Page 35 of Everything You Hate
“I know.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I know that too.”
She pats my cheek hard enough to sting. “Don’t kiss her again unless you mean it.”
We say our goodbyes. Henry walks us out with a hand on my shoulder and that look he gets, the one that says he knows more than he’s saying and loves me anyway. Hazel is asleep on Colter’s shoulder. Mimi presses a foil-wrapped brick of leftover pie into Scarlett’s hands and tells her she’s expected back.
Then we’re in the truck together.
Fifteen minutes to the marina. That’s how far it is. I’ve made this drive four thousand times, and I have never once been aware of how long it takes. Doug is unconscious across the bench seat between us, fed at last and finally quiet, except for his snores.
Which is fine by me because the alternative is awkward silence.
“Your family’s lovely,” she says, somewhere around the third mile. Flat. Polite. The voice you use with someone you can’t stand, but are forced to interact with.
“They are.”
“Thank you for the ride.”
“You’re not there yet.”
“I’m painfully aware.”
So am I.
Doug snores.
The heater ticks.
The headlights pick out the ditch grass and the reflectors and about forty feet of road at a time, and the dark closes back over everything behind us.
I meant what I said, but maybe I shouldn’t have said it the way I did.
And maybe I should tell her that now.
I keep my mouth shut.
The marina comes up on the right, the lot half-empty, her rental sitting under the one working light. I stop beside it and put the truck in park and don’t shut off the engine.
She unbuckles. Doesn’t move.
“For the record,” she says, still looking out the windshield, “you’re right that I don’t have to live here afterward. That’s a fair thing to hold against me.”
“Scarlett—”
“And you’re wrong about the rest of it.” She opens her door. The dome light comes on, and she finally looks at me, and her eyes are dry and steady and give me nothing at all. “Goodnight, Dean.”
Chapter Eight
Scarlett
I walk into the Driftwood at ten in the morning with a notebook, a pen, and a plan to be invisible, and Patty Sue Okafor demolishes all three before I’ve found a seat.
“There she is. The famous one.” She’s already pouring coffee into a mug that wasn’t on the counter a second ago, and the smile on her face says she’s been waiting for me. “Cream, no sugar, right? Dean’s order.”
“Coffee’s fine. Thanks.” I didn’t tell her my order, but I’m not surprised she knows. This island has about as much privacy as a goldfish bowl.
