Pen snorts. “You well remember crashing in my dorm after nights at Marley’s.”
“I may not remember all the nights—” I give her a wry look. “But I do remember the mornings after. A hangover in a community-style bathroom is not something I want to revisit.”
Pen’s laughter is contagious.
“But, remember, you won’t have to. En suite bathroom and all that,” she teases.
I’m quiet for a while, considering. “You really think people would want to pay to rent a bedroom?”
Her brows climb. “Have you seen the rent prices around here? This house is only four blocks from the university. You could rent each of those rooms for three or four hundred dollars a month.”
My jaw drops. “No way.”
“Yes.” Her nod is emphatic. “Do you realize I pay a thousand a month for the Pen Pen?”
“Seriously? Pen, that’s criminal.”
“No, Stella, that’s a housing shortage.”
No way. No way. “Yeah, but that’s what we pay for our two bedroom apartment,” I argue.
Pen wrinkles her nose. “Midcity.”
“What’s wrong with being in the middle of Lafayette?”
“It’s not downtown or Freetown,” she says, like it’s patently obvious. “And I’m an artist.”
I chuckle. “You can’t be an artist and live off Guilbeau Road?”
My best friend looks at me like I’ve just confessed to human trafficking. “No.”
“But you can be an artist in a third floor attic?”
And it’s like I’ve just named the sun after her. “A third floor attic with a view of the cemetery and St. John’s Cathedral? Where I can still walk to Downtown Alive! and get a Bloody Mary at the French Press whenever I want?”
Well, when she puts it like that…
“Fair enough.” But it’s not like Pen is a representative sample of the renting population in Lafayette, Louisiana. She’s pretty much one of a kind. “But why would someone want to live in a house with a bunch of strangers?”
More to the point, why would anyone want to live in a house with a single mom, a four-year-old, and a thirty-year-old man with a head injury? Oh, and a self-proclaimed witch?
Pen gives me her best mystical, all-knowing smile and shrugs. “There’s one way to find out.”
Chapter Two
LARK
“I can’t believe Zoe kicked your ass out,” Bear says. “On a Tuesday.”
I take a pull from my South Coast and say nothing. We’re sitting on Bear and Maggie’s back porch. She’s putting Grayson to bed while Bear rocks the baby—Lola—out here.
“I mean, what did you do? You’ve only been back in town, what, a month?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
My brother snorts a laugh. “That might work on me, but Maggie’s not gonna give a shit if you don’t want to talk about it. Might as well start now.”
I take another swallow of my amber ale and ignore him. The trouble is Bear is hard to ignore.
“Mom’s gonna freak.”
I roll my eyes. “No, she won’t.”
“Yeah,” Bear says, amusement in the word, “she will. She wouldn’t let up for weeks when you two moved in together. Living in sin. Endangering your souls. But I think she finally clammed up because she thought you’d eventually get married.”
It’s my turn to snort. That was never going to happen, but just try telling my mother that.
Mom’s a good Catholic. Old School. Mass every Sunday. Confession once a month. Never in her life took a birth control pill. And she made sure we all knew growing up that she was a virgin on her wedding night.
Like I couldn’t have gone my whole life without picturing my parents’ wedding night.
The screen door creaks behind us, and Maggie steps outside, thankfully chasing away that cringe-worthy thought.
“Grayson down?” Bear asks over his shoulder.
She nods. “It took a while.” Then she shoots daggers at me. “He didn’t want to go to bed, knowing Uncle Lark is here.”
My sister-in-law always speaks her mind. And gets her way. The fact that she’s one of few people who can stand up to Mom is one of the things I love most about her.
“Sorry,” I say, meaning it. “I should’ve called.”
“You’re welcome here any time,” Bear says, giving his wife a quelling look before grinning back at me. “You’re family.”
Maggie tsks. “Of course you are.” She reaches for my beer, and I hand it over. Before the bottle meets her lips, she says, “Just give us a heads up if you’re coming right at bedtime.”
When she hands the bottle back to me, I offer her a rueful smile. “Believe me, Mags, I wasn’t planning on imposing on y’all like this.” I look down at the floorboards beneath us. “Zoe had other ideas.”
Maggie crosses her arms over her chest. “Well, you know the price of crashing on the couch.”
I play dumb and nod toward my two-month-old neice. “Taking diaper detail at three a.m.?”
“That too,” Maggie says without missing a beat. “But first, you have to spill.”
Behind her Bear wears a shit-eating grin and that ridiculous look of adoration in his eyes. I sigh. I guess there’s no way of getting out of this. Despite the lectures that might come my way.
“We want different things. That’s all.”
It’s the truth, if not the detailed truth. The fact is, I want to stay single, and Zoe wants, to quote her verbatim, “the last three years of my life back.”
Maggie frowns. “I don’t understand. Y’all are always so great together. What does she want that you don’t?”
I stifle a groan. “C’mon, Mags. It’s not like I’ve ever kept it a secret.”
“Oh, your I’m never getting married B.S?”
My chuckle is half-bitter, half-amused. “It’s not B.S. if I mean it.”
Maggie rolls her eyes. “Sure. Whatever. So, what? Zoe got tired of hearing you say it?”
I pull in a deep inhale. Actually, I think my girlfriend—ex-girlfriend now—may have finally heard what I’ve been saying since we first met.
“Something like that.” I blow out my breath. “Wish she would have done it sooner.”
“Well, moving in with her probably wasn’t the best way to convince her you’re destined for a life of solitude,” Bear quips.
“Now you sound like Mom. I don’t want solitude. Can’t two people live together and just… be… without a societally imposed contractual obligation or church sanctioning?”
“No,” Bear and Maggie answer at the same time.
Smirking, I shake my head at them. “You know, not everyone finds their soulmate in ninth grade.”
As if this is their cue, Maggie lowers herself onto the arm of Bear’s rocker and he lays a hand over her knee. Both of them are grinning like fools.
“So, what you’re saying is Zoe isn’t your soulmate,” Maggie says.
I groan. I don’t actually believe in soulmates. Mates, yes. Partners, sure. But if I admit that to Bear and Maggie, I may have to sleep out here on the porch, and the mosquitos are starting to come out.
“I take that as a yes.” Sourness drips from Maggie’s words.
I shake my head. “Look, for most people, it’s just not that simple.” I drag my fingers through my hair, marking my frustration. “Things haven’t really been the same since I got back from Summer Field Camp.”
Bear’s voice goes cold. “Did you do something in Bryce Canyon you shouldn’t have?”
“No,” I say, scowling.
My brother shrugs. “No offense. Six weeks is a long time.”
Maggie whirls around and swats him across the shoulder. “It is not,” she says hotly.
My brother’s eyes widen. “Babe, that’s not what I meant.”
“How come that’s the first thing you thought of? You said it like you couldn’t blame him if he cheated on Zoe after being gone just six weeks—”
“
I—”
“You’re gone offshore three weeks at a time.” Her eyes blaze like embers. “Does that mean you’re halfway to infidelity by the time you get home?”
“Of course, not—”
“And what if my doctor hadn’t cleared me for sex at my six-week appointment?” Her voice is climbing and getting shaky the higher it goes. “Oh my God, is that what this is about? Is that why you said six weeks is a long time?”
My brother shakes his head so hard, I’m afraid he’ll wake the infant in his arms. “No, no, Maggie. I’d wait for you forever. You know that. Didn’t I prove that to you already?”
I’ve seen sand crabs scurry for cover on the beach. They’ve got nothing on my wide-eyed brother.
“Because I’ve carried two children for you and dealt with chronic constipation and hemorrhoids both times—”
I groan again, but no one hears me. Judging by his face, Bear looks like he’s groaning too. He shoots me a pleading glance.
“And if you think I’d go through that again after you dipped your dick into some festering twat—”
“Maggie,” I charge in, rescuing my brother if for no other reason than I don’t think I’d fare well if this is the night he gets kicked out too. “You’re all the woman Bear can handle, and even if Zoe and I aren’t destined for marriage, I never have and I never would have cheated on her.”
Maggie turns her glare on me, nostrils flaring. Her chest rises and falls. If she just breathes for a few more seconds, she’ll calm down. I’ve known my sis-in-law long enough to know that.
She looks back at Bear. “Is that true?”
“Y-yes. All of it,” he stammers quickly. “You’re all the woman I need. Always have been, baby.” Bear looks like he can’t decide if he should say more or stop while he’s ahead. He shuts up.
Smart move, bro.
Maggie takes a deep breath and empties her lungs. She turns back to me as if she never veered over the double line and vaulted the guardrails into hysteria.
“So you were faithful to Zoe the whole time you were in Utah?”
“Yes.” It’s true.
I don’t tell them that Summer Field Camp is the last place anyone would want to attempt a hook-up. I think I had gravel in my asscrack for six solid weeks. Geology students don’t spend time in the field without getting their hands dirty. And their feet. And their eyelids. And their taints.
Maggie studies me for a minute. I can see she believes me, but my answer doesn’t satisfy her. “So if it wasn’t someone else, what changed?”
I was gone the whole month of May and half of June. When I first got back, Zoe seemed to have missed me like crazy. I was glad to see her too. Even though Bear got his ass scalded for saying it, six weeks is a long time when you’re used to having sex whenever you want it.
The whole month of July, we couldn’t seem to get enough of each other. We even took a long weekend and spent it in a lakeside cabin in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Skinny-dipping in the heat of the afternoon. Coffee on the screened in porch in the mornings. A bottle of wine on the dock at sunset.
Best trip we ever took.
But I started to notice that Zoe kept mentioning me graduating next May. Like every day.
And I started to pick up that every time she said it, it was with a question underneath her words. What happens next?
Then she got into the habit of dropping hints that the apartment was too small and the lease would be up next summer. And wouldn’t it be nice to live in a house? Shit like that.
And then I got home after my Site Assessment and Remediation class this afternoon, and Zoe had turned the living room into something out of The Bachelor. No lie. Rose petals on the living room floor. Pillar candles on every surface. Fucking champagne chilling in a bucket of ice.
I stood frozen in the doorway and tried to process what the hell was going on. Not my birthday. Not Valentine’s Day, which I told her early on was a non-starter for me. Not our anniversary, even though she knew my position on that too.
She was sitting at the table in that wrap dress of hers that drives me wild when we’re out together and these strappy shoes that make her calves look like religious idols. I was two seconds away from falling to my knees and eating her out right there.
But the look in her eyes made me hold back.
No, not the look in her eyes. The tears in her eyes.
She knew, before she even opened her mouth, how tonight was going to end. I knew before she even opened her mouth too. It felt like a stomach full of gravel.
I make myself look Maggie in the eye. “She asked me to marry her, and I said no.”
Maggie’s eyes bug.
“Shit,” Bear mutters.
I nod because that’s pretty much how I feel. Telling her no was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. But saying yes? I just can’t. I can’t pretend to be that guy.
Still, the guy I am feels all the shit. Guilt, defensiveness, shame. “Told me to get out.”
I never thought she’d actually ask. I expected her to believe me. I expected her to accept me as I am.
Still looking at me like I just lit my hair on fire, Maggie asks, “So, what are you going to do?”
“Find another place to live.”
Her mouth falls open the same time Bear double-blinks at me.
“What?”
Bear frowns, looking confused. “You’re not… you’re not gonna buy a ring?”
“No.” I launch to my feet, giving the rocker I abandon whiplash. Now I’m staring at Bear and Maggie with the same bemused look they’re giving me. I drag my hands through my hair, wanting to tear handfuls from the roots. “Hell, no. I’m not getting married. Not to Zoe. Not to anyone. I’ve been saying that since I was eleven years old. Why is that so impossible to believe?”
I feel like my whole life has been scripted by—shackled in—the Seven Sacraments. Baptism. Communion. Confession. Confirmation. Marriage. Holy Orders. Last Rites.
Somehow, they’ve all felt like Last Rites. Like the end. Especially marriage.
Maggie’s expression takes on that well meant condescension that all of the women in New Iberia seem to have perfected by the time they hit puberty.
“Guys always say that about getting married. Bear even said that.”
My brother shrugs. “I stopped saying it about ten minutes after I met you.”
Maggie grins. I roll my eyes.
“This conversation is insane,” I mutter.
Maggie looks back at me, still grinning, but her eyes pinched with impatience. “Oh, c’mon, Lark. Don’t you love Zoe? I know you do.”
For the first time since I showed up at Bear’s front door, I feel a stab of loss. “Yeah. I do.” The words come out as dry as dust. But they’re true. I have no doubt of that. But I know something else that’s true. You can love someone and be all wrong for them. I swallow against the grief I know is waiting for me. Waiting for when Bear and Maggie finally put the baby down and shut themselves in their room. “I love her, but I can’t give her what she wants.”
Wearing a look of confusion and hurt, Maggie studies me like she’s never seen me before. “But why not? Why not just do it? Would it really be so bad?”
Sometimes, disasters are accidents. Complete freaks of nature. But most of the time, disasters are one hundred percent foreseeable, preventable, and even anticipated. We still insist on calling them accidents because no one wants to feel responsible for them.
We should really call them consequences.
I know what I’m talking about here. In a mine, when a roof collapses, or a fire traps men in a shaft and asphyxiates them, or an explosion buries miners under thirteen hundred feet of salt or coal or silicone, people watching the news are shocked and saddened. You know who isn’t shocked?
The experts.
The ones who know that mining companies cut corners. They don’t use stability criteria to prevent cascading pillar failure. They don’t dig a back-up shaft—or they begin to but never finish the job�
�so when a fire breaks out, there’s no escape. They ignore gas reads because they want to make their daily quota on extraction, and a controlled blast is the only way to do that.
These aren’t accidents. They’re consequences.
Because they know better.
I know better.
I should, anyway. Out of anyone, I should know better.
Maggie and Bear stare at me like the collapse of my relationship with Zoe is an accident. Like this wasn’t bound to happen. Like I haven’t posted the proper warning signs.
Danger: Keep Out
Every miner knows what happens in a tunnel collapse. If you survive the actual event, you know that when oxygen saturation drops below twenty percent, you start breathing faster, working to get more in. But then there’s less, and you get dizzy. Your ears buzz. If you’re lucky, you faint before convulsions set in.
Rescues happen, sure. But too often it’s just not possible.
The only way to guarantee you won’t suffocate is to avoid going too deep in the first place.
“I have to get up early,” I say, deliberately ignoring Maggie’s impossible questions. “I need to look for a place to live before class tomorrow.”
As I walk back into the house, I feel their stares on my back, almost as heavy as a cave-in.
Almost, but not quite.
Chapter Three
STELLA
“Good news.” Pen dumps her beaded canvas bag on the floor and slams the front door behind her. “You’re zoned for residential/commercial, so you can open your salon without needing to get the property rezoned.”
She waves her phone at me. “I also downloaded a lease agreement we can customize for each tennant and listed the rooms on Zumper, Roomies, and Craigslist.”
My eyes bug. “We’re not ready for anyone to move in right now.” Thanks to financing, we have a new roof, so no more leaks. And thanks to Pen’s cousin Amos, the upstairs bedroom with the shot ceiling has new sheetrock. But Amos cut us a deal that didn’t involve cleaning up after himself.
“We haven’t even finished unpacking ourselves, much less cleaning out the rooms so they can be shown.”
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