“What’s the problem?” I ask.
“The problem is”—she examines the room to see who’s here—“Dorazio treats me like a four-year-old. Can I go back there, or not?”
“I’ll take you.”
She puts her hand on my shoulder before I can stand. Ed’s coming out on his own, straightening his leather cap that barely fits his oversized head. He sets an empty beer bottle on the bar and walks over to us.
“You’re an ass, Dorazio.” She blows a stray hair away from her eye with a wild breath.
“What’s wrong, Autumn?” He snickers. “Crossing districts again?”
“You know why I’m here.” She prods his chest with her finger.
He puts his hands on his hips and spreads his legs in his usual superior manner. “I went out on my front stoop at four to get the morning paper,” he says. “You know what I saw dumped in my driveway?” He lowers his voice and moves closer to her side. “No other place to put a body these days? You trying to send me a message?”
“I had nothing to do with that.” She steps back.
“Sure you didn’t. But I have a hunch your sugar daddy did.”
Her jaw drops. “Nick’s not my …” She trails off and turns to see my reaction, to see if I know about the mayor.
I look away, noticing Heather’s photo is still open. I close the screen in a hurry and put my cell away.
Somehow, Autumn manages to stay cool. She takes another glance around the room—a handful of customers watching—and quickly changes her body language. Her hands relax, shoulders lower, and everything about her turns calm. She opens the door, signaling to Ed that she wants to move the conversation outside.
“We need to talk, but I’m not going to disrupt my boyfriend’s business.”
“Boyfriend?” Sean mouths.
I bite my bottom lip to hold in a smile. “I’ll be right back. Stay here.”
“No.” He grabs my arm. “She can handle whatever’s going on. Besides, your dad’s watching. The last thing you need is for him to see you arguing with Eddie outside the bar.”
I take a quick look at my dad standing behind the bar. He picks up Ed’s empty beer bottle, eyeing the argument outside the front window. He elbows Tim to see if he knows what’s going on. Tim shakes his head that he doesn’t.
I listen over the noise of the hockey game, catching snippets of their conversation through the glass.
“You have no right to tell my dad about my life!” Autumn screams. “Cops are driving back and forth in front of my loft because you called him about the guy in the parking lot.”
“I didn’t tell him,” Ed claims.
“Yeah, right. They’ve been stalking me for hours. I have no privacy whatsoever. I don’t need babysitters, Dorazio.”
“She’s furious,” Sean says, craning his neck to see over the windowsill.
“Nick won’t protect you forever. You’d better watch your mouth around me, Autumn.”
“Nick and I are friends. We’re not intimate, okay? I’m not having sex with the mayor.”
“You mean, he’s not fucking you anymore.”
She takes five steps back then stomps forward and tries to slap him. He catches her wrist and pulls her to his side. Her arm shakes as he whispers something in her ear.
I get up to help, but Sean holds me back. “Wait, give them a second longer.”
Autumn breaks free from his grip and looks at me through the iced window, overcome with sadness. I sink into the chair, tormented. “I think Ed told her. He told her about Heather.” I should’ve prepared for this, should’ve expected it.
“Who cares? She would’ve found out eventually.”
I grip the table and stand back up. “The last thing I want is her pity.”
Ed slips away. I catch a glimpse of him a minute later, materializing under the corner streetlight. A snow gust circles him, his body swiftly consumed by the weather and the darkness of night, lost in black and white.
I look back at Autumn. Fat snowflakes land on her hair and form a shawl on her shoulders. She comes to me, setting her palm against the glass, the warmth of her hands melting the ice over my face. A plow’s headlights transform her into a silhouette. Like a solar eclipse, her arms and legs merge with her body, and for a second, she vanishes from sight—a mere black speck in my vision.
“Don’t stop me this time,” I say to Sean, grabbing her coat and rushing outside. I brush the snow off her emerald-green sweater. The color like spring grass rising out of white mounds.
“Sorry,” she says. “That was selfish of me.”
“What was?” I help her into her coat.
“Everything. I should go.”
“No.” I grip her arm and pull her back, patting the snow off her hair. “Why would leave? You just got here. Did Ed say something about me?”
“Nothing he hasn’t told me before.”
I chuckle out of nervousness and fear. “Meaning what?”
She holds her collar tight to her neck, flashing the gold “A” ring on her pinky finger, and the black heart tattoo on the finger next to it. The way her hand is positioned under her chin, and reading her fingers from left to right, I understand the message. I don’t know if it’s intentional or not, but it’s right before my eyes.
The heart. The “A” ring.
LOVE AUTUMN.
“Come inside with me.” I nod toward the door. “I don’t care what you know about my past, or if you think I’m damaged, or what Ed said. I just want us to hang out.”
She places her ice-cold hand in mine. “Dylan.” She pauses. “He said your last girlfriend…”
I exhale and look down at my feet, swiping snow back and forth. “It’s been some time. It’s not like it was yesterday.”
“He said you’re in a bad mood tonight over her.”
“It’s his fault that I’m upset.” I raise my voice, turning away with regret.
“He seems to think you’re mentally ill.”
I turn back quickly. “Do you think I am?” I ask, my words pressing.
“No, not as much as people think I am.” She smiles, and I can’t help but smile back. “Tell me though—”
“It was over a year ago.”
“Yes, but—”
“I never saw it coming. There were no signs.”
“And if—”
“Any person with a heart would have a hard time getting over it.”
“Dylan. Tell me. Tell me if you had a second chance … if you met her today, knowing she’d kill herself, would you go through it all again?”
“Yeah. For sure.” I don’t hesitate to answer.
“Even if you knew she’d be gone?”
“I have no regrets about the time we spent together.”
“You loved her.”
I nod. “I did.”
She traces my jawline to my chin, gripping it hard. “You’re honest. I like that. Not having any regrets means you were good to her.”
“I’m not the type to hide from love. I really can’t anyway, not when it tackles me.”
She nods and looks around the empty streets. “Sorry I let Dorazio get to me.”
“I could say the same. What else did he say?”
“That’s about it.”
I know she’s lying because she looks away. “What else?” I tug her coat, needling her to tell me.
She pulls me toward the door. “Let’s go inside.”
I pull her right back. “What else?”
A Tahoe drives slowly by. Two cops stare out the window at us. They put on a show, flashing the lights and discharging a short one-second-siren chirp.
“One beer,” she says, holding up a finger, her eyes following the cops. “I’ll stay for one drink, but people are watching.”
Rick’s crew, her dad, possibly even the mayor are keeping an eye on her after last night.
“What else did Ed say?” I urge her to answer. “I won’t waste my time with s
omeone who keeps secrets from me. Don’t treat me like Ed and everyone else. Just say it.”
“Fine. Dorazio thinks you did something to your brother. That you may have killed him.”
Hearing that untruth a second time is as painful as the first. I start to sweat. A lump forms in my throat. I stare at her in panic for a good minute. She’s trying to read me, to figure out if I did something wrong, and if I could’ve killed him. And I’m pretending to be in control, but then it all goes to shit. I can’t act as if it doesn’t bother me. Now would be a good time to snatch the gun from her pocket, find Ed, and force it down his throat. Make him tell me why he said that about Jake, and why he would dare repeat it to Autumn.
“Dylan, he’s speculating. He has no proof.”
“He’s wrong!”
She rubs my arm. “I believe you. It’s okay.”
“Damn him.” I pound the window and gesture to Sean to get my coat and come outside. He picks up our things and heads out, putting on his trapper hat before handing me my coat.
“What’s up? The game’s on,” he says.
“We’re going to the Andersons’ to get that note. Don’t fight me on it, just give me your gun.”
18
Autumn shouldn’t be next to me in my truck as I drive to the Andersons’ house, but she wanted to tag along. No, not wanted, she insisted. And of course, I caved.
I tell her not to feel sorry for me. She says she won’t. I tell her this is the worst of me. But she says it might be the most genuine. Then she tells me not to feel guilty for having loved. She means what she says.
I’ve fallen hard for her, but it’s impossible to know if my feelings are real or if I’m experiencing lust. Can I be utterly lost in a girl who I haven’t slept with? Heather was the only one who made me punch-drunk, and I don’t see how anyone else can compare. I shouldn’t be thinking about Autumn anyway. Not now. Not when we’re in Heather’s neighborhood.
This is downright odd. It’s odd to bring my new girlfriend to my deceased girlfriend’s parents’ house. Sean thinks so, too. He’s said it twice. “This is totally weird, Dylan.” But Autumn disagrees. She tells Sean we’re adults and that it’s immature to hide from the past. To that point, I immediately ask about the mayor and her past.
“That’s none of Ed Dorazio’s business. But yes, I was ‘with’ Nick,” she says.
The word with causes my heart to miss a beat, stalling out in jealousy.
“Two years ago,” she adds. “Our relationship was phony. At least to him, it was. I didn’t know he was engaged and I was ‘the girl on the side’ until I saw an article online about his fiancé. I haven’t had a boyfriend since. Just a bunch of flings about as bland as oatmeal.”
“No shit,” I say, stunned. “No relationship at all?”
She changes the subject quickly. She says I need help, and she’s glad I let her come along. I don’t know if she’s referring to needing help with Joel and Lona Anderson, or in general. Likely, in general.
“Dylan, you’re screwing this whole thing up with Autumn,” Sean says from the back seat.
“No, he’s not,” Autumn says, sitting next to me in the front.
“You finally like a girl, and you do this? You take her to Heather’s house?”
When I smile at him in the mirror, he refuses to smile back, in a complete stew over this.
“Don’t listen to him,” she says to me. “Sean, a relationship isn’t based on bits and pieces. You have to be willing to share everything.”
“Wroooong. Not this. No way,” he says.
“Yes, this too,” she argues. “The good and the bad.”
“Dylan”—he leans forward—“I think you should drive home and let this go. Maybe Autumn will give you another round of head back at the house.”
My laughter catches me off guard. I tighten my lips, seeing Autumn’s open-mouthed expression out of the corner of my eye. “Sorry ’bout that. I wanted to brag about how fantastic it was. I mean, how fantastic you are.” I lay it on thick.
“Did you give him details?” she asks.
“No.”
“No body description?”
“Nope.”
“As long as it was good.” She gives my knee a reassuring pat. “Dylan shouldn’t give up on this.” She returns to the argument with Sean. “I wouldn’t.”
“Because you’re a girl,” he says.
She reaches back and tugs his scarf. “No, because I’m human.”
“And you’d bring your new guy along?” He swats her hand away.
“Absolutely. If my new boyfriend wanted to come along to understand me better, why not?”
“You’re as cracked as he is.” He snorts, moving restlessly in the seat. “Dylan, I know you’ve been through hell, but you need to separate the past from the present. Especially with this new chick.”
“He’s saying that out of love,” I whisper to her.
She looks over her shoulder, eyes zeroing in on him. “Sean.”
“Huh?”
“There’s a moment in everyone’s life when the past and the present collide. It’s a sobering reminder of what has and hasn’t changed.”
He harasses her with a slow clap. “Good one. Where’d you hear that crap?”
“It’s not crap.” She throws him a dirty look. “Think about it.”
“Yeah, no. Men don’t want to be reminded of their past. It’s better to keep it hidden away forever.”
“All right, that’s enough from you two.” Their backbiting is nothing but caustic to my aching head. “Let up, or I’ll pull over and make you both walk home.”
Autumn clasps her hands in her lap, twiddling her thumbs. “He’s so annoying,” she whispers.
“Hey, Sean.” I tilt my mirror so I can see him better. “Is that what you think? That I’d be better off never thinking about Heather and Jake? Should I keep them hidden away like they never existed?”
He turns away. Autumn glances back at him before shifting her gaze at me, then at the window. She draws a heart on the fogged glass, and looks down at the heart tattoo on her finger, giving a half-smile. “I think a relationship is destined for failure when you hide the past from the present.” She presses her finger to the heart on the glass. “People are only interesting when they have a story to tell.” She swipes an arrow through it. “It’s part of the attraction. Too bad you’re a blank book, Sean.” She looks at him in the passenger-side mirror, and he scrunches his nose at her.
I ease into the brakes and park a few houses away from the Andersons’. It’s dark outside, but not late. They’re still awake and might see my truck if I park right in front.
“Dylan, this is not what your dad meant when he told you to stay out of trouble.” Sean grabs hold of the headrests and pulls himself forward; his face springs up between the two front seats. “We have an agreement. Right? This is the last time. Say it.”
“Last time,” I say.
“And you’re not doing anything foolish, right?”
“Right.” He made me swear I wouldn’t break any windows, kick in any doors, or use his gun. I can only ask Joel and Lona politely, politely, one last time to see the note.
“And when they tell you no, you’re going to respect that answer and walk away. Right?”
“Mm-hmm.”
“I can’t hear you.” He cups an ear.
“Right. No guns, no arguing, and I have to walk away when the Andersons tell me to go to hell.”
“Which house?” Autumn asks.
“Three up on the left.” I point.
She leans forward to have a peek. “The snow is too dense to see it from here.”
“It’s an English Tudor that looks like a miniature castle.” I open my door and step into the biting wind. “Wait here.”
They hop out and dash to my side of the truck. Autumn tucks her jeans into her boots while Sean wraps his scarf around his neck.
“We’re going with
you to make sure Lona doesn’t blow your head off,” he says.
“I figured as much.” I buzz my lips. “Don’t get trigger-happy like at the party. This is a different situation.”
A flickering streetlight by the Andersons’ house attracts me like a beacon. Snow swirls through front yards, and landscape lighting emits a romantic glow. Heather walked past the lights along their driveway the last night I saw her. She turned back to me and waved. I remember that now. Her blonde hair lifted in the wind, and there was a tear on her cheek.
“Why was she upset?”
“Who?” Sean asks.
I massage the back of my neck. “No one.”
We cross the street. Our boots sink into the fresh snowfall on the narrow sidewalk, burrowing into the crunchy layer hidden underneath.
Sean zips and unzips his coat. He does it again, the repetitive noise unleashing stress and anxiety.
“Stop,” I warn.
He stops briefly, starts again. Stops and starts.
“Cool it.”
He puts his hands in his pockets and takes kicking strides, causing snow tumbleweeds to blow down the walk.
“Sean, would you relax for once?”
“We shouldn’t be here again,” he says.
“It’s too late to turn around.”
“It’s never too late, Dylan.”
My arm extends across his chest, and I grab Autumn’s shoulder, stopping them as a car speeds past. Out of control, the rear end fishtails. It makes a quick turn into the Andersons’ driveway, smashing through a snow berm left by a plow. The car stampedes to the house and slides to a stop, mere inches from the garage.
It’s a black Lexus—Joel Anderson’s car.
“Don’t move,” I say, keeping an eye on the scene.
A line of pine trees separating the Andersons’ property from the neighbor’s screens us. The driver’s-side door swings open and Joel rushes out, arguing with Lona as she charges out of the car after him, their heated words echoing down the street.
“Don’t you dare tell me what I can and cannot do.” Lona wobbles close behind him in her high heels. “You hear me, Joel? If I want to talk to a lawyer, I will. I don’t need your goddamn permission.”
“We can go over things together, before you talk to a lawyer.”
The Lost Night Page 16
