“Is there something you want to ask me, Rory?” he said finally, looking across the room at Krista, who was still standing by the fireplace.
“Yeah, there is,” I said, sitting up straight and facing him completely. Somehow, his direct question made me brave. “What happened to the kid in the park?”
He looked me in the eye. “The kid in the park.”
“The guitar player. The one with the dreads. I saw you watching him play the other day with Fisher, so I know you know who I’m talking about,” I said, warming to my inquiry. “Where is he, and why doesn’t my sister remember him? Oh, and why is his guitar strap hanging in your storage room back there?”
“Rory…” he began, his voice low.
The way he said my name, like he really knew me—like he’d always known me—sent a warm rush through my chest. I looked up at him, right in the eye, and found I couldn’t look away.
“Rory!” a familiar voice called out.
“Oh, hey, Aaron!” I said, standing up to give him a hug and trying not to groan at his timing. Tristan had just been about to tell me something about the minstrel. I could feel it. “Have you met Tristan? This is his house.”
“Oh, yes. Of course.” Aaron offered his hand, and Tristan pushed himself up to shake with him. “Killer party, man.”
“Thanks.” Then he glanced over at his sister, who was giving him some kind of eye. Unspoken words between siblings, I guessed. “I’ve gotta go…do a thing.” Tristan said. He looked from me to Aaron and back to me again. I could tell there was something he wanted to say, but he thought better of it. “You two have fun.”
Then he made his way through the crowd, over to his sister.
“He seems like a good guy,” Aaron said.
I took a deep breath. “That’s still to be determined.”
“So, you sore from the other day?” Aaron asked, taking a sip from his drink.
I frowned in thought. “No, actually. That’s weird.”
I had been exhausted after windsurfing—in a good way—and sure that the muscles I almost never tapped into would be hurting for days to come.
Aaron laughed. “Guess you’re a better athlete than you thought.”
“Apparently,” I said.
“So let’s go out again? Say, Friday morning? I’ll pick you up at your place?” Aaron suggested.
“I’m in,” I said with a smile.
It might be good for me to spend more time with Aaron and less with the locals. So far, he was the least enigmatic person I’d met on this crazy island.
“Hey, check it out,” he said, glancing over my shoulder. “The fog’s coming in again.”
Sure enough, the air outside was swirling, the lights along the bluff winking out one by one. All the partygoers began to gather at the windows to watch, and Aaron tugged me over to join them.
“This is so cool,” someone in the crowd breathed.
“Creepy, you mean,” someone else replied.
“I read this book once where there were monsters living in the mist,” a guy said, putting on an eerie voice. A few of his friends laughed, and we all fell silent, watching the fog envelop the house.
Out of nowhere, I felt a niggling at the back of my neck and I turned around. Krista was slipping out a side door near me, while at the other end of the hallway, Tristan was sliding open the glass door to the patio, holding it for Olive. She smiled up at him as they stepped outside, the gray mist swirling around them. I felt a sudden thump of fear, and opened my mouth to call out to them, but no words came. What would I say? Be careful? Don’t go out there? Tristan lived here. He knew this place and he knew about the fog. He wouldn’t be taking Olive outside if it was dangerous. I hoped.
As everyone else at the party gaped out the front windows, I watched Tristan and Olive walk down the steps, his hand on the small of her back, until they both disappeared into the fog.
The moment he saw a girl, he knew whether or not she was his type. It was not physical. No. Physically, the variety of his conquests was great. So great that all the profilers in Washington and California, in Virginia and D.C., had a difficult time figuring him out. He was certain that, at first, they believed he didn’t have a type. Lacey Turner was, after all, short and fat and blond, while Gigi Abassian was tall and lithe, with dark skin, dark eyes, dark hair. Jenna Moskowitz had acne and eczema and braces, while Felicia Renee had modeled for magazines. And then there was Rory Miller. Rory Miller, the plainest of the plain.
Except for the hair. That lovely, delicious hair…