Priceless (An Amato Brothers/Rixton Falls crossover)

by Winter Renshaw

  Almost.

  It’s going to be a good weekend.

  I can feel it.

  “You’re really quiet.” I decide to call out the giant elephant in the truck about halfway to our destination. “You’re regretting this, aren’t you? You think this is weird? I mean, we only just met, and up until recently you thought I was stalking you, and now you’ve invited me to your lake house. And part of me thinks maybe I should be the one with the concerns, you know? I mean, I’m all for adventure, but this is a little bit beyond . . .”

  Ace’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, his gaze narrowed toward the stretch of highway before us.

  “Am I making it worse? This awkwardness?” I ask.

  “Well, now . . .”

  “Sorry,” I say. “I don’t do well with silence. Makes me think too much. You know those idea maps, where you draw a circle around something, and then you draw lines that connect to other ideas and you draw a circle around those and it just keeps going?”

  He’s quiet for a moment, and then his brow furrows. “Yeah?”

  “That’s pretty much how my mind works when there’s too much silence.” I slump against the seat. He doesn’t say much. “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “Which one?” he chuffs. “You threw a half a dozen at me all at once.”

  “Do you regret inviting me along?” I ask the most important one.

  “Not at all.” He doesn’t hesitate this time.

  “Are you always this quiet?” I ask my second most important question.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Can I ask you some things?”

  “What kind of things?”

  “Random questions,” I say slowly, watching him from the corner of my eye. I’m not sure he’ll appreciate all my prodding, but at the end of the day, we’re going to know each other a whole lot better, and we might even forget how awkward this trip actually is.

  “Fine,” he says. “Ask away.”

  I learn several new things about Alessio Amato over the continuation of our drive to Rixton Falls.

  He likes classic rock.

  His favorite road trip food is Ruby Red Squirt and chocolate-covered raisins, which I find absolutely disgusting, but he didn’t judge my black licorice and ginger ale, so I kept my opinions to myself.

  He’s a careful driver. Noticeably so. Turn signals. Speed limits. The whole nine yards. I’m going to assume it has something to do with his accident last year.

  He’s a Scorpio. Not surprising. And he doesn’t have a middle name.

  He’s highly competitive. He’s never even lost a game of Monopoly before.

  In high school, he was suspended for an entire month for running some kind of gambling ring. He said people don’t realize how lucrative high school sports betting can be.

  His favorite book is Great Expectations.

  He’s the oldest of five boys.

  Ace flicks on his turn signal, and I check the clock on the dash. We’ve been driving just shy of two hours. He veers off the interstate, getting off on an exit marked Rixton Falls/Saint Charmaine. I haven’t seen a rest stop in miles and my bladder is full of ginger ale, but I’m too excited to say anything, so I suffer in silence.

  “You hungry?” he asks as we turn down a dirt road toward a little town called Blueshank. According to the sign, the population is 1,081. “There’s a little grocery store up ahead. We’ll stop there and load up for the weekend. Grab whatever you want.”

  We pull into a small parking lot and climb out. My legs ache, and walking feels amazing. He gets the door for me, and the poker-faced checker up front glances up from her magazine when she hears the chime of the door.

  “Hey.” Ace gives her a friendly wave, which she returns before tending to her magazine once again.

  I grab a cart and scan the small shop for a restroom, exhaling with relief when I spot a sign in the back. I excuse myself, do my thing, and return in record time, marveling at the amount of stuff he’s already picked up.

  I spy bread and assorted condiments, fresh fruit and vegetables, and even a box of cereal, but no meat.

  “What are we missing?” he asks.

  “Nothing,” I say. “I was just wondering why there’s no meat.”

  Ace smirks. “We’re fishing, Aidy. We’ll eat what we catch.”

  “Of course.” Just like we used to do with Dad in the Ozarks. Just like we haven’t done since. “Then we’ll need some oil and fish fry.”

  I’m not sure what to expect when we turn down a gravel road fifteen minutes later. Up ahead, the horizon looks misty, and there’s an overabundance of pine trees everywhere. The closer we get to a clearing, the more I see the falls Ace told me about on the drive up here.

  He slows to a stop, turning down a two-track dirt driveway that leads to a log-cabin lake house with a deep front porch, green roof, and a dock leading to a small lake out back.

  Coming to a worn-in, makeshift parking spot beside a gray metal shed, he shifts into park and cuts the engine. “We’re here.”

  I climb down from the truck and head toward the back to grab the groceries, and Ace grabs our bags. A canopy of green-leafed trees gives us shade and a symphony of bird songs fill the sky above.

  “This place reminds me so much of our lake house back home,” I say, “in the Ozarks. At least the one we had growing up.”

  I follow Ace to the front door, waiting as he lets us in, and the second I step past the threshold, I’m greeted with a burst of musty deliciousness. It’s the kind of scent the average person might find offensive, but to someone who grew up spending summers fishing and camping, it’s pure heaven.

  “We even had a blanket just like this.” I drop the groceries on a farmhouse table and run to the leather sofa that sits adjacent to a wood-burning fireplace, running my hand along a blanket composed of several black, orange, and yellow knit squares that, together, remind me of my childhood.

  “My mother made that,” he says. “A couple decades ago, actually.”

  “This is crazy,” I say. “This place. It reminds me so much of growing up. We’d spend months at the lake each summer. Camping. Fishing. Hiking. I’d forgotten how much I missed this . . . feeling.”

  “You ever get to go back?” Ace begins unloading groceries, and I head over to help.

  “Nah.” I pull a loaf of bread from one of the bags and glance down. “We had to sell the lake house when I was seventeen.”

  “Sorry to hear that.”

  Shrugging, I say, “No need to be sorry. That’s just what happens when your dad leaves his family for another woman. Mom couldn’t afford both homes, so we had to let the one on Prairie Rose Drive go.”

  I feel the weight of his stare. “You talk about it so . . . casually.”

  “What? Am I supposed to be damaged? Bitter? My father was an asshole. He was a decent enough father. I mean, he got the job done all right. But he was a shitty husband. Mom was better off without him.” I put the bread away and grab a container of butter from the bottom of the bag. “It was hard on us after he left, but we persevered. We got through it together. And I’d be doing a disservice to myself and everything I’ve been through if I automatically assumed every man is a cheating scumbag like my father.”

  Ace takes the butter from me and tosses it in the fridge. “We’re done here. Let me show you to your room.”

  Chapter 20

  Ace

  “Is that what you’re wearing?” I wrap my fingers across the leather arms of a chair that’s been in my family for generations. “I thought you’d been fishing before.”

  Aidy glances down, her legs bare save for the frayed cut offs that hang from her curved hips, and she tugs on the white cotton tank top that leaves very little to the imagination.

  It’s not that I’m complaining.

  Hell, I’d be more than happy to look at her – like this – all night.

  “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” she asks. “Does it look bad?”

 
“You’re looking like you’re about to become dinner for mosquitos. They’ll eat you alive out there.”

  Aidy smiles, retrieving something from her back pocket. “That’s why I came prepared.”

  She begins spritzing some yellow-y substance all over her skin, feverishly rubbing it in. A pungent cocktail of herbal fragrances fills my nostrils and I cough.

  “What the hell are you putting on?” I ask, fanning the airspace in front of me.

  “Organic bug spray,” she says. “DEET is really bad for the environment, so I use this stuff.”

  I hack up part of a lung. “What’s in that?”

  Turning the packaging around and holding it up to her face, she reads off the label, “Lemongrass oil, mint, lavender, citronella, rosemary, clove, and eucalyptus.”

  “And it works?”

  Aidy nods. “Like a charm. Want some?”

  “No thanks.” I rise and move toward the door, stepping into an old pair of boots I keep here.

  “Aren’t you going to be hot?” she asks. “You’re dressed like a lumberjack and it’s eighty-five degrees out.”

  Glancing out the kitchen window, I focus on the end of the dock out back. “I might be hot, but I won’t be bitten up.”

  Aidy passes by, wrapping a hand around my bicep and squeezing. “I don’t know. You look pretty tasty to me, and you know what they always say: where there’s a will, there’s a way. I don’t think a little bit of flannel is going to stop those things from making a meal out of you. Sure you don’t want any of this?”

  “I’ll pass. I’d rather be hot than smell like an apothecary.”

  “All right.” Aidy clucks her tongue, lifting her palms in the air. “I’ll let it go.”

  I grab a couple fishing poles I sat by the back door earlier, after I showed Aidy to her room and gave her some time to get changed, and Aidy grabs the yellow tackle box beside them. I grab the Styrofoam container of live bait from the fridge and we head through the back door to the dock.

  The sun’s beginning to set over the water, and the roar of a nearby waterfall almost drowns out the chirp of the crickets. There’s truly no place else I’d rather be right now, and despite the fact that I’d originally planned a weekend to myself out here, I’m truly enjoying Aidy’s company.

  She isn’t one of those annoying house guests who stand around all nervous, expecting them to give you permission to use the restroom. Aidy has no qualms about making herself at home.

  “What’s the biggest fish you’ve ever caught?” she asks. “Be honest.”

  “Twenty-five-pound catfish,” I say without pause. It’s nothing record-shattering, but it’s bigger than the average catfish.

  “Nice,” she says.

  The backyard slopes down as we get closer to the dock, and the grass turns to rock. Aidy’s in flip-flops and trying to balance the tackle box under one arm, so instinctively I reach for her hand. Her fingers thread through mine as we cross the ten-foot spread of rocky terrain. My heart beats hard for a fraction of a second, and when we finally reach the dock, she lets go.

  Crossing each weathered plank, her sandals make sucking noises, and I hear a faint hum coming from her lips.

  “Oh, look at that,” she says, pointing straight ahead. “A flock of sailboats.”

  “A flock?” I laugh.

  “I don’t know what else you’d call them. There are like eight, nine. Are they racing?”

  “Probably.”

  We reach the end and have a seat, Aidy removing her flip-flops and placing them aside. Her feet dangle, skimming the water beneath.

  “Water’s surprisingly warm,” she says, reaching down and dipping her fingers in. “And clear.”

  “There’s no run off into this lake,” I say, spotting a mosquito landing on her bare thigh. I reach across and swat it off. “It’s protected. One of the clearest in the state.”

  “Thanks,” she says, rubbing her palm across her leg. She pulls her spray from her back pocket and reapplies, and I bite my tongue.

  I bait the hooks and hand her a pole before casting off.

  “You going to stand there the whole time or are you going to sit beside me?” she asks, glancing behind her before she casts. “It feels weird, you standing there. Makes me feel like a kid. Doesn’t help you’re so tall.”

  Crouching down, I ask, “Is this better?”

  Aidy bumps her shoulder into mine. “Yep.”

  Her red and white bobber dips almost immediately.

  “Think I got something,” she says, slowly reeling. “Oh, yeah.”

  She reels faster, pulling and reeling and pulling and reeling, until a little Blue Gill rises from the water, attached to her hook. He flops around and she carefully reaches for him.

  “Aw, he’s so tiny,” she says, gently pulling the hook from his mouth. Leaning down, she lets him go.

  There’s a tug on the end of my line, and it feels sizable. I don’t waste any time reeling mine in and am silently pleased when I spot a good-sized crappie on the end. This’ll be good for frying. A couple more of these and we’ll have ourselves a nice dinner tonight.

  I grab the stringer from the tackle box, and from the corner of my eye, I see Aidy baiting her hook. For a brief moment, I’m sucked into a distant memory. I took Kerenza here once, despite the fact that I knew damn well she wasn’t outdoorsy. She hated the fresh water. She hated the mosquitos and the pine-scented air. She hated the crickets and thought the quietude was borderline disturbing. Most of the time she’d hole up inside, sitting in front of a fan and flipping through the latest issue of Vogue and complaining about the lack of cell service every chance she got.

  “So you’re the oldest of five boys?” Aidy asks out of nowhere.

  “Right.”

  “I can’t imagine having five sons. I’d probably go insane. My aunt had three boys. I used to babysit them and they were bouncing off the walls constantly. So crazy. I don’t know how your parents did it, but kudos to them.”

  Smirking quietly, I nod. “Yeah. We were pretty crazy. Mom kept us in line though. Most of the time.”

  “What about your dad?”

  I pause, staring at a soft ripple of water ahead. “He wasn’t really around. And when he was, he was drunk.”

  Aidy turns to me, her stare heavy. “I’m sorry.”

  Shrugging, I brush it off. “It’s okay. He’s been gone a long time now. His liver quit on him by the time I hit junior high. Honestly don’t remember that much about him. Feels like forever ago.”

  “I feel the same way about my dad sometimes,” I say. “But he’s alive and well. Living it up in Kansas City, Kansas with his new family.”

  “New family?”

  “Yeah. He didn’t waste any time replacing us after he left Mom,” she says. “Even produced a couple of new kids, both daughters, with his new wife. We get Christmas cards, and sometimes he’ll call when he remembers a birthday, but we’ve pretty much gone our separate ways.”

  “That’s terrible. You’re his daughter.”

  Aidy laughs. “Yeah. It is pretty terrible when I say it out loud. Jesus, he’s an asshole.”

  “Do you keep in touch with your half-sisters?”

  She shakes her head. “I’ve only met them a handful of times in my life. His new wife keeps them on a short leash. She’s one of those helicopter moms. Never lets them out of her sight. Kind of makes it challenging to get to know people that way, you know?”

  I slip another worm on my hook and laugh through my nose. “Growing up, I always wanted one of those helicopter moms. Don’t know why. I guess maybe we always want what we don’t have.”

  “Preach.”

  “My mother worked two jobs for as long as I can remember. She never made it to any of my games. Fed us frozen dinners most nights. Taught us how to do our own laundry by the time we each turned eight.”

  “Interesting.” I feel her gaze on me. “I’m sure she was just doing what she had to do to keep food on the table. Can’t imagine it’s cheap
to feed five growing boys.”

  “Yeah, no. She was a great mother,” I say. “Never missed a birthday or a holiday. Made dinner on Sundays and invited half the neighborhood. Encouraged us to follow our dreams, no matter how ridiculous they were at the time. She was just kind of in survival mode all those years.”

  “How is she now? Only working one job, I hope?”

  Laughing, I say, “Yeah. She’s retired now. She was a schoolteacher for thirty-five years, so she has a pension. She quit waiting tables at night as soon as my youngest brother graduated high school. She’s good now.”

  “Where are you from?” she asks.

  “Jersey,” I say,

  “You don’t have an accent.”

  “We don’t all talk like wise guys,” I say. “Besides, we grew up in Ohio mostly. Only moved to Jersey after our father died. Mom had family there, so that’s where we went.”

  “What are your brothers like?”

  “I think you’ve got something on your line,” I change the subject.

  Aidy jolts, sitting up straight. “Oh. You’re right. Feels bigger, this one.”

  She reels in another crappie and carefully takes it off the hook and strings it.

  “Funny how this stuff just comes back to you,” she says. “Anyway, are you close with all your brothers?”

  Shaking my head, I chuff. “Not as close as we used to be. We all kind of left the nest and flew in five different directions.”

  “Where are they now?”

  “Everywhere,” I say. Seattle. Los Angeles. Chicago. Who knows with the fourth one. He doesn’t tend to stay in one place very long.

  “Wren and I have been inseparable our whole lives. Best friends,” I say. “We never really had that whole sibling rivalry thing. People thought there was something wrong with us when we were teenagers because we got along so perfectly.”

  “That is . . . definitely not normal.”

  “We’re unusually close.” Aidy sighs, staring ahead and blowing a breath through her lips. “It’s going to be so weird when she gets married. It’ll be the first time in years that I haven’t lived with her, but I think it’ll be good for me. I’m not scared or anything, it’ll just be . . . different. You like living alone? You seem like the type.”