Page 314 of Summer Heat
“You sound funny. Are you… You aren’t drinking, are you?”
“It’s so good, Justin,” I whisper as if I’m letting him in on a secret. “So bad but so good.”
He swears, using words I’ve never heard him use. “Are you at an event?”
The museum donor event. A charity dinner that costs a thousand dollars a plate. That’s what he means, and I can’t help the giggle that bubbles up. It doesn’t even feel awful anymore, just kind of funny. “Everyone stopped talking to me around the time you did. We don’t get invited anymore, and even if we did, we couldn’t afford to go.”
I have this random picture in my head of pushing my dad’s hospital bed like it’s a wheelchair, smiling at everyone while we eat our fast-food burgers stashed in my purse. Whatever’s in this bottle tastes like battery acid, but it feels amazing.
“Avery, listen to me,” he says in this exasperated voice that means he’s had to repeat himself. Just for that I take another drink. “Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you.”
Would he really? I don’t even know where the limo drove us, but if he found Gabriel Miller’s address, would he come riding up on a white steed? I don’t know if I believe that he wanted to get back together, or that he still would once he sees inside my house. All those empty rooms. We could have one of those flash raves where they fill the room with soap suds and save on cleaning.
“Justin,” I say in what I hope is my serious voice. I make the n sound last a long time to be sure. “Would you have bid on me? Do you even have a million dollars?”
“What are you talking about?” he says, his voice getting louder.
As if I can’t hear him, which I totally can. I take another gulp, larger this time. That’s my new drinking game—a drink whenever he gets mad. If I’d done this at our last few appearances, I would have had a much better time.
And why did I never notice that he called our dates appearances?
“I’m talking about social climbing,” I say, examining the bottom of the cup. All gone. “You are a social climber. And I am a social faller.”
Then I collapse into a fit of giggles. Somehow the silver phone handle ends up dangling off the end table, Justin’s voice a cartoonish buzz. I picture him as a tiny little man on my shoulder, like when an angel and a devil appear to whisper advice in your ear. Would he be the angel? Candy would definitely be the devil.
The chandelier is so big. It must weigh like eight tons. I realize I’m lying on the floor, looking up at it. What if it fell on me right now? Game over. That’s what would happen. No maze, no sword. No sailing back with a white flag on my ship.
That was the agreement Theseus made with his father. If he was successful in killing the Minotaur, he would wave a white flag from his ship on return. Except in all the excitement he forgot. His father watched the ship approach with so much grief he killed himself.
That’s always been the saddest part of the story. It was all for nothing. I’ll wave the white flag, Daddy. And I’d never let him know what I did to save the house. I didn’t want him to die.
“Christ,” a voice says, low and rumbly. Not at all like the tiny angel Justin.
Gabriel’s face fills the space above my head, blocking the millions of lights from the chandelier.
“Oh, hi.”
He looks incredulous. “You’re drunk.”
“I can’t be drunk. I only had one glass. And don’t worry, I drank the cheap stuff.”
The empty glass must have rolled under the rug. He picks it up and sniffs. “You drank moonshine?” He makes a low growling sound. “This was the last bottle my dad made before he died.”
My mouth drops open. “Oh my God, the white flag.”
His gaze narrows on the phone. “Who did you call?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer but strides over to pick up the hanging shiny handset. “Who is this?”
“Don’t you like caller ID?” I ask curiously. The silver rotary phone is pretty, but it doesn’t seem practical. Then again he just paid one million dollars to have sex with me. Maybe practicality isn’t a priority for him.
He slams the phone down, vibrating with some kind of intense emotion. “Who. Did. You. Call?”
I grew up around important men. Powerful men. Angry men. I learned to speak softly, to tread lightly. To smile at them and touch their arm, as if everything I do is to placate them. It’s not because I think they’re better than me. It just makes life easier. Then I disappear into my books, into the myths that make up a fantastical world so far removed from my own.
Except somehow I’ve stepped into that world—a place of gods and monsters. My diplomacy might serve me well now, except the moonshine seems to have stripped it all away.
“I called my fiancé, Mr. Nosy Pants.”
His eyes darken. “He isn’t your fiancé anymore.”
