A Pack of Vows and Tears

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “I didn’t know driving instructors doled out compliments. I certainly never got one.”

  “Maybe because you weren’t all that impressive behind the wheel of a car.” I shot him a teasing smile.

  “August’s pretty impressive anywhere he goes,” Uncle Tom said very seriously. “When I was young, even though it might seem hard to believe, I was pretty impressive myself.”

  That was hard to believe, but I said, “I don’t doubt it.” Yes, it was a lie, but it was a kind one. Kind lies were acceptable. Right?

  The rest of Uncle Tom’s face went red.

  “You had something to discuss with me?” August asked.

  I returned my gaze to him. “Oh. Yeah.”

  Together we walked to the office. I shook the computer mouse to awaken the monitor, then clicked all the tabs back open and showed him how several timber delivery slips didn’t match the warehouse stocks.

  “Either they’re not delivering the amount listed, or someone’s been stealing supplies from the warehouse.” Some being a benign amount, but still noticeable. Like a missing molar. Not an incisor. I then showed him how the pattern went back almost three years.

  “Shit.” August perused all the highlighted numbers.

  “Look, it’s probably the timber company. I mean it’s always the same one. If one of your employees were skimming, he’d probably do it on every order, not just on Black Timber’s.”

  Unless the person was smart. I truly hoped it was the timber corporation and not an individual.

  “How did Mom miss this? That’s thousands of dollars of loss!”

  “$17,533.”

  August blinked at me.

  I shrugged. “I’ll print everything out so you can double-check my number.”

  August stood up straighter. “I trust your calculations, but yeah, print it out so I can show Dad.”

  I hit control P on various documents, which made the mammoth printer roar to life in the corner.

  August walked over and plucked the papers from the tray before crossing the office, but then he paused in the doorway. “Can you keep this between us? Until I find out what’s going on?”

  “Of course.” I mimicked zipping up my lips.

  He stepped out but doubled back. “And congrats again on your license. That’s a heck of a milestone.”

  I smiled stupidly at him.

  With the hand not clutching all the printouts, he tapped the doorframe. “Don’t leave before I get back, okay?”

  I nodded, imagining he’d want to debrief after meeting with Nelson. “I drove here, so I’m totally independent.”

  A butterfly performed a backflip inside my stomach.

  Independent.

  How I’d longed for this day.

  35

  The sun was setting, and everyone had left, yet August still wasn’t back. I’d been done with my workload for almost an hour and had been poring over the three-dimensional elevations of a luxury lodge. I could almost smell the oiled pine floors and the tall evergreens that had been digitally added beyond the bay windows.

  “What do you think?” A warm breath licked up the column of my neck.

  I startled, and the 3D printouts scattered on the dusty floor. I slapped a palm across my chest, trying to ease my galloping heart. “August! You scared me.”

  His gaze set on my midriff. “You didn’t feel me approach? Because I can sense you from miles away.”

  I lowered my palm to my stomach where the phantom thread throbbed, where it had been pulsing for a while, but I’d dismissed it as hunger pangs. “I thought I was just really hungry.”

  He smiled as he dropped into a crouch to gather the papers. “And? Are you hungry?”

  “I don’t know.” August’s proximity confused the heck out of my body.

  He set all the papers back on the desk and nodded to them. “What do you think?”

  “I’d want to live there.”

  “I thought your dream house was a glass cube centered around a courtyard.”

  “A glass cube?”

  “You sketched it on a paper napkin when we went for ice cream once and made me swear I’d build it for you someday.”

  “Oh. I don’t remember.” I twisted my hair into a rope and wound it into a high bun, looping the ends through the coiled mass to make it hold. “I was quite a demanding kid, huh?”

  “You even picked the sort of tree that would go in the courtyard.”

  I concentrated on my memories but couldn’t locate the one in question. “What tree did I want?”

  “A palm.”

  I grinned, dropping my hands from my hair. “Seriously? How tropical of me.”

  “It would thrive in Colorado.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “But it would probably be an eyesore.”

  “It’d be original, that’s for sure.” He tilted his head to the side. “A little like a girl in an all-male pack.”

  “Hmm.” When he put it that way . . . Maybe a disruptive tree would do this place some good.

  “You also wanted a loose floorboard in your bedroom. Like the one you had at the foot of your bed.”

  That, I remembered. When I was six or seven, Everest and I had pried a wooden slat loose from my floor with one of my father’s work tools, and then we’d lined the shallow hollow with burlap. I stowed my diary inside, along with a treasured collection of Polaroid pictures—my Dad in his wolf form, a few silly selfies of Everest and me, one of my parents dancing in our living room, and several close-ups of August. I remembered this one shot of him, with the sun on his face and this faraway glint in his eyes. I’d labeled it The Dreamer.

  When I’d first moved to LA, I’d look at it every night, but at some point, the sight of August just made me sad, so I’d shoved the Polaroid inside a shoe box along with the rest of my keepsakes. The next time I’d lifted the lid on that box was about three years later. A leak in our apartment had filled my box with dirty water, ruining the few mementos I’d carried from Boulder.

  I blinked out of the memory. “How did the talk go with your dad?”

  “I’d rather not discuss it in here.”

  Did he think the place was bugged? I didn’t ask.

  August gestured to the door of the building, and I followed him out. He turned off all the lights before setting the alarm. I thought he’d tell me about his conversation outside, but he tipped his head toward the side of the warehouse.

  “Ooh.” I was sure my eyes lit up. “I get to see your man cave?” I rubbed my palms together like a little kid.

  “Man cave?” He grunted.

  I flicked his arm.

  “Ouch. What was that for?”

  “Every time you grunt, I’m flicking you.”

  “Are you now?” he muttered.

  “Uh-huh. It’ll make you take notice of how often you do it.”

  He shook his head a little, but a smile softened his expression. “Should I remind you that inflicting bodily harm on your boss is majorly frowned upon?”

  “Bodily harm?” I snorted. “I don’t think I could inflict much harm on that impressive body of yours.” I winked at him.

  He flicked my ribs.

  “What was that for?” I said, rubbing the spot. “It wasn’t a dig. Besides, I didn’t even come up with the descriptive term. That was all Uncle Tom.”

  “You grunted,” he said matter-of-factly.

  “I did not.”

  “You did.”

  I shook my head but matched his smile with one of my own.

  August unlocked his front door with a digital keypad and then tapped another keypad inside, and a dozen different lights flared to life.

  I tilted my head up and took in the narrow, but dizzyingly high-ceilinged space. “Wow.”

  The walls were brushed concrete, and the floors were gunmetal-tinged wood, and over the kitchen, there was a giant mezzanine topped with a king-sized bed.

  “Total man cave,” I declared.

  August walked to the kitchen and tugged open th
e fridge that was stocked with beer, milk, and more beer.

  “Don’t eat here often, huh?” I ran my fingers over the knots in the giant slice of trunk that made up his kitchen island. “This is beautiful.” The sides were uneven but smooth, almost like ruffles. “I want an island like this in my glass cube.” I took a seat at the island as he pulled out two beers which he uncapped with his fist. I tipped an eyebrow up. “I thought I was underage.”

  He smiled. “I was trying to irritate you.” He handed me one of the bottles, then held out his own. “To milestones.”

  We clinked, and then I took a small sip.

  “I probably shouldn’t drink and drive. Especially not on an empty stomach.”

  “I was going to order pizza.”

  My spine straightened a little. “You don’t have to feed me.”

  “Cole’s coming over soon. He requested an extra-large pie.”

  I took another sip. “You guys hang out often?”

  “Well, we work together, but yeah, we hang out every day.”

  They were the same age, or maybe a year apart. “I don’t remember you guys being such good friends before I left town.”

  “Those last few weeks you were around, we were on the outs over a girl. He hooked up with her right after I broke up with her.”

  “And that was a violation of the bro-code or something?”

  He snorted.

  I leaned over and flicked his wrist.

  “Hey.” He rubbed it, eyes glinting with a smile.

  I tipped my bottle to my lips, relishing the cool fizz of the beer as it hit my tongue, as it hit my veins. “So what happened after that?”

  “He ended up going out with her for four years.”

  “And you didn’t talk the entire time?”

  “Nah. We patched things up pretty quick.”

  I thought of the girl inside Liam’s room. I still didn’t know who she was, but I couldn’t imagine wanting to hang out with her. Then again, Cole and August had been friends before a girl had come between them. I had no girlfriends in Boulder, besides Sarah, but Sarah had obviously not been the one behind that wall.

  Would I have forgiven her if she had been?

  “Ness?”

  “Yeah?” I blinked out of my glum thoughts.

  “Want some pizza?”

  “Sure.”

  As he phoned up the delivery place, I went back to thinking about the girl in Liam’s room. Went through my entire beer dwelling on her.

  I really needed to get my mind off it. “So what did your dad say?” I asked once August was done placing the order.

  “He said he knew. Mom caught the discrepancy.”

  “And?”

  “And you don’t need to concern yourself with it.”

  I crossed my legs. “You’re really going to leave me hanging like that?”

  He studied the label on his beer bottle, as though checking the ingredients, studied it so hard a small groove appeared between his eyebrows. Finally, he sighed. “Tom’s been skimming. His nephew—the one who works at the radio station—well, his ex-wife had a shopping addiction. She emptied their bank account and left town, but she’d racked up an insane amount of debt and stuck him with it.”

  Debt. I knew a thing or two about that.

  He peeled off a corner of his label and stripped it off the green glass. “Tom was just trying to help his nephew out.”

  “Why didn’t he just come to you and ask for a loan?”

  “I suppose he was afraid he’d be turned down, and then turned out.” August leaned his forearms on the counter, folding the label up and up until it resembled a miniature accordion. “We never discussed your salary, by the way. I imagine this is just a summer job for you.”

  “If you need me for longer, I could temp during the fall.”

  He rubbed the pleated label between his fingertips, and the sticky paper disintegrated into flecks.

  “But only if you find me competent—”

  “We find you competent.” He finished reducing the label to a mound of rice-sized pellets. “Too much so.”

  I blinked up at him. Was there such a thing as too competent?

  “Would twenty bucks an hour be acceptable?”

  “Twenty bucks?” I choked out. I’d made eleven and change back in California. “That’s really generous.”

  He grabbed my empty beer bottle, scooped up his little mess, then dropped both in the bin underneath his sink. “Do you have money trouble?”

  “Huh?” What led him to ask me that? Did I give off some starved vibe? I tried to blank out my expression. “No.”

  “Then why did you take that escort job?”

  “To confront Heath.”

  “I’m not talking about that one. I’m talking about the second one.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “How do you know about the second one?”

  “Cole was there.”

  Ugh. “I was promised three grand to go to dinner with Aidan. I didn’t know who he was. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known.”

  August stared at me so long that I felt the heat seep higher than just my neck.

  “Look, I’m really not proud of it, but it was three grand just for dinner.”

  “I’m not judging you, Ness.”

  “Everyone else did,” I mumbled.

  He covered one of my hands with one of his. Even though I was still a little tanned, the contrast between our skin colors was jarring—light brown against golden ivory.

  “But I do want an honest answer out of you about your money situation. I know your uncle’s in a bind waiting on the payment from the inn to clear, and I know what medical bills cost.”

  I swallowed hard, praying August couldn’t feel the clamminess of my skin. “I was a minor, so after Mom . . . after she died, I wasn’t responsible for her medical bills. I just needed to pay day-to-day stuff and a couple extras, you know, rent, food, her”—I slid my bottom lip between my teeth—“her funeral.” I kept my gaze on our hands. “So to answer your question, I need a job, not a loan.”

  The doorbell rang then. The scent of melted cheese and tangy tomato had my stomach rumbling. Unhurriedly, he removed his hand and walked to the door. He relieved the delivery boy of three cardboard boxes and tipped him generously, before ferrying the food back to the island. He flipped the lids up on two of the boxes but kept the third one shut—probably Cole’s extra-large pie.

  “Can you give me your bank details?” he asked, taking out plates and handing me one. “So we can deposit your salary straight into it at the end of the month.”

  “I’ll email it to you later.” I eased a perfect triangle out of the box and bit off the pointy tip.

  Silence fell between us as we ate. It was interrupted by a sharp knock on the door, followed by beeping.

  “Yo,” Cole said, walking in. He stopped when he saw me. Although Cole tried to hide his surprise, it was all over his face.

  “Ness got her driver’s license,” August informed him. “We were celebrating with beer and pizza.”

  I patted my lips with a paper napkin, grabbed the bag I’d flung on the seat next to me, and hopped off the barstool. “I was just leaving. Don’t want to crash your date.”

  As I walked toward the door, Cole squeezed my shoulder.

  His fingers smelled like cigarettes. “Matt told me what happened.”

  Don’t say it out loud. Don’t say it out loud. I didn’t want to relive it.

  “It was a dick move,” he added, lowering his hand, “but it’s his loss.”

  I studied the floor beneath his sneakers. “He didn’t do anything wrong. We weren’t together,” I said softly. And then I tried to smile but failed miserably. It had been five days, and yet my heart still shuddered every time someone mentioned Liam. “Good-night, boys,” I mumbled, stepping out into the cobalt darkness.

  I watched the stars as I made my way toward the van. And then I watched them some more while I drove myself home, wishing I could feel happier, because today ha
d been a good day.

  I thought of my dream house as I drove past the road that led to my old one, and then I rammed my foot on the brake.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  I blinked in the direction of my childhood home, Everest’s last message trickling into my mind, then gunned the car up the drive.

  36

  I parked the van and raced around the house toward my old bedroom. The window that I’d busted when I’d sprang through it to rescue Evelyn was still gaping wide. I’d thought about boarding it up, but then, with everything that had happened, it had slipped my mind. Never was I gladder to be forgetful.

  Shards of glass remained in the frame. I grabbed a rock from the ground, the largest I could find, and ran it around the frame, knocking out any sharp remnant. Palms and chest tingling with my rapid pulse, I heaved myself up and through the dark hole.

  I must not have gotten all the glass, because beads of blood appeared on one of my palms. As I wiped them on my T-shirt, I traced the dusty floor until I located the slab. I dropped into a crouch and coaxed the floorboard up, heart rate sprinting, filling my mouth with the taste of metal. I wasn’t sure what I was more afraid of: finding something or finding nothing?

  Without a sound, the slat lifted.

  I stared into the dark hatch but didn’t reach into it. I carefully set the floorboard aside, took my phone out of my pocket, and called the one person I didn’t want to speak to.

  Ten minutes later, a car rumbled up my driveway. I stepped out of my bedroom and walked to the front door to unlock it. Liam and Lucas got out of the black SUV and then trailed me through my old home.

  I pointed to the hatch. “I didn’t touch anything.”

  Liam shone the light from his phone into the hole, catching the metallic glint of the stack of packages my cousin had crammed inside. With no refrigeration, was the Sillin even salvageable? I didn’t ask. I didn’t care. The only thing I cared about was that Liam and Lucas didn’t assume I’d had a hand in hiding the Boulders’ drugs.