Summer Sons(58)

“Riley said he felt like he owed Eddie,” Andrew said.

“I thought that before he died, sure as hell think it after.”

Andrew said, “He wouldn’t have agreed.”

“Don’t matter much, does it?”

“No, it surely doesn’t.”

The slip of Andrew’s accent, dead and buried, threw him from the conversation. Eddie had never quite lost his. Riley’s was cultured over, but still audible in the vowels. Halse, though—Sam Halse talked thick and dripping when he got into it, fat vowels and stretched consonants. He had come from here and he’d die here, that was clear. Halse had taken Eddie on his business runs, out to the hills, where Eddie met strangers and asked after their family secrets. He bet Eddie had sat on a dozen couches and two dozen porches, beer and a joint in hand, prodding grown men for ghost stories, digging up mischief and murders and feuds.

There would’ve been stiff rides back, Sam telling him to keep it to his damn self. Then Eddie took to going out on his own, like Ethan said. Eddie roaring down back roads in his car worth twenty acres of decent land, so fucking sure of himself. Somewhere between there and here, he’d gotten his wrists cut and his corpse laid out under a tree in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t unlike how they’d ended up trapped in the cavern as kids, with Eddie too clever and too stupid by halves—listening to his instincts, whether or not that was smart.

Sam let the silence hold until he pulled the hand brake in the familiar comfort of his garage. The door grated shut behind them to seal the small concrete space in darkness. Blindness lent plausible deniability to the fingers that swept across the line of Andrew’s shoulder, the broad hand squeezing the nape of his neck. The thumb pressed under his ear had two owners in his mind, welcome and alien at once. Then Sam released him and clambered out of the car in a hurry.

Andrew thumped his head onto the seat. He’d spotted Riley’s car on the side of the drive. He needed a minute before this conversation. Maybe Sam hadn’t done the deed himself—but Andrew didn’t think either of them had absolved him of guilt. Andrew still had more questions than answers. He heaved himself out of the bucket seat and slammed the door behind him, stumbling through the dimness. Short steps from the garage led into a messy laundry room with a laminate floor, past which was the kitchen. He crossed through toward the sound of quiet voices in the living room.

Riley gave him a once-over when he collapsed onto the couch opposite the cousins. He said, “I guess that advisor meeting got canceled, huh.”

“Guess so,” Andrew said.

He awkwardly checked his phone and tapped open Troth’s response to his email.

Andrew,

I’m sorry to miss you. Would you be able to do the same time tomorrow, or if not/regardless, attend the faculty and student gathering I’m hosting later this week? You’re welcome to bring along a partner as well, if you wish.

—Jane

He replaced the phone in his pocket without answering.

“What happened?” Riley asked, first to step over the invisible line.

Andrew said, “We went to the tree.”

“Shit,” Riley said. He glanced at Sam, like he wasn’t sure how to proceed, then continued, “Well—how’d it sit with you, being there?”

“I saw something,” Andrew said, but his throat locked up before he could explain.

How to put to words that he’d seen a stranger’s hands arranging Eddie’s corpse in a cruel parody of care, that knowing the truth recast his haunt-dreams from covetous punishments for his absence to stark evidence of his failing loyalties? The revenant had shown him in its crooked, horrible way, and he’d ignored its efforts. He jerkily shook his head at Riley’s inquisitive noise.

“Ed’s phone wasn’t out there either, so we’re gonna help him look for it,” Sam added.

“I didn’t ask for help,” Andrew choked out.

Sam said, “Don’t you know how to make friends, Blur? It goes like this: you meet them, you like them, you get to spending time with them, then your shit to deal with is their shit to deal with. Ed did that with us before you even showed up, so we have to help you out for his sake. Blame him if you’re feeling fussy.”

Unprompted vertigo struck him with a burst of sick-spit in his mouth. He bent to brace his forehead on the heel of his clammy, dirty hand. The sensation that he’d been hanging on to the edge of a cliff with his fingernails gave way abruptly, a scatter of debris into free fall. He stood unsteadily from the couch.

“What,” Riley started, and Sam covered his mouth. Andrew made a beeline for the porch door. Breath stuttering in choppy bursts, he sat down hard against the exterior. The sob that wracked him, sudden and brutal, wasn’t a surprise. He gripped the back of his skull with both hands, knees pressed to his eyes, and cried. Throughout, he was aware of them inside the house, close and ready if he were to call out. For a moment, he hadn’t felt alone.



* * *



The door opened. Andrew propped himself up on his elbows, rising a meager amount from the long sprawl he’d taken up on the warm wooden deck. Riley handed him a paper towel with four strips of bacon on it. He grunted his thanks and popped half of one piece into his mouth. Riley leaned against the wall.

“Sam has work in the morning, figured I’d head out. You coming?” he asked.