***
As the time for her to leave approaches, I realize that I’m not the only one checking the clock. Sam, too, seems preoccupied with the time, glancing at the ever-ticking second hand before frowning, her face becoming more and more drawn as the afternoon goes on. For a moment I let myself think that it’s because of me, this strange mood, this seeming dread of leaving. But then I see her glance at Wyatt, the pain clear on her face, and I realize what’s behind her reaction.
When she leaves here, she’ll be bringing Wyatt back to his grandparents’ house. Back to his house. And she’ll spend the next week doing little more than passing time, waiting until they next bring him over.
They say their goodbyes around six, after an early dinner of hot dogs roasted out over the fire pit, which Wyatt deems a totally awesome way to cook food. Sam’s face is now drawn, her eyes tight, her mouth a straight line across her face. She manages a fake, plastered on smile for each of my brothers and the girls when she says goodbye, but it slips immediately when she turns away. Wyatt is receiving high fives from Reed and Daltrey, his chest puffed out like he thinks he’s totally hot shit. I want to smile at that, but I’m too worried about Sam.
Then I see Wyatt look up at her, his little face suddenly filling with worry, and my stomach clenches. If she thinks she’s doing a good job of hiding her feelings from him, she’s wrong. I can tell that he knows exactly how she’s feeling and he’s worried as hell about her. He slips his hand into hers and begins babbling about next weekend and how we should all go hiking and maybe he’ll be able to start learning guitar by then and won’t that be cool, mom? She smiles weakly, distracted, as they walk to the door.
“Hold up.” I jog down the hallway after them, catching up in a few strides. “Care if I come with?”
“Really?” Wyatt asks, immediately happy again.
“Sure. Then your mom will have some company on the drive home.”
His wide brown eyes meet mine and I feel something tighten in my chest. There’s so much understanding there, like he knows exactly what the score is, exactly what Sam goes through on a weekly—even daily—basis. He looks so damn smart, so much older than eight years old, and how on earth did I never notice that he was this damn smart?
“You don’t have to do that,” Sam says, but I nudge her shoulder with mine.
“Please. If I stay here I’m just going to have to watch Reed and Paige get reacquainted by flirting and smooching all night.”
“Gross!” Wyatt calls, hooting again. “Kissing is the grossest.” He gives me that guy-to-guy smile of his, like he’s waiting for me to agree with him.
“Sorry, kid. There’s nothing gross about kissing if the girl is someone you like.”
He makes a face at me. “I still say it’s gross.”
Sam isn’t laughing at any of this, isn’t even smiling. I reach out and take her hand, more than a little surprised when she grips mine back.
“Let’s take my car,” I say, and Wyatt gives a little yell of excitement, dropping his mom’s hand to run out to the Porsche.
Sam doesn’t argue and I feel a little rush of warmth, knowing this means she’ll have to come back for her own car later. Hopefully that means she’ll be willing to hang out tonight. I don’t like the idea of her on her own, feeling this way.
Wyatt talks pretty much uninterrupted the entire ride to his grandparents’ house. He has a soccer game on Wednesday and maybe we can both come? It’s his turn to bring the snack and he thinks his grandma is going to make Rice Krispy treats because that’s what he asked for, and doesn’t that sound like a good snack, Cash? I agree that Rice Krispy treats are an excellent snack, squeezing Sam’s hand on the gear shaft. She has her eyes closed, her head cocked slightly in the direction of the back seat, and I have a feeling she’s listening to every word that Wyatt says, soaking them up, storing away the sound of his voice for a time when the quiet gets to be too much.
When we enter town she directs me through the streets to the Warner house. I pull up in front of the small, neat brick ranch in a row of nearly identical, neat brick ranches. The most distinguishing feature of this house is the gold star flag displayed prominently in the window. In the seat next to me, Sam tenses, as if she’s just realized something.
“I think you should stay out here.”
I turn, trying to see her face, but she’s looking determinedly up at the house. “Okay,” I say slowly, confused but not wanting to push her.
“Why?” Wyatt asks. “I wanted Cash to meet Bobba Fett.”
“Bobba Fett?” I ask Sam.
“The cat,” she mutters. “Cash can meet him another time, kiddo.”
“But—”
“Come on.” She climbs out of the car, holding the seat forward for him to scramble after her. He pauses at the window.
“Thanks for lunch and for dinner, Cash.”
“You’re very welcome, kid. Maybe we’ll do it again next week.”
There’s that light switch again. He grins and waves before turning to run up the lawn toward his house. Sam offers me no word of explanation, merely turns and follows him, her gait slow.
I wait in the darkness of the car for only five minutes before she appears in the doorway to the house, a tall, neatly dressed woman behind her. They embrace, Sam resting her head briefly on the woman’s shoulder, the way a kid might, before she crosses through the door and heads back down the lawn toward me. The woman watches her go, not shutting the door until Sam is back in the car.
She doesn’t say anything, no hellos or thanks for waiting. I watch her for a moment before turning the ignition back on and pulling out into the quiet street.
“So,” I finally say, the tension in the car too much for me. “What do you feel like doing?”
She doesn’t answer for a moment and I notice she’s fidgeting. “I’m sorry,” she suddenly blurts. “That was really rude.”
“It’s okay—”
“No, it’s not. I should have invited you in.”
“Sam, it’s fine. Really.”
She nods once, still fidgeting. “I just…I didn’t know how they would take it. I’ve never shown up with a guy before.”
“Do they…do they know I’ve been spending time with Wyatt?”
She nods. “He told them all about the ice cream that week, believe me.”
I note that she doesn’t say whether she ever brought it up. When she doesn’t go on I decide to leave it—the situation is obviously complicated. And I have a feeling she’s feeling shitty enough about dropping Wyatt off to worry much about me and whether her in-laws approve.
“We should do something fun,” I say, when I’ve reached the edge of town without another word from her.
“Okay.” She offers no suggestions, her voice almost flat. It’s like she’s pulling farther and farther away from me the farther we get from Wyatt. I realize that she’s in no state to make any decisions right now, to display any kind of enthusiasm. It’s going to be up to me to come up with something, up to me to cheer her up.
I grin, taking a hard left to meet up with the freeway, taking us back to the cabin. If the problem is a lack of enthusiasm, I know just the person to help.
Chapter Twelve
Sam
I’m in such a daze after dropping Wyatt off that it takes me several minutes to realize that Cash has gotten back on the highway, presumably heading back to the cabin.
“Where are we going?” I ask, shaking myself a little. The moments right after I drop him off are always the worst. To be honest, I kind of wish I hadn’t taken Cash up on his offer to drive with us. Then I could be home by myself by now. But we had promised each other we would try to break some of our patterns. And it had been such a nice day, hanging out with Cash and his family. When he offered to drive us, all I could think was that maybe he would be able to bring a little of that warmth with us, make the ride a little more bearable.
“I thought we could hang out at the cabin,” he says, his voice light, almost
cautious. I wonder if maybe he’s pissed that I didn’t invite him in, that I didn’t want to introduce him to the Warners. But he doesn’t sound pissed. Just…careful.
“The cabin?”
“Yeah. I mean, we were having such a good time, right? Why end the night so early?”
I stare out the window at the gathering dark, weighing my options. I can either ask him to take me home and spend the evening depressed and lonely, or I can go back to the house in the woods, warm and full of light where people would be laughing, talking. Maybe playing music.
“Well, we’d have to get my car, anyhow,” I tell him. “Might as well hang out for a while.”
Even in the darkness of his Porsche I can see the smile twist up the corners of his mouth.
We reach the cabin much sooner than I had anticipated, I wonder how long I was zoning out for, lost in the pain that always came from saying goodbye to Wyatt. And then there were the Warners, who seemed way too curious about Cash for my liking.
Wyatt had told them all about their first meeting at the park—“Grandma, he’s in a rock band! Isn’t that the coolest?”—and they had turned to me with looks of surprise and curiosity. I tried to downplay the entire thing and had been trying to downplay it ever since, even now that Cash had convinced me we should try this whole friendship thing. He’d seen Wyatt a handful of times already, and the motor mouth of course told his grandparents every detail.
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting from them. Would they be nervous? Judgmental? Would they assume the worst about Cash from the get go? Or would they be resentful, knowing that a man who was not their son was spending time with their grandchild? So far, they hadn’t demonstrated any of those things. They seemed merely curious.
I knew it was an issue I was going to have to tackle eventually. Alice had already mentioned a desire to meet Wyatt’s new friend (that’s what she said—Wyatt’s friend) and I had put her off, having no idea what she would think of his tattoos and his messy hair. And the Porsche. God, that had been stupid. Letting him take us home and park that thing in front of the house. Could any vehicle scream wild rock star more than that car?
“You okay?” he asks, pulling the keys from the ignition and turning to me.
“Fine.”
He jogs around to my side of the car, the way he always does, even though I always make sure I’m out of the car first, not willing to let him open my door for me. I roll my eyes at him every time he tries but I secretly think it’s kind of cute. The tattooed, hot-car-driving, guitar-playing rock god opening my door for me.
He leads me into the house and we run into Paige in the kitchen. Cash’s face lights up, a satisfied smirk coming to his mouth. “Paige. Just the girl I was looking for.”
She seems thrilled to see us, a reaction that surprises me, considering the fact that we just left a half hour ago. “I thought you guys were gone!” she says, actually clapping her hands a little. I’m not quite sure what to make of this girl, to be honest. Can anyone seriously be that excited all the time?
“Well, we’re back. And we’re feeling a little sad about dropping Wyatt off.”
I gape at him. For some reason I had expected him not to mention it, to tiptoe around my feelings the way that I always did. But when he says it like that, simple and straightforward—we’re feeling a little sad—I feel something loosen in my chest.
Paige makes a sympathetic face at me. “I’m sad, too. He’s such a cool little kid!”
I can’t help but grin at her and I decide right then and there that I like Paige after all—the surest way to win me over is to compliment Wyatt.
“So anyhow,” Cash goes on, walking to the fridge and pulling a few beers out for us. “I was hoping you had some good ideas of what we should do tonight—to cheer ourselves up and have a good time.” He hands me my beer, winking at me so she can’t see. “There’s no one better at cheering people up than Paige.”
“We totally have to do something fun!” she says, her voice even more excited than before, if possible. “Like—silly, you know? We should play a game!”
A game. I shoot Cash a questioning glance—what are we, ten?—but Paige is already rushing ahead of us to the living room. “Just trust me,” he says, placing a hand at my back to guide me to follow her.
In the living room the rest of the group expresses no surprise at Paige’s assertion that we need to play a game. Lennon sighs a little but looks resigned. It’s almost as if they were expecting this, and I make a mental note to ask Cash how often they play silly games on the road.
“What did you have in mind?” Daisy asks from her seat on the couch, where Daltrey is resting his head in her lap.
“She probably wants us to play charades or some crap like that,” he mutters, earning himself a little smack from Daisy on his temple. “What? You know that’s what she’s going to say.”
“I was not, Mr. Smartypants,” she says, making a face at him. “I was thinking more along the lines of…” She pauses for dramatic effect. “Ghost in the Graveyard.”
She’s met by a sea of blank faces and her smile falters for a second. “You guys have never played Ghost in the Graveyard?”
“Nope,” Reed says, sliding an arm around her waist. “Never heard of it.”
She leans into him a little, but she’s clearly too excited for snuggling. “It’s the best! Karen and I played all the time when we were kids. It’s so scary—and it will be even scarier here, in the woods.” She shivers a little. “Plus the whole vampire thing—”
“Wait,” Daltrey says, sitting up on the couch. “What vampire thing?”
“You know, out there.” She nods significantly to the sliding glass doors, the dark forests of the mountain looming in the distance. “We’re close to where Twilight takes place, you guys!”
Daltrey rolls his eyes, lying back down. “Paige,” Daisy says patiently. “We talked about this, remember? The boys have forbidden Twilight discussion while you’re here.”
“Yeah.” Reed smacks her lightly on the ass, grinning. “You promised.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, smacking Reed back. “I got a little carried away with the whole Ghost in the Graveyard thing.”
“What is Ghost in the Graveyard?” I ask.
She smacks her head lightly. “Ooops, I forgot that I was explaining.” She tells us the rules of the game, which apparently consist of pairs of people roaming the woods in search of the person designated as the ghost, who then jumps out at them and chases them.
“So, it’s basically tag?” Lennon asks, not looking impressed. “In the dark?”
“It’s nothing like tag!” Paige argues. “It’s so much better. Because the ghost is hiding and when they see the hunters they get to grab them, and then that person becomes the new ghost.”
“So…like tag?”
She glares at him but he laughs, holding up his hands. “I’m sorry, it sounds fine. I’m in.”
Paige pairs us up, declaring that she’ll be the ghost first because she’s the only one who knows what she’s doing. Cash immediately steps closer to me so that we’ll be paired together, and then Paige is shooing us all outside onto the deck. “Okay, so this is the base. If you find the ghost you have to try to run back here—”
“Before he tags you.”
“Lennon, I swear to God,” she mutters. “You can’t be tagged in this spot,” she continues to the rest of us. “And the ghost hunters stay here and count while the ghost goes and hides.”
She glances up at the bright light over the door. “Baby, will you turn that off?” Reed ducks his head back into the house and we’re suddenly plunged into semi-darkness, the only light now coming from inside the house. I peer out at the dark woods and shiver. This actually might be kind of creepy. I notice that Lennon is looking at the woods, too, and no longer teasing Paige about the game’s similarities to tag.
“Okay you guys count to midnight like this—one o’clock, two o’clock, three o’clock—”
“I thi
nk we got it, Paige,” Daisy says.
“Right. So then you get to midnight and you shout, ‘hope I don’t see any ghosts tonight!’ And then you come look for me. Is everyone ready?”
I look around at the three other pairs and notice that everyone, including Cash, looks pretty creeped out. “Okay, here I go!”
She runs off the deck and out into the woods while we stand there. “Reed,” she calls after a moment from somewhere in the darkness. “You’re not counting.”
He looks heavenward for a moment, as if gathering strength, before he starts to count the hours loudly. “Midnight!” he shouts eventually. “Hope I don’t see any ghosts tonight!”
We stand there in a circle, looking at each other. “So…we go find her?”
“I guess so,” Reed says.
Cash grabs my hand and pulls me down the steps of the deck. We hit the ground running and take off in the opposite direction of the others. I see Daisy and Daltrey dart under the deck and I scowl. Why hadn’t we thought of that? It looked dark as hell under there and if someone finds Paige they’d be right next to the base when she comes running.
“Come on,” Cash whispers, pulling me into the woods. We scamper through the trees and underbrush, probably making way too much noise to be effective seekers. There’s a rustle in the bush next to us and Cash pulls me down behind a massive evergreen tree. Alone and out of danger for now, I look around at the nearby trees. They block out most of the moonlight, making it impossible to see much more than a few feet around us in any directions. I peer at a moving shadow between two trees and think anything could be out here. Automatically I take a step toward Cash.
He chuckles, slipping an arm around my shoulder. “It’s creepier than I thought.”
“Hell yeah it is.”
Suddenly I hear footsteps running a few feet away from us. Cash pulls me down into a crouch and I feel breathless, my heart pounding. I have no idea if it’s Paige running or one of the others.
“Arrrgh!” Someone screams, very close to us, and I let out an involuntary scream.
“Aha!” Paige yells. “I hear you!”
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