by Lena Maye
“Just because some guy can start up some dog-poop-scooping company doesn’t mean he should be granted status,” Jon says. Then he pauses. The hesitation tells me he’s not sure where to go with the topic.
Kepler puts a warm hand on my knee. It feels like encouragement. I don’t need any encouragement.
“We’re not talking about blanket visas, but a specific entrepreneurial visa.” I lean forward. “And maybe the poop needs to be scooped.” And perhaps my father never would have married if he had that option available to him. I tuck the thought away. It doesn’t belong here.
“How would an entrepreneurial visa differ? Why should business owners get treated differently from everyone else?” Kepler asks. He doesn’t lean forward like everyone else but asks his question from a reclined position like he already knows the answer. Of course he’ll take the opposing view from me.
And I wouldn’t have it any other way.
My heart flutters. Kepler’s intelligence is like a lightning rod I can’t avoid thinking about. But he’s dead too—I’ve got this topic covered.
Although he puts me in my place more than a few times with those startling questions that are arguments in disguise. And Jon’s knowledge of probable cause totally rocks mine. And Sarah’s view on judicial term limits makes me crazy uncomfortable about my own opinions.
We spend the whole night talking. Sometimes taking slips, sometimes easing into other topics. It’s orderly but free flowing. I remind myself this isn’t some classroom debate. These people are here because they want to be here. Like me.
I’m deep into it with Sarah when Kepler gets my attention with a hand on my knee and a steamroller, “Can I get you a drink, Lo?” in my ear.
“You decide,” I whisper before leaning back towards Sarah. His hand slips another inch up my thigh—to the bottom hem of my dress—before he disappears. A few minutes later, a green-tea martini appears.
Which is actually pretty good.
It’s over too soon. I walk with Jon and Sebastian towards the door while Kepler grabs his fishbowl and chats with Sarah.
“I wish you had come before.” Sebastian didn’t speak much during the debates, but when he did contribute, it was thoughtful. There’s something about him that seems so calm and in control. So basically the total opposite of me.
“I wish I had known about this before.” I wave to Jon as he heads to the door. “Which is why, exactly? Was there a Jean ban?”
Sebastian shrugs broad shoulders. “You never hang around after class.” He brushes aside his blond hair with callused fingers. Not the hands usually found on the preppy non-townies.
“Where are you from?” I’m not sure I’ve ever asked a non-townie that question before. I still don’t know where Mackie’s from.
“Maine.” He gives me a wide, easy smile.
“You don’t seem like the usual out-of-stater.” I take his hand in mine and point to the hard pads on his palms and fingers. “Why the rough hands?”
“All sorts of reasons. Climbing, mostly. And I spent last summer refinishing boats with my brother.” His gravelly voice is hard to hear over the din of the bar, so I tip my head closer. “Boats are how I saved up enough cash to get here.”
He’s paying his own way. A non-townie who isn’t loaded and looking for a ski-town, bud-is-legal kind of college experience. I grin up at him.
“Something I can help you with?” Kepler asks, leaning over my shoulder.
I drop Sebastian’s hand. “Just discussing how long it’s fucking taking you.”
“Then I won’t worry.” Kepler squeezes my ass, and I punch him on the shoulder before slipping my hand into his. He raises an eyebrow at me, but he returns the hand-hug.
I say goodbye to Sebastian and exit the restaurant still holding hands with Kepler. Walk down the street… still holding hands. I don’t want to let him go. This was the best date I’ve ever been on.
This time I don’t complain when he holds the door for me. He climbs in and shifts to find room for his long legs.
I take a brave breath. “So, your place?”
My curiosity cannot be contained. And I want to bypass the Mackie scrutiny that will happen if we go back to the duplex.
“Why my place?” Kepler’s forehead wrinkles. He starts the car and pulls out.
Not the response I was hoping for.
“You enticed me with the knowledge that you live up in survivalist country. I’m curious.”
“Curious?” His hand slides over my knee and up to my thigh. “I don’t have to give in to that. Besides, you wouldn’t find my bunker very comfortable.”
“You do not live in a bunker.”
“How do you know?” He takes away his hand to shift gears.
“Because you couldn’t smoke weed in it.” My answer is quick. I suppose I’ve put some thought into this.
“Perhaps I have an advanced filtration system. If I’m willing to spend seventy thousand on a car, what would I be willing to spend on my filtration system?”
“The car—that’s another reason I don’t believe you live in a bunker. Didn’t it rain last night? Your car is spotless.”
“A bunker below a garage?”
We turn onto my street. Yellow lights burn from the duplex’s windows. Beyond that, the dirt road that disappears towards Kepler’s mysterious home is dark.
“Perhaps you live in a compound?” I ask as we, disappointingly, park in front of my duplex. “There has to be some reason you don’t want me to see it.” Sloane said he’s hiding something. I don’t know what else it could be—but I’d trusted him tonight. I guess I wanted the same in return. I shove out of the car and make it halfway up the front walk before Kepler catches up with me.
“Perhaps it could be called a compound,” he says in that teasing voice, as if he doesn’t realize the conversation has switched to dead-fucking-serious. “Or maybe I don’t want you to see what a slovenly person I am.”
I turn on him at the front steps. “I trusted you tonight. Why can’t you trust me back?”
“It’s not about trust.” He closes in—surrounding me in the way he always does. “Soon, Lo.”
“You bash around in my life, and all I get from you is soon?” I tip my chin up. “I expect more.”
“Lo.” His hands cup my cheeks, and his lips press against my forehead. “You’ll get more. You just need to be patient.”
“Patient? Do you even know anything about me?” I capture his wrists, keeping him locked to me. I push up to my toes, my eyes set on his. But he just stares at me. In this calm, I’m-not-kissing-you kind of way that turns me into jelly.
The night is quiet. Even the gas station is closed. The hush is everywhere. Even inside of me. It will disappear as soon as he leaves, but even that doesn’t seem so bad right now.
Kepler doesn’t kiss me. I don’t ask him to. But I do slam the door closed between us just to keep appearances up. And because I'm annoyed about the imbalance of secrets.
But I stare at the wood between us for a moment. I could open it. I could ask him not to drive away. I reach for the handle—but heavy footsteps make me turn, and I jump.
Mackie? No… Devon.
He stands in our narrow hallway with his leather jacket hanging over his shoulder. What the hell is he doing here?
He takes a long step back and puts his hands up. Good to know I can still intimidate a guy.
“I’m just leaving.” He goes to step around me, but I stay in front of the door with my ears perking for a sound on the other side. Finally I hear it—a small car rocketing up the street.
“Then go.” I slide past him. When the front door shuts, I let my shoulders release and find Cassie sitting on the couch staring at her phone.
“Where’s Mackie?” I flop on the arm of the couch. “And why the hell was Devon here?”
“No reason.” Cassie holds up her phone. “I got a message from the country club.”
I shake my head. “Devon was here without Mackie? Why?”
<
br /> “Don’t worry about it.” She puts her phone on speaker and replays a message. “You have to listen to this.”
“This is Jessica from the Rock Falls Country Club!” a too cheery voice sings. “We’re excited about the SafeRide fundraiser! If we’re going to get everything ready by the twenty-seventh, then we need to talk!”
She recites a phone number before Cassie clicks off the voice mail. It takes a moment for my mind to wrap around the meaning. Cassie’s fundraiser problems are solved.
“You didn’t call them?” She’s still holding the phone out like it will supply an answer.
“I didn’t even think about calling the country club. I forget it exists. It’s for old people who have too much money to live in town. Oh, and isn’t there a golf course or something?”
Cassie shrugs. “I’ve never been there. But I called Mackie as soon as I picked up the message—”
“When did he leave? And why was Devon here?”
She gives me a brisk not-talking-about-it head shake. “Mackie wasn’t the one who called either. And there was only one other person who knew about our venue issues, Jean.”
I slide down to a seat on the couch. “You think Kepler did this?” That Kepler would do this—and anonymously… “Why? And why the fuck would he think about the country club?”
Cassie rolls her eyes at me. She hasn’t had to do that for a long time, so I know I’m being clueless.
“He did it for you.” She sets the phone down and pulls up her knees.
“That doesn’t answer the why question. What’s his endgame?” It can’t just be that he likes me. What else does he want?
“Maybe he doesn’t have one.” She rests a hand on my knee. I’m always amazed how easily she can comfort someone. I wish I had that skill. “That’s the way you think.”
My head drops against the couch. Kepler pushing me away tonight—even that had a strange kindness to it. He didn’t let me slip farther down into the black pit that always looms behind me. He stayed with me last night without question when I asked him to. He brought me to a fucking debate. He…
The realization hits me full force. He's always there for me. Ridiculously, unquestioningly there for me.
Maybe he doesn’t have an endgame. Maybe this isn’t a game. But I’m still playing because I’m lost in the dark. And not just my own darkness.
“I have to know where he lives.” I stare up at the ceiling. “Sloane thinks he’s hiding something. I have to know what it is.”
She shoves my shoulder. “Then go over there.”
I perk up. “I can’t crash his place.”
She shakes her head at me. First the eye roll and now the head shake. I must be really off kilter. “Are you sure about that? What would Jean do?”
“Jean would… push him just like he pushes her.” Because that’s what we do. We push each other. He does it for me every single time I see him.
She nods, her eyes big. “Maybe he’s your penguin.”
“My penguin?”
“You know. Animal that mates for life.”
“I thought that was lobster?” I stand, glancing at the door. Now that I’ve made a decision, I don’t want to wait.
She shakes her head. “Lobsters don't actually mate for life. I think swans do? Bald eagles, maybe.” She gets out her phone, her fingers flying over the screen. “Oh! Barn owls. Wolves. Termites.”
“Kepler is my termite?”
She grins. “Exactly.”
My car starts the first time—which is a miracle. The only thing I find to write on is a damn yellow Kepler Post-it. I stick it to the dash, drive up the dirt road behind our duplex, and dial my sister to get his address.
“I can’t give you his address,” Sloane announces. “It’s against the rules to hand out addresses from the police database.”
“Even to your sister?”
“I’m not going to risk my job.” She pauses—a pause far longer than usual for my determined sister. “Follow the stars,” she blurts before hanging up.
I stare at my phone, the car bumping slowly over a dirt road I’ve never been on before. Leading up into the mountains is a tangle of dead-ends and private driveways.
Well, I’m not going to be turned back by a small thing like having no clue where I’m going. Or driving around alone in my beater car that might die any minute in the middle of the night.
After all, there’s a full moon illuminating the forest, and Sloane gave me a hint. So she must be sure I can find it. I drive slowly, peering down one hidden road after another, with this feeling of certainty. There are really only a few roads up here, and Sloane wouldn’t have pushed me with a clue if she doubted I’d find it.
I cross a road with a street sign that reads Hipparchus. Oddly.
The stars. Or astronomers—close enough. Kepler Copernicus. I laugh and turn down the road, which leads to Newton, of course. My car barely makes it up the bumpy incline. Foot to the floor, I crest the hill and a house comes into view.
Well, it’s not a bunker. Or a compound.
Fourteen
The house’s windows stretch across the front from top to bottom, big enough to show a stone fireplace crawling up the far wall. I know these kinds of houses—the kind that weekenders buy and live in for a few months of the year. They have antler chandeliers, stainless-steel appliances, and out-of-state license plates.
My resolve stalls—and my certainty that Sloane was giving me a hint. This can’t be it. It just can’t be. Kepler in his t-shirts and hoodies. Sure he’s got the car and the leather-trimmed backpack… but this? I take my foot off the gas, and the car slides backward down the steep hill.
The security lights click on. I jump so hard my seat belt cuts across my lap. I rev my car up the last of the hill and park on the gravel driveway.
The front steps are made of stone. The double door has a decorative carving of the solar system in it. And fucking door knockers. That are… shaped like Saturn? For fuck’s sake.
My feet stop as if they don’t know how to walk under timber trusses and copper entry lights. But I already know what I’m going to do—I’m going to slam that damn door knocker. As soon as I reach for it, one of the doors slides open with a soft hiss.
Fucking Kepler. In the flesh. His smoky eyes regard me through his glasses. A gray t-shirt and jeans low on his hips.
I don’t let him get words out first. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” He stands in the door and blocks my view.
“All of this.” I gesture to everything around him. He wasn’t supposed to be one of those non-townies who swoop in with Land Rovers and season ski passes. He was supposed to understand what it’s like to have a mom on food stamps. To have heat constantly going out and a car that won’t start. Instead he hid this house. For years. He pretended to understand. Pretended to be someone else. Like my mom pretended to be a good wife when she was hooking up with random guys. Like my father pretended he loved us.
I step forward, and the door closes another fraction of an inch. His jaw is tight like I’m the intruder. He’s back to solid steel that pushes away everyone and everything.
Tears gather behind my eyes, but I’m going to hide them just like Kepler hid this.
I stare at the door knockers. “Why did you hide this from me?”
“You drove all the way out here to find out where I live?” He steps out and shuts the door behind him. There’s no release in his shoulders, no release in his jaw.
“No. I drove all the way out here to thank you for what you did for Cassie, but then I saw this.” I reach up and slam the door-knocker, and the clank echoes across the stone steps and disappears into the forest. Both of us flinch at the sound.
He glances at my hand, and it’s like something passes through him, letting those shoulders release. “If the knockers bother you, I’ll take them off tomorrow.”
“Stop being flippant.” My voice echoes louder than the knocker. I think the stars might even
tremble a little. But Kepler doesn’t. Instead his eyes darken as they travel around my face.
“Lo,” he says, too softly. Like I’m a child having a temper tantrum and he’s the reasonable person in this situation. Which is not true. He isn’t the reasonable person. He’s seen all of me—tangled with Ty, staring at some random guy in the library, pushed up against a wall by Devon—and he can’t even be honest about factual details.
“Fuck you.” I turn and make it down the stairs before his hand catches my elbow, but I yank away. I get to my car when he reaches me again.
“Lo, stop. Please.” The urgency in his tone makes me pause—for a stupid long second.
“I’ll show you.” When he reaches for my hand, I don’t take it away. Because I do want to see. This mystery has burned too long not to discover the answers. And I… I’m tired of resisting. Why do I keep resisting?
I tip my chin up to him. The moonlight cuts soft shadows across his jaw. Gray eyes that practically disappear into the dark.
He leans down, his gaze on my lips.
I shove his chest. “House first. Kissing second.”
“Kissing first,” he counters. “House second.”
“Fine.” I glare at him, but he doesn’t waste any time. His mouth is warm and soft, and his tongue slips between my lips, smooth and certain. The roughness of his jaw pricks my palm, and I pull on his shirt as if that will get him closer. His hands grip my ass, and I’m suddenly no longer struggling on the tips of my toes. I’m lifted—as if I’m weightless and floating. My legs wrap around his hips. The slight shift of movement is the only hint that he’s carrying me until we step into the house and the light brightens. I dig my fingers into his hair and try to pull him closer. He’s never close enough.
My back hits a wall, and his weight presses against me. The hard length of him between my legs—it lights a moan that courses through me—from aching toes to where our tongues slide against each other.
But I push back on his shoulders. Kepler Quinn can fucking kiss, but I still need more.
I need the truth.
He leans away, and my heels hit the floor. I suck in a non-calming breath, wiggle out from the space between him and the wall, and step into the room. The stone fireplace shoots up to a beamed ceiling. Antler chandeliers hang over brown leather couches.