by Amelia Wilde
I pause, my thumbs above the screen. “The situation was that he left. I got one text that said he had to hit the road and asked if I wanted to meet up later.”
“It wasn’t a cry for help, was it?”
“Whit, I looked for him around town. Either he didn’t want to be found or he was somewhere else entirely. I’m betting on the latter.”
She tips her head back against the headrest. “This could be so awkward.” Then she pops up again, eyes alight. “I’m kind of living for this.”
“I can see that.”
I tap out a text to Bennett.
Wes: I’m in town. Where are you?
“There. I sent it.”
We both stare down at the phone, waiting for a reply.
Traffic whooshes by on the side street. The knot in the back of my neck tightens. I’m not paying attention. I’m trying not to pay attention.
“Well.” Whitney taps her fingers on the dashboard. “Looks like he’s not going to—”
The phone buzzes in my hand.
Bennett: Branch Brook. What took you so long? Do you have a spare key?
“Wow.” Whitney puts her fingertips to the car window. “This is too precious for my withered heart.”
I laugh, my heart in my throat. “Withered heart? I don’t think so.”
The Cherry Blossom Welcome Center is almost sickeningly delightful, and I scored a good spot in the parking lot. We get out of the car and Whitney takes a deep breath of the air. “Sweet. Like springtime.”
The welcome center is surrounded by lawns, neatly tended, and paved pathways. When I look back at Whitney, she’s already gone, trotting across the parking lot to a sign with the park map on it.
“This place is huge.” She glances over her shoulder at me. “Oh, good, it’s you.”
“Who else would it be?”
“It’s busy here.” She squints at the map. “Did he say where he might be? Otherwise, we could spend all day here and never cross paths. The paths do cross, over here, but it’s far enough that—”
“You really left me hanging there, Sullivan.”
I’d recognize that voice anywhere.
I turn to face Bennett Powell. “Do you always sneak up on people like that? Where the hell did you come from, anyway?”
He gestures vaguely at a path on the other side of the lot. “I’ve been walking. Where have you been? And who’s this?” He has a lazy grin that I find equal parts infuriating and familiar.
Whitney moves gracefully around me and sticks out her hand to shake. “Whitney Coalport. We’ve been looking for you.”
“Is that so? Wes, is she telling the truth?”
Bennett Powell does not look like the military man who sat in the backseat of that Humvee. He looks like a college student, with tanned skin, a faded t-shirt, and unruly hair. He’s got a knapsack slung over one shoulder that does look Army-issue, but if it weren’t for the telltale perfect posture, I wouldn’t have guessed he spent any time in the service.
“Yeah. We drove over because she thinks you’re some kind of lost puppy.”
“Lost puppy.” His eyes flick from me to Whitney, and I can see him sizing us up. I edge closer to her, trying to make the movement look natural. “I can see that.” He shifts his weight from side to side and tilts his face up toward the sun. “You guys want to take a lap around the short trail while we talk?”
“You guys go ahead.” Whitney puts a comforting hand on my arm. “I’m going to check on the welcome center and practice for my audition next week. Meet up in a bit? I’ll be around here.”
I’m seized with the urge to grab her and devour her like I’ll never see her again, but I settle for a neat kiss on the temple.
There. Now Powell knows we’re together.
“Sounds good. See you soon.”
Whitney gives a little wave and pulls her phone out of her pocket, putting it to her ear. Then she turns lightly on her feet and heads for the welcome center, stopping to look at a baby in a stroller on the way.
Powell interrupts the pang in my chest. “Let’s go, man.”
He heads for one of the trails, but I move toward a different one until he’s got no choice but to follow.
“I’m guessing there’s no spare key,” he says, looking up at the cherry trees. There are a few late-as-hell blossoms on the branches, but most of the petals cover the ground, flattened by people walking over the greenery. “When did you leave?”
“About a month ago. I got a job in the city, and rush hour’s a bitch.”
Powell grins at me. “Whatever happened to bros before—”
“Shut your mouth, man.”
He hikes the knapsack up onto his arm and sticks his left hand in his pocket. “She’s gorgeous, man. Why didn’t you say something?”
I stare at him. “First, it’s—” I don’t have to explain myself to him, but I feel a tug at the center of my chest. “It’s new. We live together.”
“Already?”
“She had a spare room, and I needed one. So, to answer your question, there’s no key. I broke the lease on the place, since there was nobody to cover the rent.”
“It was a nice place,” Powell says thoughtfully. “The commute was really that bad?”
I hate how he looks at me, those searching gazes with bright blue eyes. It makes me feel like I have something to hide.
“Yes.”
He waits. I don’t answer.
“I’ve been doing some research.” Powell’s footsteps are gentle on the path. Not heavy, like boots. “About that mission.”
“What’s done is done.”
“It’s not done, though, is it? It’s not done for me.” He stops in the middle of the trail, and I follow him.
“It’s over, Powell. There’s nothing to learn about it. It happened, and we survived, and it’s over.”
“I disagree.” He leans in close. “Don’t you ever think about it? Don’t you remember how—”
There’s a rush of blood to the head, a pounding in my heart, and I hold up both hands. “Listen. I’m glad you’re doing okay. I packed up your clothes and had them sent to your mom’s house, so anything you’re missing should be—” The back of my neck tightens in tandem with the ache at the base of my spine. “I’ve got to get back. If you need anything else, you’ve got my number.”
I turn back the way we came, walking fast along the trail, back to the welcome center.
“Sullivan,” Powell calls, but I don’t answer.
21
Whitney
“What happened?”
Wes shuts the door with a stony expression and jogs around the front of the car, practically leaping into the driver’s seat. He stares straight ahead as he turns the key in the ignition, then turns his head with precise movements to look behind him.
He backs out of the spot.
He accelerates forward.
He still hasn’t spoken.
That’s not entirely true—he burst into the welcome center a few minutes ago like a man on a mission. His eyes had zeroed in on me like lasers. “Let’s go.”
I almost had to break into a run to keep up with him on the way to the car.
“Wes? What happened?”
He lets out a deep breath and smiles; a slow, deliberate thing that rings a warning bell in the back of my mind. “He wanted to get into it with me about the past.”
“Get into it with you? What’d you do, steal his girl?”
He laughs out loud, but there’s a sharp edge to the sound. “Just shit that happened while we were overseas. I’m not interested in dwelling on it.” Wes turns right out of the park entrance and we cruise down the street, heading back to the taller buildings at the heart of downtown Newark. “I told him what he needed to know. And then I left.”
“What’d he have to say about that?”
“I didn’t stay to find out.” He turns down a side street into a residential neighborhood, seemingly at random. “Anyway, wish granted.”
“W
ish not granted. I wanted to learn more about your mysterious disappearing roommate, and you left him behind, in a park filled with fallen cherry blossoms. Is this the beginning of a fantasy novel or what?”
Wes pulls up to a four-way stop and grins at me. “Listen to me. The morning is young. It’s ten o’clock. We have two full days before we have to be back to work.” His smile falters, and he braces himself, as if this is an enormous personal risk he’s taking.
For all I know, maybe it is. “What’s your point?”
“You said the world was my oyster. I take that to mean I have the freedom to drive this rental wherever the hell I please.”
“You do,” I admit. “But what about the thrill of the chase? What about letting the wind take us wherever it may? What about pointing at a map and choosing at random, and—”
“Have you ever been to Connecticut?”
“No. Wait. Maybe.” I close my eyes. “Maybe when I was younger? I can’t remember.”
“Have you ever been to Chester?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Then let me ask you this. Do you like castles?”
“This is patently unfair. You want to visit a place you’ve already been? That’s hardly adventurous, Wes. We could go anywhere, and you want to go—”
“To someplace we’ve never been together.”
I glare at him.
“Are we giving this a serious try or what?”
My chest swells with joy at the thought of it. I keep slipping into those old habits—of being an adversary, of being on the other side of an invisible wall. Wes has turned us both and faced us bodily in the same direction. “Does that mean I have to go along with your plans?”
“Yes. Sometimes it means that you have to let me choose our destination.”
“But there’s a castle.”
“Jesus, Whit. I wouldn’t lie about a castle.”
“Okay. On one condit—”
A car behind us honks and I jump, my hand flying into a one-fingered gesture as Wes, unfazed, accelerates through the intersection. “No conditions,” he says. “This one’s mine.” He cuts his gaze at me when he says it, as though it’s not really the trip he’s talking about.
“Look up.”
I’ve been shading my eyes with my hand, looking out over the little waves making diamonds on the surface of the Connecticut River, until Wes’s simple command breaks me out of that reverie.
I look where he’s pointing.
There, rising out of the trees on the mountain, is a castle.
I gasp so loud it could be mistaken for a theater affectation, and clap my hands over my mouth. “Holy shit! You weren’t kidding.”
“I was absolutely not kidding. Wait until you see the inside.”
“I don’t think I can wait. I think I’m going to jump off this ferry and swim.” It sounds ridiculous, but my entire body is lit up at the sight of the strange stonework shape of it. It’s nothing like the collection of clapboard houses in every little Connecticut village we’ve driven through so far, including the one we passed through to board the ferry.
Now I see why Wes insisted on coming this way instead of driving straight there.
There’s a modern-day ferry rumbling beneath us, the big motor vibrating through every piece, but I have the breathtaking sensation of being drawn into a mystical past. The kind of past where anything could still happen, and anyone could still be alive.
“That would be highly inappropriate.”
“I’m highly inappropriate most of the time.”
Wes locks his arm around my waist and pulls me close. My body sighs at the solid weight of him next to me. “So I’ve noticed.”
“I thought of something horrible.”
He pushes me away a few inches to look into my eyes. “You’re going to bring up horrible stuff on the way to see a castle?”
“Just once. Before we actually get there. Unless you want me to hold it inside, eating away at the core of me until—”
“Tell me right now. Quick. We’re almost there.”
“We have to tell Summer.”
Wes gapes at me. “My sister, Summer? You want to call her up and tell her about coming to a state park in Connecticut together?”
“My best friend, Summer, who is also your sister, yes.” I look him straight in his heart-stopping eyes. “We should tell her we’re dating. Can you imagine how awkward it would be if she came over for dinner and deduced it for herself?”
“Is she coming over for dinner?”
“We don’t have any plans yet, but—”
“Then let’s not worry about it.”
Wes hangs back from the tour group, looking up toward the balcony railings around the second floor in what I’m delighted to discover is called the “Great Hall.” It’s essentially an enormous living room, if that living room were perched right in the middle of a mansion disguised as a castle. The tour guide, a lovely woman with black hair in a sharp bob, points out the architectural features.
But all I can see is Wes.
He pulls his gaze down from the top of the room and back to me. “You’re beaming.”
I put a hand over my mouth. “I can’t help it.”
He takes my hand and twines his fingers through mine. “You like this place that much?”
“It’s—” It’s like a set piece. It’s like a dream. Some guy with an imagination as whimsical as mine decided to build a castle, and this was the end result. A collision of Medieval stonework and American fantasy. “I love it.”
“And you haven’t heard about the doors yet.”
As if on cue, the tour guide steps out into the middle of the group. “Gillette Castle has forty-seven doors, and no two are the same.” She has a twinkle in her eye, and I have a flickering vision of her dressed in a medieval outfit, sweeping through the halls at night. It’s all absurd, since we’re standing in what was essentially a private home built in 1919 in Connecticut, but there’s a heavy magic that’s settled over me since the moment the ferry docked. “Each door is its own puzzle, with secret mechanisms that make unlocking them a test for Gillette’s brightest visitors.”
I squeeze Wes’s hand. “Forty-seven different doors?” I can’t express in words how much I love this idea. How much I love the idea of forty-seven unique puzzles, all leading to different spaces, inside one house.
“That’s the coolest thing about it,” he murmurs into my ear, tugging me close.
“You like that the best? I wouldn’t have pinned you for a unique-door guy. More of a new-build guy. Where everything is fresh off the assembly line and matchy-matchy.”
Wes shakes his head. “If I built a house, it wouldn’t be one of those prefab things. It would be...” He laughs, softly, so as not to interrupt the tour guide. “It wouldn’t be this crazy, but there would be elements.”
Something sparks in the back of my mind. The Wes I know wouldn’t build a house with this much variety, with this many puzzles. Houses like this have a mind of their own. Was he not always like this? I file it away to ask Summer about later.
Upstairs, there’s a stonework balcony overlooking the Connecticut River, and I pull out my phone. “Smile. I want a picture.”
“Are you serious?” Wes runs a hand over his hair, which is completely unnecessary, as he keeps his hair neatly trimmed and groomed always. “This is what you want a picture of?”
“I want a picture of your face, with mine, looking like we want to be here.” I turn my head and kiss his cheek. “Looking like we’re giving this a serious try.”
Wes gives a fake sigh of disapproval, but then he wraps his arm around my waist, pulling me in close. I lean my head against him. The picture on the screen tugs at my heart—there he is, grinning widely, not a hint of the serious, self-contained man I know.
And there’s me, leaning against him like I can trust him to be there for me.
Like I can trust myself not to push him away.
The thought is like a distant clap of thunder,
too far off to worry about now, but there nonetheless.
I stick my phone into my pocket and look out over the river. “We can’t stay here, can we?”
“In the castle?” Wes wraps his arms around me and rests his chin on my shoulder. “No. Not tonight.”
“You say that like staying here is a possibility.”
“There are ways. Groups can stay here, I think. I read about it in the paper once.”
“What paper? How did you find out about this place?” I twist around and put my hands on either side of his face. “Are you secretly from here?” I put on my most solemn, serious face. “Wes. Tell me the truth. Are you the secret owner of this castle?”
The grin drops from his face, and he looks into my eyes, eyebrows raised like I’ve stumbled upon a secret.
“Whit, there’s something I have to tell you.” My heart leaps into my throat. Visions race through my mind of somehow being the lady of this weird-ass castle in the middle of America, of having sex with Wes in every single room, of graciously entertaining tour groups passing through. It’d be like throwing my current life, with my audition rejections and insurance sales, right into the river, never to be seen again.
“Wes,” I breathe. “Are you serious?”
He looks deep into my eyes. “No.”
I burst out laughing, a mix of relief and disappointment, and slap halfheartedly at his shoulder. “You ass. You had me going.”
“You’re the one who went there in the first place,” he says. “Come on.” He puts an arm around my waist and we go back through the castle, out onto the green lawns. “Do you really think I’d forget to tell you about something like this?”
“You keep things under lock and key. That’s for sure.” I rise up on my tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “But I’ll get them out of you. Just wait.”
22
Wes
We choose our bed and breakfast through outright humor. Whitney laughs so hard at the name Bee and Thistle when I read it from a list off my phone that tears come to her eyes. “Oh, God, we have to get a room there. Please tell me there’s a room there.”