We pull into a small rocky lot, situated beside the sailboat-lined inlet of water. It’s adorable. I love it out here. There’s a dock off the back of the restaurant with peach linen tables and tea-lights, and there are white Christmas lights lining the roof of the restaurant. This is like a little vacation from life. I want to stay here forever.
Hayes runs around to my side of the truck and offers me a hand as I hop out. “Ready?”
I trail behind him into the restaurant, feeling a touch nervous to meet his family. But I’d rather feel these nerves than the ones I left back at his apartment.
As we walk in, the lights are quite dim, reminding me it’s almost eight; while the bar area is full, the restaurant portion is pretty empty. The hostess, a young girl maybe around sixteen or so, hops up and down and throws her arms around Hayes. “Hayes!” she shrieks. “Your mom is going to be so excited to see you.”
“Is Ryder here too?” he asks her.
“Yup, he’s in the kitchen with your mom.”
“Thanks, Livvy,” he says.
Hayes leads us into the kitchen, where we’re greeted with an immediate squawk. His mother is a tiny woman—I’m guessing not even five feet tall, which is funny since Hayes must be well over six feet. She throws her arms around him. “Honey, what are you doing here? What a nice surprise.” She grips his arms and leans back, looking at him with pride.
“Mom,” he says, turning pink, “this is Felicity.” He points to me.
“Oh my word,” she croons. “You are gorgeous. Hayes has told me so much about you.” Normally, I’d feel flattered that my now boyfriend has been talking to his mother about me. But in this situation, I’m a little worried about what he’s told her.
She leans over, giving me a firm hug, and her fingers tangle loosely through my hair. “I would kill for your hair.”
“It’s so nice meet you, Mrs. Peyton,” I giggle bashfully.
Ryder sneaks in between everyone and takes my hand. He is the spitting image of Hayes. They could be twins. I’d think they were if Hayes hadn’t told me Ryder was his younger brother. “Glad to see my brother with a normal-looking chick,” he says. I laugh at the thought, especially after hearing about his loony ex-fiancée. This gives me a little hope that they haven’t heard about my current situation. They wouldn’t be referring to me as “normal” if they had. Hayes gives Ryder a brotherly side hug and tousles his hand through his hair.
“We’re going to go sit outside,” Hayes says, ushering me out of the kitchen. “Sorry about them,” he says once we’re outside. “Mom wants me to be happy. She thinks I’m getting to the age of hopelessness.” He laughs.
“She has a point. You are pretty old.”
Squeezing me against him, he tickles my side. “You’re going to get it for that.” He stops at one of the tables closest to the edge of the dock and pulls a chair out. “Do you trust me with food?”
“Do I food trust you?” I ask with quiet laughter.
“Yes, do you food trust me?” He rolls his eyes in the midst of his own laughter.
“Hmm…I think so.”
“I’m going to take our order to my mom. I’ll be right back.”
Hayes is inside for a couple of minutes, leaving me with a dark horizon where the water meets the stars. The red tinge teases the sky, but only for a second. The nights have been becoming less red.
The fire is fading from my mind.
“Hayes will be right back,” a sweet voice startles me. I turn to find Hayes’s mom sitting in his chair. “He’s in the restroom.”
“This is a lovely restaurant you have. I’m a chef in Providence; Hayes was excited to bring me here to meet you.”
“He told me,” she says with a proud smile. “Honey, Hayes would kill me if he knew I was saying what I’m about to say, but I want you to know he’s had a horrible couple of years. He’s only recently started to climb out of a dark hole I was sure he’d never come out of. I’ll leave the details to him, but I just wanted to tell you, I haven’t seen him this happy in so long. Since…” She takes a tissue out of her pocket and blots under her eyes.
“Ella?” I finish her sentence.
She places her hand down over mine. “My sweet grandbaby, yes. It was hard watching my son go through something so horrible. I’ve been praying for his peace and…” she lets out a quiet sob, “…I’ve talked to him every night for the past several weeks. You’ve given him that, Felicity—peace. And hope.”
“Mom?” Hayes calls out from the back door. “What are you two talking about?” He has a huge smile on his face, a smile that tells a story of a perfect life, not of a broken one.
“How cute your butt was when you were a baby,” I joke, feeling a smile tug at my cheeks.
“Oh my word—this boy and that tushy,” she says. “You and I will need to spend some time together so I can show you all of the pictures.”
“It’s a date,” I laugh. I might have to wait twenty or so years for it, but I want it to happen. It hurts me, how right this feels.
I hate it.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
I DON’T KNOW HOW I’ll sleep tonight, lying beside this perfect, naked man with his body pressed to the side of mine. I feel like I’m caged, protected in some blissful cocoon.
I thought he might have fallen asleep by now, but his hands begin to roam again. “Your skin is like silk,” he whispers. I’m in the crook of his body, his legs tangled with mine, holding them in place as his fingers trace lines down the center of my torso. The pressure between my legs is throbbing, and even though it’s only been hours since he’s touched me like this last, the build is becoming intense. I let out a soft moan as his hand travels torturously slow up and down my thigh. “Sleeping naked is kind of a contradiction.”
“We don’t have to sleep,” I whisper.
He pulls the sheets up and over his head and slides his way down the bed. His hands grip my calves, pushing them up until the soles of my feet are flush with the bed. I can’t see anything, which makes everything I feel more intense. His hands move up until his fingers slide between my thighs, parting me, preparing me. I feel his lips on my hip, and then he makes his way toward my stomach—his five o’clock shadow grazing my skin along the way, sending a wave of shivers through my body. As his tongue drags downward from my belly button, the lower part of my body lifts off of the bed, pleading with him to hurry.
With a breath of cool air whispering against my hot skin, I let out a faint cry. I can’t control anything right now, and it’s amazing. He makes his way between my legs, and the tip of his tongue teases me before pushing inside. It’s warm and firm as he twists and pulsates it in and out, forcing me to grind against his face. He hums silently, a growl, sending more shivers up my spine.
“More,” I cry. “Harder. Faster…don’t stop.” He does everything I’m asking, and then some. The feeling of his teeth grazing against my sweet spot pushes me to the edge. My hands are wrapped around the bed frame, clutching it like it’s my anchor. With one final lick, I’m crying out his name, quivering against his face. “Oh my God. Oh. My. God.” I fall limp to the bed, struggling to breathe evenly. This man takes everything out of me.
He pulls the sheets down as he prowls the length of my body and crashes his lips into mine, but I only give him a momentary taste of my tongue before I slide out from beneath him, turning him over. I shimmy down his body until I’m able to take him in my mouth.
He folds his hands behind his neck, giving him a better view of me and what I’m doing. His body rises and falls with each twist of my lips. His jaw tightens; his mouth parts. I’m enjoying this view, too, seeing the effect I have on him, which encourages me to take him in deeper and play with different pressures as I drag my tongue up the sides of his impressive length. When I tease the very tip with my tongue, his body jerks up and down, faster and faster. With each movement, I suck a little harder. I moan for vibration. “Felicity,” he says, pulling me backward, being a gentleman. But I push his hands off
of me, letting him do his worst. It doesn’t take much more before the warmth drips down my throat, and his body relaxes beneath me. He pulls me up, cradling me under his arm, now struggling with his breaths. “With all the raw deals I’ve been dealt this past year, how did I get so lucky with you?”
“Lucky” will be if I get to stick around.
* * *
Morning comes quickly. I don’t think I slept for more than an hour, but I feel reenergized and ready to face the day ahead of me, horrible as it promises to be.
“Are you going to the office today?” I ask.
“Yeah, but I want you to call me after you leave the station?”
“You sure?” I ask.
“Definitely.”
I place a kiss on his nose and hop off the bed. “Mind if I take a quick shower?”
“Of course. I apologize if my Lady is in the bathroom. She likes to drink water from the toilet. Are all ladies animals?”
I throw my shirt in his face. “You seriously need new material,” I laugh.
I step into the shower, ignoring Lady lying on the bathmat. She gives me this little look like I’m disturbing her peace. It’s a good thing she’s cute. I pull the curtain over the rod and let the hot water wash over me.
It isn’t long before the shower curtain screeches over the rod and Hayes steps in. “Oh hey, I didn’t realize you were in here. Mind sharing the space?”
The jokes just don’t stop. But the guy makes me smile. Constantly.
His hands tangle in my hair as he pulls and twists it into his fist, making a spot for his lips to land. He leaves me with a peppering of kisses all over my neck and shoulders, making this shower feel way hotter than it is. I turn to face him, letting the water cascade between us, and I press my fingers up the contours and ripples of his chest until they encase his cheeks. His hands wrap around my backside, lifting me up until my legs are wrapped around him. With his lips over mine, he walks us backward until my back is against the tiles, giving him the ability to guide himself into me, making this shower a continuation of last night.
I lean my head back against the wall, enjoying the work being done for me, and it doesn’t take long before a rush of warmth is dripping between us again. “I can’t get enough of you,” he groans, his body pressed firmly against mine.
“I kind of want to just do this all day, every day,” I respond.
“We’d forget everything,” he says.
That wouldn’t be so bad.
* * *
I lean into the glass window, knocking gently to get the officer’s attention. She presses the intercom button and asks for my name and the reason for my visit.
“I need to speak with Detective Earnst, please.” She holds up her pointer finger and walks into the back area.
After a minute or two, Earnst opens the metal door and waves me back. “What do you got for me, Miss Stone?”
I squeeze my hand around the thumb drive, feeling like I’m standing at the edge of a cliff, and there’s only one direction to go from here. “I was visiting with Tanner Holt yesterday…I have something I want to show you.”
He guides me back into the same small room. When the door closes, thoughts of it being a cell door flash through my mind, causing tiny beads of sweat to form across the back of my neck.
I reach my hand over and give Earnst the thumb drive. “I saw some things in Tanner’s house that I think might be helpful to the case, so I took some photos.”
At first he looks mildly disturbed. I’m guessing because he’s probably friendly with Tanner’s Dad, but he takes the drive and disappears for a moment before returning with a laptop. His toe taps against the aged green linoleum as he plugs everything in and waits for the programs to start up. The moments of silence between the time of plugging in the thumb drive and waiting for the images to pop up make my stomach ache. “You’re good friends with Holt?” Earnst asks.
“I’ve known him most of my life. We used to date.” With a sort of wary look in his eyes, he peers down at the laptop, where the images populate one by one. We both shift to get a better view of the monitor, and he starts clicking through each image, zooming in on some, flying by others.
“Hmm,” he sighs. “Cat litter?” He leans back in his seat and looks up at the ceiling in thought. “It’s funny, Tommy and I were working on a case once and the house we were in had a bunch of cats. He had a bad reaction, and I swear he told me his whole family was allergic to cats…which would mean Tanner is allergic to cats.”
“I thought so, too,” I reply.
When we land on the bathroom photos, he folds his hands behind his reddening neck and leans back in his chair again. “Can I hang onto this thumb drive?”
“Of course.”
Earnst pushes his chair out, the metal of the legs screaming against the floor. “This is helpful. Thanks for bringing it by.” He opens the door and lets me out. “Miss Stone?”
I turn back to face him and the perplexed look on his face. “Yes?”
“While this is all great information, and I think it’s helpful, it isn’t over yet. You’re still a suspect, and I want you to make sure you have a good attorney if the situation calls for one. Do you understand?”
And that’s what I’m left with.
I suppose it could have been worse. He could have handed the drive back to me and told me to get lost. So maybe this is something. Although this something still leaves me as a suspect, and I’m getting the feeling that unless I find raw video footage of someone setting my house on fire, it’s going to come back to me.
Then, of course, there are the thoughts of a lifelong friend plotting against me, and my family…killing my brother. It might be the most sickening thought I’ve ever allowed myself to conjure up.
* * *
I tried calling Hayes now that I’m on my way to work, but he didn’t pick up. Not like there’s much to tell him anyway. Silence and a cigarette will fill the void. I pull out the new box I bought the other day. Even though I promised myself the last two boxes were my last boxes, I felt no guilt, or even remorse when making the purchase.
I put the cigarette between my lips, catching my reflection in the mirror on my visor. I guess I’ve never seen what I look like doing this. I’m someone I would snarl at. Miss Perfect doesn’t smoke. Just to prove how not-perfect I am, I light the thing, keeping my focus set on the reflection. But it’s not me who I see. It’s Blake. Those things will kill you. It looks like one of them might have killed him. I may not have meant to; I may have been set up.
But it was my spark in the can that lit the fire, no matter what.
I take the cigarette out of my mouth, reach my hand out the window, and drop it.
As soon as I pull into the parking lot at Sur Le Feu, I grab the box of cigarettes, gripping them as I step out of the car in search of the closest trash bin.
I’m done.
The cigarettes are in the trash, and my heart is thundering, and I fear that anything could push me over the edge right now. One wrong word would set me off…which is why I’m ignoring my phone buzzing in my back pocket.
I whip the door open in a fury. As soon as I enter, Grant’s eyes meet mine with concern. “Everything okay?” he asks, walking toward me.
“Is everything okay?” I respond angrily. “No, Grant. Nothing is okay. Nothing.”
He takes me by the elbow and leads me into his office, which I’m now sick of seeing. “Just take a deep breath,” he says, closing the door behind us. “Felicity, I don’t know what’s been going on with you for the past two weeks, but you can’t be storming in here like this. I know you’re going through a rough time right now—”
“You…” I stop, feeling a gurgling of sobs quaking through my body. I try to breathe. It works well enough to allow me to complete my sentence. “You have no idea what I’m going through. I am the top suspect for burning my own house down and killing my brother.” I drop down into his guest chair. “There is a likely chance I will go to prison for a lo
ng time. If I can’t prove that I’m innocent, then I must be guilty. Isn’t that the way it works?”
Grant leans on the edge of his desk, the place he’s most comfortable since he can stare down at everyone from there. “Did you get yourself a lawyer?”
As he’s asking, I realize I haven’t called the new guy Hayes recommended. “I have one. But I need a new one.”
“Christ, Felicity. Take care of yourself, will you?”
It’s like he popped my balloon. Now the anger is deflating into sadness.
“I want you to take Aspen back,” I say. It’s the least I can do after putting her through what I have. “I might be tied up for a while, and you won’t have anyone to replace me. She won’t mess up like that again.”
“You must be out of your mind.” His mouth is set, his eyes stern. I’m guessing I won’t break through.
“If anyone should be pissed off about what happened, it should be me.” But right now, I feel horrible for whatever she’s going through too. “Please do me this favor: Hold me responsible for whatever she does. I don’t care.” I don’t want her doing whatever she’s doing to keep her job at this new restaurant. It’s the least I can do for her at this point.
I expect Grant to shoot off a quick “no.” But he folds his arms over his chest instead. “I’m docking her pay for the food I had to throw out. She is to abide by all kitchen rules—ironed uniform, hair in a hair net, no makeup or jewelry, gloves at all times—and if I ever see her take another fry off of a plate, I’ll fire her on the spot. And it will be for good.”
“Thank you, Grant. Really.”
He stands up and reaches for the door, his polite way of telling me to get out. “Don’t make me regret this.”
* * *
I spent my whole shift debating what to say to Aspen. I sent her a text a few minutes ago, telling her I’m sorry and I want to talk to her. The read notification popped up right away, but she didn’t respond.
I’m sitting in front of her apartment now. Her light is on; I just need to pull myself out of the car and stop being a wuss. I pull in a sharp breath, realizing I’m doing this without the help of nicotine as I push my door open. My legs feel like jelly as I hike up the stairs; my hand feels like putty as I bang against her door. I move away from the peephole, so she can’t see it’s me and potentially ignore me.
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