This place didn’t feel like that, though. It felt emptier, less lived-in, more… well, more like the house I’d grown up in.
I was going to have to change that.
“I’ve got a crew coming in from the city to help me clean this place up this afternoon. Deep cleaning, replacing light bulbs, fixing broken cabinets and things like that,” I said. “It should be like new in no time.”
Vance smiled and nodded, but I knew he was as unconvinced as I was.
“What about furniture?” he asked.
“I was just going to ask you that same question,” I said, smiling widely at him. “Kinley has not one, but two furniture stores in town, if you can believe it. Care to join me later today?”
“I’ll certainly join you, but how the hell are we going to fit a couch or even a bed in the Mercedes?”
I waved him off. “They have a couple trucks we can rent. It’ll be fun. I haven’t driven a truck since I was eighteen.”
“You drove a truck?” Vance said, his eyes going wide.
“You’re so surprised?” I asked.
“I mean, yes,” he said. “Not that I think you couldn’t, I just think you wouldn’t want to.”
I shook my head. “Well, want is a strong word. But yes. I helped my dad drive a truck when he moved down to Oregon, right before I went to college.”
“Wow,” Vance said. “Is your pops still down there?”
I nodded. “He’s remarried, lives outside Portland with his wife. Doesn’t talk much with me, though.”
His face fell. “Can I… ask why not?”
“Ah…” I said. “It’s a long story. But for simplicity’s sake, let’s just say he doesn’t approve of the way I spend my money.”
“You’re a twenty-nine-year-old self-made CEO. Your father has no say in how you spend your money.”
I nodded. “Exactly. But he’d prefer that more of it go toward buying him a lavish home for him and his wife to retire in. And when I told him no, and that he can’t tell me how to spend my money, we kind of fell out of communication.”
“Why does he think your money should be for him?”
“He thinks I owe my success to him,” I said. “I would be nothing if it weren’t for him, blah, blah, blah. To him, the only reason I got into a good college and made it in real estate is because of the work ethic he instilled in me. I don’t think he realizes that the reason I wanted to go away to college so badly was to get away from him.”
“Jesus,” Vance said, his eyes sympathetic. “I’m so sorry to hear. I had no idea.”
It felt strange talking about my father. It was a topic I took great lengths to avoid. It could be hard for people to understand. They didn’t know my father like I did, didn’t know that he had never been loving or nurturing or anything other than critical of my every move.
I’d tried to have a good relationship with him, time and time again, but he had only been interested in my wealth, my business deals, my cars or apartments. It had only gotten worse since my mom had died.
I shook my head, pulling in a breath and plastering another smile on my face. “It’s totally okay!” I said. “We never got along that well to begin with, but when he saw in the papers that I had found some success, things got ugly. And I’m not willing to let that kind of ugliness into my life anymore.”
“You know how to stand up for yourself,” Vance said. “I admire that.”
I waved a hand. “Oh, please, Vance, you’re the best assistant I’ve ever had.”
“I’m also the only one you’ve ever had,” he said.
“True,” I agreed, “but that only proves my point. I wouldn’t have hung on to you this long if you weren’t great.”
“Wow, you’re really buttering me up today,” he said. “Are you about to tell me that you need me to go dig up bones from the backyard, or get an outhouse for this place, or something awful?”
“Not quite, but… today isn’t exactly going to be easy,” I said.
“Because of the newspapers.”
“Exactly.”
Vance shrugged one shoulder. “I mean, how many people read newspapers, anyway? It probably won’t be a big deal, right?”
Today was the first official announcement about the upcoming hearing for the bridge project. For almost everyone on the island, it was the first they were hearing about the new bridge proposal, and finding out that they’d need to come and present any questions and concerns at the town public meeting in a few days.
I shook my head. “You don’t know Kinley. Everybody reads the paper, and even if some people don’t, the people who do will shout about it from the rooftops as soon as they see what’s going on. In fact,” I said, checking my watch, “by now, I bet half the island has read about it.”
“They’ll probably just wait for the public hearing, though, won’t they?” he asked. “To voice their concerns?”
“Oh, God no,” I said. “They’re not going to wait. It’s not going to be an easy one.”
“You’re not... in danger, are you, Gavin?”
“What? Of course not,” I said. “The people of Kinley might be passionate, but they’re not violent.”
He eyed me cautiously. “All right,” he said finally. “But I’m going to be watching out for you.”
“We’ll be fine.”
“So I take it outreach hasn’t been going great?” Vance asked. He moved to lean against the old staircase banister near him, but jumped away when he realized it wasn’t quite steady. A plume of dust kicked into the air.
“Well… the first plan I had for outreach did not go as I expected,” I said. Another egregious understatement. “I’m still working on my best friend Hunter. He could help us enormously with the public relations side of things—his family has a long history on the island, and people know and trust the Wilsons. But he’s… not interested in that. Yet.”
“Jesus,” Vance said. “Even your best friend is going against you?”
“He grabbed my arm and told me to stop the bridge project immediately, actually,” I admitted.
“Gavin,” he said, “you’re a master negotiator. You’ve gotten people to practically sign their lives over to you before. You should just go talk to him again.”
“I… can’t,” I said, my stomach already winding into knots inside me.
“Why not? He’s your friend, right?”
I pictured Hunter leaning against me, under the twinkly lights two nights ago—pictured his soft scent and the way his lips had found their way to mine like they’d belonged there. How I’d wanted to pull him against me, wanted to kiss him harder and deeper, wanted to explore his body more than anything I’d ever desired in my life.
He’d felt perfect.
“Yeah, he’s my friend,” I said. “But it’s just… complicated, right now.”
Complicated actually meant totally, irreparably fucked up.
“What happened?” Vance asked. “If he’s unwilling to talk to you directly, maybe I could be an intermediary—”
I shook my head. “It’s not like that,” I said. “We… had a little too much to drink the other night, and things got… heated.”
“Oh no, did he try to fight you?”
“Hunter would never do that,” I said, almost defensively. “Trust me, we just need to work things out. I’ll do it on my own time—”
A loud, rattling knock sounded out from the front door.
“I see your goddamn Benz in the driveway! Let me the fuck in, Gavin!”
Vance and I locked eyes, and I felt like my stomach had just dropped down a ten-story building.
“Speak of the devil,” I said.
A moment later the front door swung open with a loud screech, and I whipped around to see Hunter, eyes livid, a newspaper in his hands.
“I’m going to fucking kill you!” he shouted.
“This is him?” Vance said, looking to me and rolling up his sleeves. For God’s sake, he was getting ready to fight.
“It’s him,�
� I said.
“Told you he was going to get violent,” Vance muttered, stepping between me and Hunter. “I’m going to need you to back the fuck up.”
“Vance, Jesus,” I said, stepping up and pushing him aside gently. “Everything’s fine—”
“Who’s this? You have a fucking bodyguard now?” Hunter asked, brow furrowed. “Good thinking, considering how you just willingly committed suicide by going through with this fucking project and printing this bullshit in the paper!”
“I said step back!” Vance said.
“Everyone just calm down!” I cried out. “The human nervous system reacts negatively to this sort of confrontation. Our cortisol levels in the blood are clearly getting a little out of control right now. On the count of three, I need all of us to take a deep, yogic breath in, and let it out slowly. Let’s re-center ourselves.”
I counted to three, but as I was taking a deep breath in, Vance just crossed his arms. Hunter glared at me.
It was the first time I’d seen him since the kiss, first time I’d heard from him at all. Even in the heat of the moment, I couldn’t help but notice how good he looked—he was in his work clothes, a patterned, navy-blue button-up shirt and slate-gray slacks.
“Wait. Aren’t… you supposed to be teaching biology right now?” I asked.
“It’s my lunch break. And I was supposed to be enjoying my ham and dijon sandwich while browsing the paper, and then I saw this shit. You weren’t at the cottages, so I came here.”
“How does your human nervous system react to that, Gavin?” Vance said.
I felt like I was trying to corral two rabid dogs for two very different reasons.
“You’re still going through with this,” Hunter said, shaking his head. “I knew you had balls but this is something else altogether.” He turned to lean on the banister.
“Hunter, I wouldn’t do that—” I said quickly, but it was too late. The banister lurched under the weight of his arm and the wooden post came undone, flying out onto the floor with a clatter. I reached out and gripped around his waist, narrowly preventing him from falling.
“There are way too many wood shards and stray rusty nails in here to have you falling down,” I said as he straightened out in my arms. “Are you okay?”
He just watched me, wide-eyed, as he caught his breath. “Yeah,” he said quickly. My arms were still around him, and I realized that I was holding him like I would if we were slow dancing—my arms around his waist, one of his around my shoulder. I was almost afraid to let him go, like if I didn’t keep holding onto him he might disappear into thin air or fall right through the floor. Nothing would have surprised me in this house.
But I let him go. Vance was staring at us like we were both crazy now, shaking his head.
“Vance, one of the furniture stores is just down this street, all the way at the end of the road,” I said. “Wetterman’s. Can’t miss it. Would you mind heading over?”
“You’re not going to come?”
“Not this afternoon,” I said. “Do feel free to send photos of anything you think I may like. You picked most of the stuff for the penthouse, anyway—I trust your taste.”
He cut his eyes at me. “Are you okay here? Really?”
I’d never seen such a display of loyalty from Vance. Though it wasn’t needed, I did appreciate knowing he cared that much about my well-being.
“I’m more than okay,” I said. “Hunter isn’t a threat, I promise you.”
“Wow, should I be taking offense to that?” Hunter interjected. “I know I’m Kinley Island’s biggest gay sweetheart, but I could fuck you up if I wanted to, Gav.”
Vance lifted an eyebrow at him again.
“Please. I’m not going to do anything,” Hunter said.
“I’ll keep you updated,” Vance told me before heading back out the world’s squeakiest front door.
And then it was just me and Hunter.
“Jesus,” Hunter said. “Whatever you’re paying him, you should probably double it.”
“He’s a great assistant,” I said, finally letting out a long breath I hadn’t even known I’d been holding. It was as if all of the endorphins from my ten-mile run had instantly been converted into an anxious, restless energy now that Hunter was here.
We hung in silence for a moment, unwinding from the insanity that the last few minutes had been.
“So this is really happening,” Hunter said, watching me closely. His anger was gone, replaced with a resolute sadness in his eyes.
“It’s happening. I told you it would,” I said.
He was quiet for at least a minute, staring intently out the window, chewing on the inside of his cheek. Worry wasn’t an emotion I was used to seeing on Hunter at all—he was typically so relaxed, the type of person who always stayed calm no matter the situation. Who could make anything seem possible.
But right now he looked like he was almost scared.
“Okay,” he finally said, throwing his hands up in the air. He dropped the newspaper onto my stairs. “Then we’re going to have to do damage control.”
I furrowed my brow. “What does that mean—”
“Listen to me, Gavin,” he said, staring me straight in the eyes and getting a step closer to me. “Do not, under any circumstances, leave this house today.”
“What?”
“I’ll be at the school until four o’clock, and then I’ll be back here. Do. Not. Leave. Am I clear, here?”
“I’m going to be here anyway, I have a cleaning crew coming and I’m going to help out—”
“You can go out to look at the water, but otherwise, just stay put,” Hunter said. He was fixing his eyes on me so that I would listen, but it was having an unintended effect of reminding me of the last time he was so close to me.
The kiss, the kiss, the kiss. I hadn’t known how to deal with it in the first place—I’d fucking run away, for God’s sake, walking all the way up the hill to the cottages because I didn’t know how I’d be able to face Hunter again.
What was clearly a drunken whim of a mistake for him had been something I’d wanted for almost my whole life. I didn’t know how to process how much I had loved having his lips on mine, how shocking yet totally comfortable it felt, how many times my brain had replayed the image since then.
It was going to absolutely fucking kill me if I didn’t say something about the kiss to him. In almost every self-help book I’d read, I’d been told to honor my honest truth, to be perfect with my words, to be unafraid to express how I felt to others. It had been nearly impossible for me as a kid and teenager, but in adulthood, it had been one of my biggest projects to just express my true feelings.
I thought I’d gotten good at it. But every moment around Hunter was testing me.
I was never going to make it in Kinley if I didn’t say something.
I had to just do it.
Now.
I took a deep breath. “Hunter, I need to tell you I’m sor—”
“Fuck,” he said, running a hand through his hair and looking at his phone with the other. “Fuck, fuck, fuck. I’m supposed to be starting a class in… three minutes.”
He bounded for the door, turning back only to shout at me. “I’ll be here at four fifteen! Don’t you dare go anywhere!”
And then he was gone, like a dandelion in the wind.
I only wanted to get some carrots and hummus.
Hunter had said not to leave, yes, but after three and a half hours, I was wilting. I couldn’t be expected to make it four hours without proper fuel in my body, and I’d started to think I was getting in the way of the cleaning crew rather than helping them in any real way. I would never sacrifice my blood sugar for the sake of potential social interactions.
And besides, how bad could it be? It wasn’t as if my picture was in the newspaper. The worst that could happen is that someone would recognize me from when I used to live on the island, but that seemed unlikely.
I drove down to Nelson’s Grocery and had no
trouble finding carrots, hummus, some fresh berries, and even a carton of almond milk. The red-haired woman at the register was as kind as could be, smiling and asking me how my day had been.
“Things are going just fabulously, Henrietta,” I said, reading the name on her tag. “And how about you?”
She beamed. “Well, I do love that positive attitude!” she said. “Things are going great here, too.”
“Couldn’t ask for anything more,” I said cheerfully. I handed her my credit card when she rang up my total.
When she swiped the card, she paused for a minute, looking at the screen in front of her and then down to my card.
“Why does that name sound familiar? Gavin Bell…”
“My parents were Monica and Sam Bell. Did you know them?”
She peered at me. “Can’t say I did.”
Then I saw it. She had a half-folded copy of the local paper on the table right in front of her. Her eyes darted from it back up to me at the same time as I looked back at her.
“Gavin Bell, huh?” she said, her eyes like daggers now. She gripped my credit card in her hand, glaring at me. “Some nerve on you, coming in here. You know your bridge is never going to be built right? Kinley won’t have it.”
“Henrietta, I’m sorry—”
“Don’t you say my name like you know me. Waltzing on the island like you own the place.”
“I was born and raised on Kinley, too.”
“And now you want to come back and destroy everything we are?” she said. “Despicable.”
I was flagging. I wasn’t ready for a fight, and I just needed some carrots and hummus.
“Can I just have my card back? I’ll be on my way.”
“We’ve seen the Benzes around town,” Henrietta said, shaking her head. “Read my lips: never a bridge. Never.”
“Is everything okay over here?” a tall man in a uniform that matched Henrietta’s came by. His shirt was embroidered with the words Store Manager.
“No, John, they’re not,” she said. “This is the guy. The CEO of this Alto Ventures operation. Trying to turn Kinley into Seattle’s newest hot neighborhood.” She used air quotes for the last three words.
The man’s eyes darkened just as hers had, but he stayed calm. “It’ll never happen,” he said. “I’d say good luck, but really, I wouldn’t mean it. You’ll be hearing similar things from us and thousands more at that hearing this week.”
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