The Last House Guest(32)

“Jesus,” I said, half under my breath, though there was no one in the bedroom to hear her yelling.

The taller of her friends grimaced, shared a wide-eyed look with the other. “Calm down, El.”

“The power was out,” I said. “No one could see. I’m sure it was an accident.” Even though I knew attempting to reason with someone fortified by an unknown quantity of alcohol was a lost cause.

But Ellie pressed her lips together. Her shoulders slumped, the sharpness subsiding. “I just want to go home.”

I looked from face to face, debating whether anyone in this room was sober enough to give her a lift, before deciding not. “I’ll see if anyone out there can take you.”

Her face didn’t change. She stared at the wall, her eyes unfocused, until I realized that home meant somewhere outside Littleport, wherever she’d be heading tomorrow.

“Come on,” the shorter friend said, arm on her shoulder. “You’ll feel better in dry clothes. Me and Liv have half the luggage in the trunk. Let’s see if we can find you something?”

That got a faint smile from her, and the three of them walked out of the bathroom together, despite the fact that Ellie was in nothing more than a bathrobe.

Maybe Sadie was right after all.

I grabbed a few garbage bags from the kitchen, using one to store Ellie’s wet clothes, which she’d absently left behind. I stuffed the used towels, splotched with grime, into the other bag, then pulled a few more from under the sink to clean the water and dirty footprints left behind.

“Don’t do that, Avie.” I turned around to see Parker standing in the entrance of the bathroom, watching me. “Leave it.”

His eyes had gone dark, a sheen of sweat over his face, his brown hair falling over his forehead. He smelled like chlorine, and his shirt clung to his chest from the impression of Ellie’s wet body.

“Someone has to do it,” I said, waiting for him to leave. Instead, I heard the door clicking shut.

He took the garbage bag from my hand, finished stuffing the dirty laundry inside. We were too close. With the humidity of the room, it was hard to take a deep breath, to think clearly.

“Do you think I’m a good person?” he asked, his face so close I could see it only in sections—his eyes, the scar through his eyebrow, the ridge of his cheekbones, the set of his mouth.

Everything about Parker was hypothetical until moments like this, when there was some crack in his facade. Show me a chip in the demeanor and watch me fall. I never met a flaw I didn’t love. The hidden insecurity, the brief uncertainty. The waver behind the arrogance.

Here’s the thing: I didn’t want Parker at first. Not in all the years I knew who he was before we met, and not when I first saw him in that house. Not really until Sadie said I couldn’t have him. I knew it was cliché, that I was no different from so many others. But there was something about that—some universal appeal to the thing you could not have. Something that, for a certain type of person, settles in and redoubles desire.

But it was moments like this that focused everything—like I was seeing something that he kept hidden from everyone else. Something shared, just for me.

I pushed the hair back from his face, and he reached for my hand.

“Sorry,” I said. But he didn’t pull back. We stayed like that, mere inches apart, the room too humid, my vision unfocused at the edges.

Someone knocked on the door, and I jumped. Imagining Luce seeing us in here. “Occupied,” I called, standing up.

Someone groaned on the other side, but it was a man. Still, it was enough to shock us both to our senses.

Parker’s fingers were looped around my wrist, and he let out a slow sigh. “One day I’ll probably marry Luciana Suarez and have beautiful children that are occasional assholes, but they’ll be good people.”

“Yeah, okay, Parker.” I stepped back, my vision clearing. I thought he shouldn’t be discussing being a good person while standing too close to me in a bathroom while the woman he was discussing marrying waited somewhere on the other side, but that was just part of his allure.

“Oh,” he said, shaking his head. “I came here to tell you. There’s some guy out there looking for you.” He nodded toward the door. “You go first. I’ll take care of the rest.”

I cracked open the door, making sure there was no one waiting on the other side, where a rumor could take hold and grow. When I saw the room was empty, I slipped out.

Before I shut the door again, Parker called after me: “Be careful, Avery.”





SUMMER


?????2018





CHAPTER 11


Friday morning, quarter to eleven, and Parker’s car was still at the house. At least I assumed it was. I hadn’t seen it pull out from the garage, and I’d been watching for it since I woke up.

He could be walking, though, down Landing Lane to the entrance of Breaker Beach. I wouldn’t be able to see if he’d left on foot from the guesthouse. I opened the living room windows surrounding my desk and tried to listen, so I’d hear a door closing or his footsteps on the gravel, disappearing down the road.

I’d pushed back a meeting with the general contractor for one of the new homes until Monday. I’d canceled the window replacement for the Blue Robin, telling the vendor we’d have to reschedule. My email sat unanswered; phone calls went unreturned. I did not want to be distracted and miss my chance.