When I finally arrived at the 1910 mansion that Tia and her dad were bringing back to life, half the party seemed to be waiting specifically for me. Cheerleaders greeted me in the grand doorway and parted as I made my way inside. I caught a glimpse of Aidan leaning on the staircase railing, drunk, which bore investigating. But the crowd closed in, and I lost sight of him. Then I wanted to peer into the mermaid fountain in the foyer, which was Tia’s current restoration project. Instead, she took my hand, ignored my protests, and dragged me straight into the kitchen to say hi to her dad and Harper’s mom, who were sipping coffee.
After a polite chat with Other People’s Parents about the marvelous dance I’d put on, Tia shoved me out the back of the kitchen and closed the swinging door behind me. Harper waited for me in the darkness.
“Walk straight through,” Harper whispered. “Sawyer’s out back. My mom’s here, so he’ll take you over there to the B and B, and you can be alone. We’ll cover for you.”
Alarmed, I said, “I can’t ask you to lie. I mean, I could ask a lot of people to lie, but not you.”
“We’re not lying,” she said. “My mom and Tia’s dad just saw you here and can verify your whereabouts, see?” Then she put her hand on my arm. “It’s okay, really. I’m willing to lie if I have to, because your mom is wrong about this. Go. All of us will say you were here with us.”
15
SAWYER UNLOCKED THE HEAVY FRONT door of the B and B. “Take your shoes off, if you don’t mind,” he whispered over his shoulder.
“We’re sneaking?” I joked. “You’re not supposed to have girls in your room? There goes the neighborhood.”
“No. Everybody in the B and B takes off their shoes late at night so we don’t wake each other up.” He carefully closed the towering door behind us, picked up his flip-flops and took my sandals, and led the way up the ancient staircase. Even in the darkness, his blond hair shone like a flashlight.
He closed and locked the door of his room behind us. “Can I get you something to drink?” he asked. “I have water, water, or water.”
“I would love some water.”
“Good choice.” He disappeared into a bathroom.
My eyes wandered around the huge, high-ceilinged bedroom. Besides a massive four-poster bed, there was a carved dresser and a wardrobe with the door open a crack. Moving the door just a hair for minimal nosiness, I peered inside. Neatly pressed shirts hung there: his Crab Lab T-shirt, his Pelicans tee, a yellow polo, and the faded blue one. He was wearing the madras plaid, and that accounted for everything.
I snatched my hand away like I’d been burned as he walked back in with two plastic cups printed with the Crab Lab logo. “Something wrong?” he asked, handing me one.
“I guess I hadn’t expected your room to be so neat.”
“I cleaned up,” he acknowledged.
“You knew I was coming over?”
“I hoped against hope that we would find a way.” He sipped his water, looking uncomfortable. Now that I was here, he didn’t know what to do with me. I suspected it was all the baggage we were carrying around with us now, floating behind me like I was towing it across the Gulf.
Trying to break the ice, I set my cup down on the table beside the bed. I hopped up on the high mattress and examined the blown glass figurines hanging in the window. Maybe they belonged to the room, but I thought I’d seen all Harper’s mom’s kooky art collections over the years. These belonged to Sawyer.
He slid onto the bed from the other side. “My dad learned to make those in prison. He used to send them to me on my birthday. This is my third birthday.” He touched an orange fish. “This is my tenth.” His finger swept around a red octopus, sending a shaft of red light swinging around the window casement. Mr. De Luca had definitely improved over the years.
“I don’t keep them because of what he is to me now,” Sawyer said. “I keep them because of how they made me feel when I was eight. Like there was somebody looking out for me.”
“A guardian angel,” I suggested.
“One in jail, yes. My mom always claimed she didn’t have the money to take me to see him. Probably she didn’t want to take a little kid into a state prison, which was an uncharacteristic stroke of brilliance on her part. I never met him until I moved here. Before that, it really was like he was dead.” He didn’t look at me as he sipped his water again.
I sat back on my heels, watching his pensive face brushed by faint light through the window. In the past few weeks Sawyer had seemed more like family to me than my own family. I wondered if he felt the same way about me. I almost asked.
I stopped with my lips barely parted. I must have expressed some tenderness like that to Aidan very early. I couldn’t remember exactly, but I recognized the feeling of panic that washed over me when I was about to expose myself. I closed my mouth.
Sawyer turned to me, eyes hard, and deftly unbuttoned the first button of my blouse.
Something seemed missing here. The tenderness we’d shared last weekend at the beach had been beaten out of us by the police and my mother. But if I were to mention this, how did I expect him to respond? Wasn’t this what I’d come here for? After his talk of us still being together next May, what we had in front of us was one night, like his many single nights with different girls. I’d known what I was getting into two Fridays ago when Tia convinced me to place his head in my lap.