by Vivian Lux
“Oh, you’re spying on me now?” I asked.
She cocked her head. “Tit for tat.”
That was fair. “It was a delivery,” I said.
“Of what?”
“Of…my work.”
“What is your work?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets. “Computer stuff,” I exhaled.
She blew out an exasperated sigh. “Whatever, I don’t give a shit. I’ve got plans today anyway.”
“Is that why you’re up early and spying on me?”
“Yes, and as my tenant, I don’t see how that’s any of your business, really.”
“Where are you going?”
“Why don’t you just hack into my email and figure it out yourself?”
I tried not to wince. “I’m sorry about that. Your grandfather asked me to find you.”
“Well, I didn’t want to be found.”
“But now you’re home and…”
“Save it, I have to get moving here.”
She turned to leave but I wasn’t ready to let her go yet. “Wait?”
“What?”
I scrambled to think of something that would keep her here. “You should be careful. I hear snow is on the way.”
“Seriously? This early?”
“Supposed to be a bad storm. You shouldn’t be going out, your car doesn’t have snow tires.”
“Would you stop fucking spying on me?”
“How is it spying on you to say you don’t have snow tires? It’s pretty fucking obvious.” I was getting pissed.
“Whatever, leave me alone. Go back to my house.”
She slammed the door behind her. I rocked back on my heels and looked to the heavens for some kind of guidance but all I saw were the dark clouds gathering in the west.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Aria Jane
I shut the door behind me and stifled an infuriated scream.
What the hell was he up to? Secret early morning pickups to men in black Beemers? And he just shrugs that off?
“I should call the fucking cops,” I said out loud to the empty house. “He’s up to something and it isn’t good.”
The sting of his betrayal, of his outright manipulation, was still ricocheting through my body a week later. I’d been on the phone with Mr. Banner three separate times, trying to figure out some legal loophole that would allow me to throw him the fuck out of the carriage house, but the law was not on my side. Without my parents' blessing, I had no legal recourse.
But what if he was doing something illegal in there? Then I could be rid of him for sure.
Was that what I wanted?
I stood there for a moment, chewing on my nails. I had no idea what to do.
There wasn’t time to figure this out now. Xavier had invited me to his renovated B&B for breakfast.
Xavier Tully was the self-proclaimed, “only gay-boy in Reckless Falls,” a proclamation that, as far as we knew back then, was completely true. He was flamboyant and sarcastic and my saving grace growing up. We bonded over a shared love of all things dramatic, spending hours telling each other all of the great things we were going to do once we broke free of this “hellhole.” We’d spend hours together, hashing out our detailed plans for fame and fortune.
“For sure you’ll be famous,” he’d say as he used eyelash glue to carefully attach a line of sequins under my brow bone. “I mean, how could you not be?”
“I know, right?” I’d preen. “But I mean, I don’t just want fame, you know. I’ll have artistic integrity too. Not just some sell-out pop-star.”
“Oh, absolutely, you’d never sell-out,” Xavier agreed, pausing for a moment to press his hand to his heart. His fingernails were painted black, probably with Sharpie since the drugstore only carried black nail polish on Halloween. I saved my money and bought it in bulk once it came in so I had enough to last for the year.
“I just don’t understand how you can give up your artistic soul like that,” I’d gone on, warming to the topic. Integrity was something I spent a lot of time thinking about back then.
How had I lost it? I’d let Killian take over everything.
But now I was taking it back.
And the first step was to go see my old friend.
*****
I sopped up the last bite of crepe, swirling it in the strawberry syrup before popping it in my mouth. “Holy shit, dude,” I mumbled through a mouthful of food, “you can fucking cook.”
Xavier leaned back in his chair. “You think?” he asked anxiously. “We’re putting them on the menu.”
I scraped my fork across my plate. “Abso-fucking-lutely,” I said, nodding vigorously. I decided to dispense with decorum and lifted the plate to my lips and scraped the last bits directly into my open mouth.
Xavier laughed. “Well,” he observed. “If the biggest fucking deal to come out of this town likes my cooking, then I’m happy.”
I grimaced and reached for my water glass. “I’m still getting used to the fact that people here knew. My parents…who else?”
Xavier arched a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I mean, I kept your secret for you, Kitten, scout’s honor. But honey, you weren’t exactly hiding there up on stage. All those interviews and magazine covers, and those guest vocals you did for that rock band, what was their name? Toothless? Anyway, I even started a little scrapbook until I realized that was just too gay for words.”
I laughed and reached across the table to squeeze his hand. “I’m glad I’m back.”
“Me too, Kitten. We have a lot of catching up to do. But first, tell me the truth. You really like my crepes?”
“I had no idea you could cook like this. You held out on me back in the day.”
“It’s all Stevie,” Xavier sighed. “The man brings out my domestic side, what can I say?” He shifted in his chair. “So I feel like a giant tool asking this but, will you write an endorsement for our website?”
“For you baby? Absolutely.” I leaned back and struck a pose. “Here’s your quote. ‘The biggest fucking thing to come out of Reckless Falls since Jane Doe is definitely Xavier Tully’s crepes.’”
He laughed. “Girl, watch it with the ego, though. You’ve got competition for the biggest fucking thing to come out of Reckless Falls.”
I pulled my face into a mock frown. “Who dares usurp my throne?”
He narrowed his eyes conspiratorially. “Harper McCabe just won some fancy children’s book award. I don’t know. I’m not up on the gossip.”
“Bullshit, you are always up on the gossip.”
“That’s true, did you hear about Autumn Melton and Cole Granger getting back together?”
At the mention of Derek’s brother, I startled a little, but my best friend was too far gone in his rapturous retelling of town gossip to notice. I leaned back and smiled, patting my happily full tummy. All around us, the last touches were going up. I could hear voices in the hallway as Xavier’s boyfriend Steve talked with a contractor about something. I still hadn’t met the guy, he’d been held up with remodeling stuff for nearly the whole of my visit, but from the glow in Xavier’s eyes, I could tell he was half-mad with love. I couldn’t be happier for the man who’d been the most important person to me growing up.
“So by spring he’s supposed to have the first stage done,” Xavier was saying. “I’ve seen the plans, it’s going to be a great little park. Something for the whole town.”
“He’s not building a giant condo complex on the waterfront?” I asked, surprised. Derek had made his brother sound like some kind of shark snapping up everything in his path.
Xavier shook his head. “Nope, I think Autumn knocked some sense into him. Or he doesn’t dare cross her when it comes to her grandfather’s land. Either way, he’s making that strip into a town park.” He rubbed his hands together. “It’s going to be good for business. Or at least I hope.”
“Things are going really well, Xavier,” I told him. “Your plans are coming together.”
He raise
d the other eyebrow. “What about your plans, Kitten?”
I sighed. “Stop reading my mind. You know I’m never good at seeing out further than my own nose.”
He gave a grunt of acknowledgment. “Don’t I know that.”
“What?”
“Nothing darling. I mean, nothing we haven’t already rehashed seventy billon times.”
I sighed. “I know. But it worked out, right?”
He barked out a laugh. “Yeah, I guess you landed in a pile of shit and came out smelling like roses, Kitten. But how many times can you repeat that feat?”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “Literal shit. Remember that gas station bathroom?”
Xavier buried his head in his hands. “Don’t remind me. I was ready to murder you on the spot.”
“Why?” I wondered. “It all worked out in the end.”
“Yeah, except I still can’t use a public restroom without having flashbacks.”
I grinned. We’d had this conversation before, almost verbatim. The night I, “ran away,” had been gone over and rehashed so many times that by now the words had started to lose meaning. We’d blown out of here on our way to a concert in New York City. After only an hour, we pulled into a run-down gas station off the exit in the hilariously named town of Fish’s Eddy. It was my job to smile and flirt with the attendant until he gave us the key to the restroom. It was attached to a piece of lumber the size of a two by four, which for some reason Xavier thought was hilarious.
We thought everything was hilarious. We were high on the thrill of driving through the night. Xavier insisted he, “knew a guy,” who’d let us crash on his floor. And then tomorrow, tomorrow we’d be there first in line when the doors opened.
“Oh my god,” Xavier had said in a wavering voice as we stood in the doorway of the restroom. The toilet was backed up with god knows what, a steady trickle of something foul seeping down the side. The seepage ran along cracks in the tiled floor towards a drain where it pooled into a dark puddle. Above us, a bare flickering fluorescent bulb attracted a cloud of gnats that shifted and swirled like a dark, forbidding cloud.
“Well, isn’t this a nightmare,” I’d observed, trying to breathe through my mouth.
“You want to hold it?”
“I might never pee again,” I informed him, laughing and running out ahead of him to the car. I didn’t mean to steal the bathroom key. It still occupied a place of honor in my own bathroom back in New York, and I’d tell myself that someday I’d pass through Fish’s Eddy again and return it. But then again, I’ve always treasured it for some reason.
I always sort of looked back on that gas station as a turning point. We were still only an hour from Reckless Falls. We could have turned back then and gone home again, and woke up in the morning and headed to school like the regular kids we were doing. But I didn’t want to be regular. And so turning back was not an option,
“That was a good night,” Xavier mused fondly, sounding nostalgic.
“What was?” came a voice from the hallway. I looked up to see tall and rail-thin, quirkily handsome man lope his way into the kitchen.
When he saw him, Xavier’s eyes lit up. “Baby, you take forever,” he pouted.
Steve glanced a kiss across Xavier’s forehead. “I’m a perfectionist.”
“Don’t I know it,” Xavier grumped happily. Then he looked at me. “Stevie G., this is Aria Jane. My A.J. ”
“Of course I know who you are!” Steve effused. “You are an icon.”
“Thanks,” I said shyly. I ignored the praise, since I was feeling decidedly not like an icon at the moment, and focused instead on the softening at the edges of Xavier’s eyes.
The way he looked at Steve made something twist around in my stomach. I knew what that look was, even though I’d never seen it before.
It was love.
And I’d never seen it.
Until a week ago while I stood in Reckless Creek and saw that same look on Derek’s face.
What the fuck?
“Are we all set for the windows?” Xavier asked Steve.
“Honey, why are you pretending to care about the windows?” Steve teased.
“Because you care about the windows.”
“Yes, well, someone needs to.”
I grinned as they went round and round, lightly teasing each other. Killian had never teased me. He’d criticize me, then back off when I got angry, claiming to be joking. “Stop being so sensitive,” he’d say, throwing up his hands. “It was just a joke.”
“Kitten?” Xavier said, breaking into my thoughts. I realized he must have been asking me something. “You lost in thought over there?”
“You know I don’t think,” I said lightly. “I’m a woman of action.”
“Well, what’s your next move, Action-Woman?”
I tapped my fingers on the tabletop in the shape of a tune I’d been working out on the piano in my grandfather’s atrium. “Hide from my ex’s lawyers while I work on a solo album,” I declared. It was the first time I was saying those words out loud and I sat up straighter just in the telling. “I’ve been wanting to get these songs out for seven years. Now is the perfect time.”
Xavier pressed his hand to his heart. “I want details. Demos. I want to sing backup, no, shit, I want to play an instrument.” He waved his hands excitedly. “I don’t care how you use me, just promise you will, please Kitten? Remember how we were going to be in a band together back in high school?”
I nodded, trying not to tear up. “We were. And there’s still time. I’m not going anywhere.”
He took a deep breath and nodded. “I’m so glad you’re staying.” But then he glanced over my shoulder. “But, um, maybe you shouldn’t stay here, huh?”
I looked behind me to where he was peering out the window and gasped out loud. This morning’s wan sunlight had disappeared behind thin sheets of snow. It danced crazily at the window, swirling sideways in the howling wind.
“Shit,” I exhaled. “That was fast.”
Xavier nodded. “If you’re planning on heading out, now is probably the time to do it.”
“Are you kicking me out?” I pouted.
“I’m not kicking. Just gently, but firmly nudging you to the door. We’re installing the cabinets today and it’s going to get messy in here. No place for a fabulous creature such as yourself. Plus I don’t want you to leave too late and end up in some ditch out there.” He suddenly clapped his hands in glee. “Oh my god, I cannot believe it is snowing this early in the season! We need to hurry up and open so we can catch the skiers!” He pressed his fingertips to his lips and looked at Steve wide-eyed.
“That’s a great idea, babe,” Steve said, giving him an affectionate squeeze on the butt. “I’ll get to work.”
Xavier leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon about the solo album, Kitten, right? And text me when you get back to your grandpa’s. I’ll be worried sick until you do, okay?”
I grinned. “I’ll be fine. I’m a native, remember? I know how to drive in a little snow.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Derek
I pushed back from my desk and looked out the window.
The snow was falling thick and fast. The wind howled down the chimney, blowing so hard that the snow was drifting two feet deep against my door while scoured up bare patches of still-green grass were still visible on the lawn.
And there were still no lights on at the great house.
I turned back to the sickly green glow of my monitor. A shady new job from my even shadier employer had just come down. I had a lot of work to do, and almost no time to do it. But my mind kept going back to Aria and the stubborn blaze in her eyes. She’d told me to leave her alone. To stop spying on her. And I had every intention of doing just that, dammit.
I squinted at my screen, trying to force my thoughts back to the job at hand. It was a relatively simple piece of corporate espionage, made easier by the fact that the disgruntled employee who’d hired u
s had already installed a keylogger to swipe passwords. It was the kind of job that I could do in my sleep… if I could only fucking concentrate on it.
“Fuck,” I sighed, scraping my chair back and looking out the window again. I thought I’d heard the noise of crunching wheels on the driveway, but there were no headlights in the swirling mess of snow. She still wasn’t home yet.
Where the hell had she gone? Her parents’ house? From the look on her face after the last time she’d seen them, the chances were slim. She’d mentioned her friend Xavier, had she gone there? Was she safe? Was she staying the night? Or was she stuck in some ditch somewhere?
The sound of squealing tires filled my brain. The sickening scrape of metal on metal as we slammed into the guardrail. The inhuman sound of Jesse’s wail the moment his leg was crushed…
“Fuck!” I slammed the palms of my hand into my desk and stood up….
Then froze.
What was I doing? Going to look for her? On the same icy-slick roads that I’d spent three years hiding from?
I was already grabbing my coat, so it looked like the answer was, yes.
*****
The end of the driveway was slick, but luckily I was the only idiot out driving, so I sort of slid my way into the lane, pumping my brakes as I went.
I took a deep breath and exhaled. “Fuck, Aria, where the hell are you?” I growled out loud. Somewhere in the back of my brain, I’d hoped I’d find her immediately, stuck at the bottom of the driveway, stymied by her shitty, snow-tireless rental car.
But of course, it wasn’t that easy.
The old Abbott place was on the eastern ridge, at least fifteen minutes away. Slowly, I navigated my way down Whaleback Mountain. I still hated this road, but at least I could drive it now without shaking. As the road descended down the steep grade that hugged the cliff overlooking the lake, I concentrated on the yellow center line. But when I reached the turn where it happened, I forced myself to slow down and look.
They’d repaired the dent in the guardrail years ago. I was probably the only person who still remembered where it had sheared off in a twisted, mangled tangle.