That was twice now he’d said something almost polite.
I didn’t trust it. It had to be a ploy—to throw me off the scent. “I didn’t hire anyone to hit you. I’m a life coach, not a death coach. You’re the death coach, telling people they need to give up and die.”
He looked at me like he was seeing me through a thick pane of glass. “I can see I’ve overstayed my welcome.”
I would have said there’d been no welcome to begin with, but considering the gushing fire-hoses of welcome he’d received from TallSurfer and Dad, it wouldn’t have been accurate.
As he pushed away from the porch railing and headed around the side of the house, he was obviously unsteady and clutched at a porch pillar.
“Are you … okay?”
“I shouldn’t have come here.”
No, he shouldn’t have. But why had he? “Dr. Hotwell,” I said, against my will.
He kept walking. Mom poked her head out the front door. “Is your friend leaving so soon? He didn’t even get anything from the buffet. Dad has a few more questions for him. You’ll come again another day, won’t you, Dr. Hotwell? Can I call you Luke?”
He gave her that tight smile and mumbled something like thanks.
Half of me wanted to glue myself to him as he tottered down the driveway, to steady him. Half of me wanted to push him into the road. All of me ended up going inside the house—piling a little plate with shrimp from the restocked buffet and hiding in the hallway, a new puzzlement with every little crustacean I mashed into my gaping maw.
And Luke Hotwell was at the center of every single confused thought.