“Really?” he answers, sounding doubtful. “That’s disappointing.”
“You’re going to be in the Carriage House anyway,” I tell him. “There aren’t any dead people out there. I mean, I assume you’re renting it, right?
Please be right.
He nods. “Yeah. Thanks for letting me know about it. It’s just what I’ve been looking for. A nice little space with gorgeous scenery.”
As he says the words gorgeous scenery, he stares straight at me, with purpose.
I’m his gorgeous scenery. I suddenly can’t breathe enough to even try to ask him why he wants to be in Astoria in the first place.
“Kismet,” I manage to eke out.
He nods. “Kismet.”
Dare stares at me, long and hard and dark, and I manage to take one deep breath, then another.
“So I’ll be seeing you,” he says, abruptly ending our conversation by standing up.
“When are you moving in?” I ask, suddenly panicky at the thought of him leaving. He brings with him an air of comfort, of excitement, of something charged and dangerous and new. I don’t want to let that go just yet.
He grins.
“Now. I brought my bag.”
His bag? I follow his gesture to see a duffel bag strapped to the back of his bike. One bag.
“That’s it?”
“I travel light,” he answers, heading back to the Carriage House. To his home, which is now only a hundred feet from my own.
“I guess you do,” I murmur. I watch the way his wide shoulders sway, and the way the breeze flutters his dark hair. He grabs his bag and ducks into his new home and I realize that I forgot to ask him something.
How long he’s staying.
***
Dinner feels different tonight, mainly because I know Dare is a hundred yards away.
I serve up spaghetti, which is the easiest meal on the planet to prepare, and garlic bread and corn. My father eats with gusto, while Finn, as usual, pushes things around on his plate. His meds make him lose his appetite.
We’re eating late, because my father worked late.
At the thought of his ‘work’, I can’t help but glance at his hands. I know he washed them several times when he came upstairs, but just the thought of what he’d been doing with them, what he’d been handling, grosses me out. I know that a scant hour or so ago, he was jamming a needle into a dead person’s neck and replacing all of their blood with chemical fluid.
And now he’s eating with those same hands.
It’s gross and it’s hard to swallow my blood-colored spaghetti sauce.
“So, how was your day?” I ask Finn, trying desperately to think of something else. I hadn’t seen him all afternoon. He shrugs.
“Good, I guess. I finished going through my closet. I’ve got a few boxes for Goodwill, dad.”
My dad nods, but I see something on Finn’s face, something flicker, and I widen my eyes. Don’t do it, I try and tell him telepathically. Don’t mention mom’s stuff. Don’t.
And he doesn’t. Instead, he looks at me.
“Actually, I have something I want to tell you guys.”