’re not nearly prepared for. Which begs the question: What the hell am I doing?
“My mistake,” Alex says softly. His gaze is sharp and glittering as the night. “I suppose I have you to fault for flower symbolism being on my mind.”
I can’t breathe as he holds my stare. “Of course you would blame me.”
His head slants as though he heard me say something completely different. “When we were in the gas station, Trevor told me that you two live together. That you both live in the little house out back behind your shop.”
I blink away my stupor. “Right. Yes.” Lovely of Trevor to not run this by me first. How are we going to keep our story straight? “That is true.”
“Then why’d you tell me you didn’t? Why’d you say you were going to move into his place soon?”
I shrug, uncomfortable. “Let’s go give this flower to the ghost.”
He steps closer, facial muscles tense. “What kind of shampoo does he use?”
“What? Why?”
“Which side of the bed does he sleep on?”
I hesitate, turning and beginning to walk. “Left.”
He keeps pelting questions. “What does his alarm ringtone sound like?”
I speed up my gait. “What’s with the interrogation?”
“What’s with the deflection?”
“I’ve spent all day on this scavenger hunt. I’d like to wrap it up.” I thrust the larkspur at Millicent Halifax, who glares.
“You took a really, really long time,” she tells me stiffly, then picks up her bag of flowers and marches off.
The fifth and final scavenger hunt clue is Take a picture where the town begins. This one’s simple. The town begins at the Moonville tunnel.
I hurry as fast as I can, trying to leave Alex behind. “You’re suddenly very motivated to finish this hunt,” he observes, appearing at my side like an apparition. “Almost as if you’re trying to dodge my questions.”
“Trevor and I aren’t any of your business. Now focus, please. It’s starting to rain.”
I hear a low growl in the base of Alex’s throat. All the tiny hairs on my body stand on end.
I hurry faster.
“Oh, I’m focusing, all right,” he says darkly. “What’s Trevor’s middle name?”
I figure my best bet is to throw him off his guard. “Our physical chemistry more than makes up for a lack of information.”
“More lies.” He seizes my wrist, bringing me toward him, and I’m mesmerized by the heat flare from skin-on-skin contact. I got a good look at those hands earlier when they were busy fondling my plants; they’ve got calluses and at least one scar, which runs from the base of his index finger around to the knuckle of his thumb like a large letter L. I hate that I noticed this. I hate that I’ve been dying to know what it would feel like to be handled by them.
His voice is heavy. Pressurized. “You don’t have any chemistry with him.”
“You don’t know everything, believe it or not.”
His fierce gaze bores into mine. “I know one thing,” he says quietly, breath ghosting over my lips. “I know one thing for absolute certain.”
Our mouths are an inch apart, breathing labored. My heart thunders. I’m dizzy from the smell of sweat and soap and rain, the fresh-cut grass clippings mushed to the soles of our sneakers, and the last time we were this close he probably had a hand up my shirt. His thumb slides an inch down my wrist, pressing a little as if remembering, too. I shiver. He turns my wrist over, exposing the pale underside with its gleaming indentation. I can’t believe he remembers my old injury.
Raindrops fleck his shirt, gliding down his temple, close to the corner of his mouth. I stomp out the urge to lick them, alarms flashing blue and red in my brain.
“What, then?” I hear myself murmur. “What’s the one thing?”
My attention moves from his eyes to the stubble on his jawline, to his throat. I watch his skin respond, goosebumps appearing along his neck, a flush of color rising. I trace a finger down the bumps, flattening them. The movement is wholly involuntary and an instant mistake I can’t bring myself to regret.
Then my hand wraps around his throat. Applies light pressure.
I don’t know what prompted me to do it. I stare at my hand around his tanned neck and he takes a step forward until our fronts graze, his eyelids lowering. He swallows against my palm, skin blazing hot. I’ve definitely touched him before, but not like this. Not with a touch that feels like a word. We never got the chance to try having sex because between my parents, my sisters, and his mom, everybody conspiring to keep an eye on us, we never got any privacy. I would have been fine with a tumble in his truck bed, but Alex insisted our first time had to be special . . . we waited and waited for that perfect moment that never came.
I let go.
A birdcall filters through the bright red haze pulsing around me, blood slow, thick, and roaring in my ears. It drowns out the river.
He still doesn’t tell me what that one thing is, his analytical stare flaying my nerves. Alex releases my wrist.
Even when standing utterly still, he is all movement. I see it crouching inside of him, a whirlwind storm of energy he’s holding back with everything he’s got; and if he were to release it, he doesn’t even know himself what he might do—kiss me, curse me, tell me he wishes me eternal suffering, pin me to a tree. It’s painful to not touch him where his pulse beats, sweat limning the bridge of his nose. His gaze searches mine with a near-frantic intensity, and when he speaks at last his voice is like cement. “We’d be a lot further ahead right now if you’d just been honest.”
I take a step away from him. “You knew the answer to number three and took forever to tell me what it was. You’re just as much at fault.”
His head tilts. Something almost sad hides in the way he looks at me, but his smile is all amusement. “Come on, then. Even though we lost, might as well finish what we started.”
By the time we return to Half Moon Mill, the rain’s let up to a sprinkle and the other hunters have collected their prizes and left. I approach Kristin, who’s surrounded by a gaggle of ladies in hot pink visors. Suitcases are strewn all over the grass.
“There you are!” she exclaims. “Those clues must’ve stumped you, huh? I thought for sure you’d be the first ones back here—remember all the board games the three of us used to play together? You two would go for the throat, every time.”
I see a brief flash of my hand against Alex’s throat, unmistakable desire darkening his eyes.
“Sorry for making you wait.” I school the wobble out of my voice. This is absurd. I am not allowed to find Alex attractive, and more importantly, I have forbidden myself from being attracted to him. It would be too humiliating to survive. “Good night, bride-to-be,” I say. “Thanks for inviting me to play today. I had fun.”
“Oh, I’m so glad!” Kristin hugs me.
Kristin seems much more relaxed now. I remember when she worked two jobs to make ends meet, her house a shrine to her husband, who died in a car accident when Alex was six. Everywhere you looked, there was a picture of grinning, gregarious, practical-joke-lover Alex Senior: candids with Kristin—him with a bushy mustache, her with hair teased to heaven, laughing hard, trying to shield her face from the camera; wedding photos; family portraits with baby Alex and his cute right-cheek dimple, toddler Alex in scarlet and gray overalls and a matching Brutus Buckeye hat, nostalgically backlit with his chubby hands on his knees. The trio’s succession of photos stops abruptly after kindergarten-graduation-Alex. Their house used to be loud with laughter, the hub where aunts and uncles assembled to drink and play games. Alex Senior and Kristin had intended for Alex Junior to be the first of many.
There are knots in the heartstrings that connect Kristin and me, but I still love her dearly.
“Here’s Marcy,” she says. “Marcy, did you ever meet Romina? She used to go with Alex, but she goes with Trevor now.”
“Romina gets around,” Marcy says with a smoky chuckle.
My chin falls. “Uh.”
“Don’t listen to her, she’s joking.” Kristin waves a hand. “Marcy, I didn’t think you were going to make it! I can’t believe you brought so many friends with you.” I watch her attempts to be chill and stress-free for this wedding disintegrate before my eyes.
“We’re on our way to the Wild Turkey Festival,” one of the ladies pipes up, swaying. She’s sipping a margarita with four neon straws. “In McArthur.”
“Hope you still have room for us,” Marcy says brightly.
Kristin presses two fingertips against her lips. “Ah . . .”
“No worries, Mom.” I jump at the sound of Alex’s voice, landing directly on top of my head at close range. Just as I revolve to face him, he steps forward, bumping our bodies together. There is a zero percent chance it wasn’t on purpose. “You can give them my room.”
“Yours? But then where will you stay? There are no other hotels in town.”
Alex wraps an arm around my shoulders, his smile genial. A raindrop slides along his hairline, landing on the collar of his shirt. “I’ll stay with my new stepbrother, Trevor. This would be a great chance for us to bond.”
Horror leaps up my throat when I realize what this means for me. “No way.”
“Oh, c’mon, it’ll be fun.”
I snarl at him.
Kristin bites her lip, but the drunk pink visor ladies are already wheeling their suitcases inside, so she grips my hand. “Thank you, honey. I appreciate this so much.”
“Can’t you just drive home?” I whine at Alex.
“Nah, I live all the way in Oreton. I want to stay close this week, so I can help Mom out. Get to know Daniel.” He’s putting it on. Oreton isn’t all that far. The meaner my scowl, the bigger his smile gets. “Arrangement works out for everyone. Fantastic.”
