Page 45 of Everything You Hate
The dock creaks. Curt Malloy wanders past with a paper cup of something that smells like it came from the Salt’s bottom shelf. His boots are untied. His cap is on backward. He’s smiling the smile of a man who’s found something to be right about and plans to savor it.
“Well, if it isn’t Coastie.” He raises the cup in my direction. “Heard your girlfriend’s been busy.”
“She’s not my girlfriend.”
“Sure looked like it Tuesday night. Whole farmhouse saw you two on the porch.” He takes a sip. “Course, that was before she started posting about the treasure hunt. Eight million people, Kinsella. Eight million people asking where to dig. You must be real proud.”
I turn my back on him and reach for the toolbox.
“Tourists showing up two months early because some Hollywood blonde with an Instagram account decided our little feud was content.” He raises his voice. The dock’s empty but he’s playing to the water, to the gulls, to whoever might be within earshot. “Bet the Merricks are loving that. Bet Malcolm’s rubbing his hands together right now counting the room bookings.”
“Get off my dock, Curt.”
“Your dock. That’s rich.” He laughs. “Wasn’t your dock six months ago. Wasn’t your family’s dock until your brother married up and changed his name. Some of us remember the Kinsellas, Dean. Some of us remember what your people were.”
I turn around. Slow. “Say that again.”
He holds up both hands, still smiling. The cup tilts, liquid sloshing near the rim. “Just making conversation. You know me. Always got an opinion.”
“Your opinion’s worth less than the beer you’re drinking.”
“Maybe.” He shrugs. “But I’m not wrong about the tourists. They’re coming because of her. You can hate me for saying it. Doesn’t make it less true.”
He ambles off down the dock, whistling something tuneless, and I stand there with my fists clenched and my pulse hammering in my ears and the worst part is that he’s right. The ferries are fuller. The comments on her posts are planning trips.Someone flew a drone over my brother’s land because eight million people saw a hashtag and decided there was something here worth finding.
I told her she’d make a spectacle of us. I told her she’d leave and we’d be left with the mess. I kissed her and then I told her it was a mistake, and every word of it was true, and it doesn’t change the fact that I want her anyway, and that’s the part I can’t fucking solve.
I know where she is. Half the town knows where she is.
Piper texted the family group chat an hour ago:Scarlett’s here looking for local history books. Send recommendations.
The Next Chapter. Piper’s bookstore, three blocks up from the harbor, white clapboard with blue trim and a window display full of romance novels arranged by tropes. Piper’s been running it for four years on stubbornness and a business loan from Bodhi that she’s still paying back in monthly installments she can barely afford.
I tell Doug to stay. He doesn’t argue. Captain squawks “Fuck me sideways!” as I climb the dock ladder, and I don’t correct him.
I’m going to have a reasonable conversation. That’s the plan. I’m going to walk in there and tell her the truth—that Malcolm’s lying, that the treasure’s a story, that the island’s drowning in tourists two months early because of her posts, and that she needs to dial it back before this gets worse. I’m going to say it calmly. I’m going to keep my voice even. I’m going to be the adult in the room for once instead of the man who follows women around in the rain and kisses them on porches and pretends it didn’t happen.
That’s the plan.
I’m still telling myself that when I push open the door of The Next Chapter and the bell above it rings, and Piper looks up from behind the counter with a smile that says she’s been expectingme, and Scarlett turns from the history section with a stack of books in her arms and her hair loose around her shoulders and those brown eyes finding mine across the room like she knew I’d come.
Reasonable. I’m going to be reasonable.
God help me.
Chapter Eleven
Scarlett
I stand in front of the local history section with Piper’s stack on the counter and my hand on my bag where Evangeline’s journal sits, and I cannot concentrate on a single word in front of me.
Piper slides another volume onto the pile. “This one’s the only decent survey of the north shore before 1912. The maps are hand-drawn, and the scale is garbage, but the parcel boundaries are accurate. County redrew everything in the fifties and lost half the landmarks.” She pushes her glasses up her nose. “The author was a Merrick cousin, so take the population estimates with a salt mine.”
I nod like I’m taking notes. I am not taking notes. I am thinking about a woman who walked to a pier twice a week for eight years and never once spoke to the man she was watching.
“You’re not listening to me,” Piper says.
“I’m listening.”
