by Sadie Munroe
My friends are un-freaking-believable. I can’t believe how much I’ve missed them. I don’t think I even let myself feel it, until they were staring me right in the face.
I smile and shake my head as Autumn leans down and ruffles Bruiser’s ears. I can’t believe they’re here. I honestly feel like if I close my eyes or turn my head or even let them out of my sight for too long, Autumn and Roth will disappear.
I can’t remember ever being this happy, except for when I got into college. But that was different. That was my own achievement. That was happiness mixed with pride. This is something different. This is the friendship I’ve waited all my life for, a friendship big enough to make my chest hurt from their kindness.
This is what Ash felt when he found Bruiser. I just know it.
My smile is so big that my cheeks are starting to hurt, but I can’t stop. Bruiser is feeding off the energy, and is racing about like he’s having the time of his life, rushing back and forth along the length of the porch, stopping for pets and cuddles, before squirming away and racing off and back again.
Ash, on the other hand, seems kid of . . . wary.
“So . . . ” he says, shifting his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet and back again in an awkward little sway. He’s got his hands buried deep in the pockets of his jeans, as though he has no idea what he should do with them, so he’s just decided to take them out of the equation entirely. “How long are you guys staying?”
“Just for the weekend,” Autumn says, giving Bruiser one last pat before she pulls herself back upright. “It’s a really long drive, so we’re going to have to head back early Monday morning. We’re sorry we didn’t come sooner,” she says, turning to me. “But we figured the long weekend was the best time to do it.”
Holy crap. Is it almost the Fourth of July already? I can’t believe so much time has passed. It feels like the last time I blinked it was the beginning of June. The realization is like a pit in my stomach. It’s already been a month and it’s felt like days.
How much longer until I’m forced to say goodbye to Ash. And worse, how much longer will it actually feel?
Crap. I shake my head, trying to rid myself of those kinds of thoughts. My friends are here, and that is something to celebrate.
“What are you guys even doing here?” I ask. Because as happy as I am to see them, it isn’t like Avenue is a hopping vacation resort. “I mean, I’m happy you’re here, but it’s kind of boring. We can show you the lake, I guess, but . . . ”
“Ugh, we’re here to help you, Star,” Autumn groans out, and her words take a second to sink in.
“You mean—”
She motions something between a hand-flap and jazz-hands toward the house. “We’re here to help you clean out the house.”
“Holy shit. Seriously?”
For a moment, I’m sure it’s me that’s spoken. Those were the exact words that were floating about in my head. But it wasn’t me. It was Ash. I turn to him and his eyes are kind of bugged out of his face, and as I watch they dart between Autumn and Roth. “No, really. Are you serious?”
Autumn and Roth look at each other and sigh. I’m used to that, they do it to me all the time. But it’s kind of nice being on the outside when they do it. Watching them do the are-you-really-so-difficult look to someone else gives me a sick kind of delight.
They do their silent mind-meld talking thingy and whatever they’re duking it out over Roth loses. He gives Autumn a long-suffering look and she grins gleefully as he turns to Ash and holds out his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Rothwell Harvey. And you are?”
“Rothwell,” Ash repeats, testing it out in his mouth like he’s uncertain what he’s saying is even a word. I know the feeling. Roth’s name is pompous as hell.
“Roth,” I say his name like the warning it is. And he glances over at me. No torturing Ash, I think at him, hoping that for once I’ll finally manage to get through to him like Autumn does.
His shoulders drop a little and he sighs and turns back to Ash. “You may call me Roth, as the girls do,” he says, and his voice is still proper enough to belong to an eighty-year-old judge from the Old South, but I’ll take it for what it is. Progress.
“Oh-kay,” Ash says, and holds out his own hand to shake Roth’s. It’s like watching some strange kind of bird mating dance. Full of posturing and awkward as hell, but impossible to look away from.
“And I’m Autumn,” my roommate interjects as soon as the boys’ hands drop, sticking her own in to grab Ash’s so fast, I’m wondering if she thinks he’s going to make a break for it.
Actually, now that I think about it, he kind of looks like he wants to make a break for it. I need to get things sorted out.
Fast.
I reach out and grab Ash’s arm so suddenly he actually jumps and turns to look at me, eyes wide with what the hell do you think you’re doing written all over his face. I glance over to my friends, at Autumn who’s still holding her hand out to Ash. “We’ll be right back,” I say, and Autumn just smiles and waggles her eyebrows at me as she drops her hand. “I saw that,” I hiss at her quietly, mentally reminding myself just how quiet and shy she used to be when we first met… I am starting to miss shy-Autumn. She gave me a lot less crap.
I see her mouth “I know” and grin at me as I turn and start pulling Ash across the yard. He walks after me obediently, but when I glance over my shoulder at him, I can see a million emotions playing across his face. Most of them are confusion.
As soon as we’re around the side of the house, out of sight of Roth and Autumn, I stop walking and turn to face him. “I’m so sorry about that,” I say. “I swear I didn’t mean to bombard you with my friends. I didn’t even know they were coming.” I can’t believe they showed up. No one, in my entire life, has been willing to drive across two states for me. Not even my own mother.
“No big,” Ash says, and as I watch he seems to almost shrink into himself, hands burrowing deep into his pockets again, shoulders hunched, head down. What the hell?
“What’s the matter?” I ask. Is he really that upset that they’re here?
“No . . . I mean, it’s nothing,” he says, but he’s shifting his weight from foot to foot and he isn’t looking at me. Something’s wrong. “Just let me know if you want me to get out of your hair or anything.”
Wait. What?
“What are you talking about?” I ask. My palms are starting to sweat and my heart is inching up in my chest like it’s about to make a break for it. What the hell is going on?
And why is some traitorous part of me acting like he’s breaking up with me? We’re friends. Barely. Co-workers. I should not be feeling like this.
“No, I mean, your friends are here. If you want me to take a hike so you can spend some time with them, it’s okay. I get it. I mean . . . ” He sighs and looks at some far-off spot just over my shoulder, like he can’t quite bring himself to look me in the eye. “I don’t want them to think, you know, any less of you or anything.”
I wipe my sweating palms against my shorts and stare at him. It takes me a minute, but finally something clicks in my brain and I get it.
Jesus.
“This is about the prison thing again, isn’t it?” I ask, even though I already know the answer. “What the hell, Ash?”
Finally he meets my eye, but his face is confused, like I’m the one who’s saying things that don’t make sense. Idiot, I think, but the voice in my head is unmistakably fond, and I can’t help but smile. I shake my head at him. “You’re an ass,” I say, and reach out and snag his arm again. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He doesn’t say anything as I drag him back over to Autumn and Roth, but when we come to a stop, I look over my shoulder at him and catch the secret smile tugging at his lips, even as he tries to hide it. I turn back to my friends and find Autumn look
ing back and forth between us like there’s a puzzle she’s trying to figure out. Roth, on the other hand, is kind of staring off into space, something he tends to do whenever he’s affronted with too many emotions and needs to tune himself out. I look at Autumn. She’s stopped looking back and forth between us and has now pinned me with a look that I can only hope to translate as you okay?
I nod, and let her see my smile.
“Okay,” Autumn says, breaking the silence clapping her hands together like she’s the ringleader of this particular circus. “Where do we start?”
Chapter 11
Star
Ash is a traitor. He’s a dirty, rotten, no good traitor and I hate him.
And his dog.
“Really, you guys,” I say as the others hover around the pantry door in the kitchen. “We should work on the living room. It needs the most work.” I don’t know why everyone’s so focused on the sleeping-in-the-shed thing. I know for a fact that Autumn used to go camping with her family. It’s the exact same thing. Almost. In fact, it’s better, because it has an actual roof and a door to protect me from the elements. Besides, the pantry can pretty much just stay the way it is when I’m trying to sell it. It may be over-full, but at least it’s the one place in the house that’s full of the stuff it’s supposed to be filled with. I think getting the towering piles of shame out of the living room is a little more urgent then getting the canned goods out of the pantry.
Unfortunately, I’ve been out-voted.
“Can you hear something, Roth?” Autumn says as she rips open a box of garbage bags, her voice too loud in the small space we’re working in. “Because I can’t.”
I hate her, too.
“No,” Roth replies, climbing over a pile of what I’m hoping is laundry and not anything mysterious and disgusting because I would still like to have friends at the end of this. “Not unless you’re talking about an ungrateful girl who doesn’t care that we’re trying to help her not live like a derelict.”
I let out a groan. Yeah. I hate him, too. Everyone. I’m just going to live in the shed and hate everyone from now on. That’s the best plan.
“Come on, you guys,” I try, for what feels like the millionth time. “It’s not so bad. And I really do need to get the living room cleaned out.”
“What you need,” Autumn says, ripping off a garbage bag from the roll and holding it out to me to take, “is a safe place to sleep. Preferably one that’s indoors. Now—” she nods toward the path Roth is carving in the kitchen “—we’re going to get the kitchen and the pantry cleaned out as best we can, because let’s be honest, we’re awesome but we’re not miracle workers. The pantry is small enough that we actually stand a chance of clearing it out so that you can sleep in there. Your mattress will fit. And you need a kitchen, Star. That’s just nonnegotiable. I can’t imagine what you guys have been eating while you’re here.”
“Diner food, mostly,” Ash supplies from behind me, and smirks at me when I turn around to glare at him.
“Traitor,” I say, and turn back to see Autumn’s disappointed look.
“Diner food? Really?”
“What?” I say, kicking myself for being so defensive. I’m a grownup. I’m allowed to eat what I want. “It’s good.” Lies. So many lies. The diner food is mediocre on a good day.
“Nothing is good enough to eat it every day,” she says, and reaches out to push me toward Roth. “Now go help. Your bedroom awaits.”
“I feel like you’re trying to turn me into Cinderella,” I tell her. “Making me sleep in the pantry. It won’t work. I won’t suddenly turn into a princess.”
“You have a better chance than if you’re sleeping in the shed,” she replies. “Now mush!” She jabs a finger toward the kitchen, where Roth is waiting.
Something inside me jerks, and I sigh and go to follow her orders without further complaint. She has that way about her. I climb over a pile of plastic take-out containers and join Roth in the kitchen. “She’s going to make an excellent RA,” I tell him. “The frosh are going to be following her around like ducklings within a week.”
“She learned from the best,” Roth says sagely, and grins down at me. “Now get to work, little duckling.”
Yeah, I think, shooting him one last glare before I reach down and start loading empty plastic grocery bags into my garbage bag. I hate them all.
***
By the end of the day, though, things aren’t so bad anymore. With Roth and Autumn around, we actually manage to get not only a path through the living and dining rooms cleared out, but we also made pretty good headway on the kitchen, the one area of the house I’d been most worried about. It really is a load off my shoulders, having them here.
Especially when it came to the refrigerator. The thing stood there, huge and overbearing that first day, like a modern-day monolith, foretelling my doom. When I head outside for a water break I say as much to Autumn and she throws her back and laughs like a hyena, loud enough for the boys to hear and to turn at us, questions in their eyes.
“Star, sweetie, I think your brain is melting,” she says, reaching up and wiping the back of her hand along her damp forehead. The heat inside the house is slowly killing all of us. “It’s just a fridge. Nothing to be scared of.” She turns to Roth and shakes her head like I’m being ridiculous.
I take a sip of my water, grateful to the tiny droplets that escape the side of my mouth to go trickling cool and wet down my neck, and raise my eyebrows at her. I can’t help the smile that comes through as I recap my bottle and set it aside on the porch railing. She doesn’t get it, I realize. She has no idea.
“Sweetie,” I say, mimicking her tone, “just what do you think happens to a fridge full of food for three months, in this heat, after the power company has turned off the juice?” I watch as seconds tick by, and my words slowly begin to sink in. Then Autumn whirls around and looks at me with eyes like dinner plates.
“Is that what that smell is?” she demands. “Oh. My. GOD.”
Laughter bubbles up from inside me so fast I can’t stop it, I just collapse back against the siding of the house and try to catch my breath. Looking up through my tangled hair I see Autumn flapping her hands, disgusted, and I realize she must be picturing what could be growing in the refrigerator and she can’t stand it.
From his position on the porch steps, Roth clears his throat and we both turn to look at him. “I think that we may have to find an alternate method of dealing with the refrigerator, if that’s the case,” he says, and pulls his phone out of his pocket and begins scrolling through it. “I’ll make a few calls. Excuse me.”
I sink down onto the porch, giggles still bubbling every time I take a breath, made even worse by the way Autumn is glaring at me. As I reach over and snag my water bottle off the porch railing and uncap it, Roth disappears around the side of the house, and Ash turns to look at me. “Uh . . . where is he going?” he asks, eyes wide.
Reaching up, I wipe tears from my eyes and grin at him, my cheeks staring to ache. He’s not the first one to try and fail to figure out the mystery that is Rothwell Harvey, and he won’t be the last. “Honestly?” I ask before taking a sip of water. “I have absolutely no idea.”
It really is a load off my shoulders, having them here.
Especially since, when I get up the next morning, the refrigerator’s gone. And, judging by the way Ash is side-eyeing Roth at every opportunity, he’s trying to figure out if he’s in the mob. It’s hilarious.
But honestly? It wouldn’t surprise me.
Not one bit.
Ash
You’re being an idiot, a part of my brain tells me, but it’s drowned out by the louder, much more fucking insistent part of my mind that’s going, He made an entire rotted-out fridge disappear like it never even existed. You think he couldn’t do that with a body?
One thing’s for certain. Star’s
friend Roth? Creepy. As. Fuck. The guy looks like he’s in the running for the next Hannibal Lecter. The thought of hanging out with him doesn’t really appeal. I don’t know how Star does it.
And it must show on my face, because Star’s brow furrows when she looks up from the box of stuff she’s sorting through to look at me.
“What?” she asks.
I want to play it off, to act tough and like there’s nothing bothering me, because I’m probably just imagining things. But this isn’t just about me. If there’s something fucked up about Star’s buddy, then she has the right to know.
Grow some balls, I tell myself. It’s time to be a man.
“Not gonna lie . . . ” I say, trying to choose my words carefully. It’s not like I have a real shot with this girl, but I don’t want her to hate me, either. “Your friend kind of freaks me out a little.” There. That wasn’t so bad.
But she just tosses her head back, all long hair and gorgeous skin, and laughs. “Who, Roth?” she asks. “Why?”
I groan, and suddenly it’s all coming out like word puke. I can’t stop myself. “He doesn’t blink!” I say, gesturing to my own face with the dust cloth I’m clutching. “It’s like he’s one of those old-timey paintings. The creepy ones with the eyes that follow you wherever you go.”
“That’s what makes me so good at my job,” a voice says behind me.
Fuck.
I spin around and see Roth standing in the open doorway behind me. Creeper. He’s just standing there, staring at me with those freaky eyes, dunking the teabag in his mug over and over, like he’s some kind of Bond villain petting a cat. Then, without blinking once, he turns and walks away.
“Holy shit,” I say, and clutch my hand to my chest. My heart feels like it’s trying to beat its way out of there. “Holy shit.” Some things deserve repeating. This is one of them. “What the fuck is his job? Cutting people into little pieces and hiding them in the walls?” The dude is a psychopath.