Things We Do in the Dark(101)

Drew is waiting for her to say something. She needs to say something. Anything. Goddammit, speak.

She bursts into tears.

He steps forward and wraps his arms around her, squeezing her tight, and he feels different but the same, and he smells different but the same, and as terrified as she is that he’s found her, he’s here, and she’s glad. She feels his lips brush her hair. He breathes into her ear as he speaks slowly and evenly, enunciating every word.

“I am so fucking mad at you.”



* * *



“Are you hungry?” Paris asks.

He chuckles, as if he knew she would ask that, and nods. “Starving. Last thing I ate was seven hours ago.”

“I’ll fix you a plate,” she says. “There’s beer in the fridge. Help yourself.”

She sticks a few rolls of lumpia in the air fryer, then putters around the kitchen. She fills a plate for him, and then a plate for herself, scooping freshly made rice out of the cooker before spooning a generous amount of adobo on top. Pancit, too. It feels good to have a task that allows her to be busy so she doesn’t have to look at him while she compiles her thoughts. She can feel him watching her, and is suddenly aware that she’s wearing the oldest, baggiest sweats she owns, her hair in a loose, messy ponytail. She pulls two beers out of the fridge.

She can’t decide whether to tell him the truth, or some of it, or none of it. She sets his plate down. He takes a bite, chews slowly, then nods. “It tastes just like I remember.”

They eat in silence, the two of them darting looks at each other between bites. It feels awkward and familiar at the same time. He hasn’t changed all that much, though there’s a softer thickness to his body now, the kind that comes with age. There are a few lines around his eyes and mouth that weren’t there before. His hair, cut short, is still mostly black, with only a hint of gray at the temples. She wonders what he’s thinking about her. His face has always been hard to read.

She reaches for the ball cap sitting on the table beside him and examines it, running her finger along the embroidered Raptors logo.

“Think they’ll ever win a championship?” she finally asks, breaking the silence.

“Yes,” he says. “You ever think to call and say, ‘Hey, Drew, guess what, I’m not dead’?”

She puts the hat down. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“Because I couldn’t ask you to keep that secret.”

The air fryer dings, and she gets up to retrieve the lumpia. She serves them with a store-bought sweet chili dipping sauce.

“I cook when I’m sad,” she says. “You know that.”

“I’m sorry about your husband,” Drew says. “I heard on the way over here that the murder charge against you was dropped. Still, do you mind if I ask—”

“I didn’t kill Jimmy,” Paris says. “The official cause of death is undetermined, but we believe he died by suicide.”

“‘We’?”

“The people who knew him best,” Paris says, and leaves it at that.

“I’m sorry,” Drew says again. “I understand you’re grieving, but I grieved you. Do you understand that? For nineteen years, I blamed myself for your death.”

“Why?” Of all the things she imagined him saying, him thinking her death was his fault had never crossed her mind. “The fire had nothing to do with you.”

“It would have been nice if you told me that,” he says. “I was the one who ID’d your body that night.”

She nearly chokes. “What? How?”

“I came back,” Drew says. “After we talked. You went inside, I drove away. And then I came back. There were fire trucks, police. They were loading your dead body onto an ambulance, and I looked under the tarp.”

“Oh God.” Paris stares at him. “Oh, Drew.”

“And so before we get into anything, and we are going to get into it,” he says, raising an eyebrow, “I want to start with an apology.”

“I’m sorry,” she says.

“Not you. Me.” Drew’s plate is empty, and he pushes it to the side. “I owe you an apology for the things I said to you that night. There hasn’t been a day I haven’t thought about it. All I ever wanted was to rewind and go back to those last moments in the car with you and take back everything I said. I’m sorry. For judging you when it wasn’t my place. For making you feel like shit. Do you forgive me?”

Paris can see from his face that he means every word. She swallows, and then nods. “How … how was the wedding?”

“I never got married,” Drew says. “And don’t try and change the subject. A girl died, Joey. You have some explaining to do.”





CHAPTER FORTY-ONE


She tells him about Mae, and Drew doesn’t say a word the entire time she’s speaking. He’d always been a good listener. The only time he shows any kind of reaction is when she tells him that Chaz, the bouncer from the Cherry he met that night, was the one who got her the Paris Aquino ID. Drew’s face does a thing, but she doesn’t know what it means.

“I believe you,” he says when she finishes. “It’s the conclusion I came to when I fell down this rabbit hole. I figured out it was probably Vinny Tranh who killed her. What I couldn’t understand was why you set the fire. You could have just called the police.”