Chapter Thirteen
Zack
Nancy puts dinner on the table and heads for the door with a knowing smirk.
“Really, we’d love for you to stay,” Colette insists for the third time. “There’s plenty for all of us. Jed, too, if he wants to come up and eat.”
“Jed doesn’t come up to the big house after dark,” Nancy says, gathering her jacket from the armchair closest to the back door.
Colette shrinks in her chair beside me—Nancy placed us both on the side of the table with the view of the yard so we could watch the stars come out during dessert. She insisted if we didn’t take at least two hours to eat, we were “doing life wrong.”
“Is it because of the…?” Colette’s finger drifts up to point toward the ceiling.
Nancy’s face remains blank for a long moment before she bursts into loud laughter. “Oh, no! Not at all. The spirits are a lot less active than Jed makes out. Ninety-nine percent of the time, no one sees or hears anything out of the ordinary. He just knows himself too well. If he made a habit of getting too friendly with the guests, he’d wear out his welcome. He never knows when to leave the party, you know?”
She reaches for the door but then pauses with her fingers on the handle. “But if you decide to go into town, give us a call. Jed would love to ferry you there and back again. Give him an excuse to hang out with his buddies at the hardware store. They have a secret bar in the back where they drink Pabst Blue Ribbon and take turns losing their paycheck over poker.”
“Sounds like a good time,” I say. “I’ll have to ask if I can tag along one night.”
“Can girls come, too?” Colette asks. “I’m pretty good at poker, if I do say so myself.”
“I’m sure they’d love to have you both,” Nancy says. “But fair warning. The rest of the guys are even chattier than Jed. You’ll be lucky if you can get a word in edgewise.”
Colette grins. “Good. The more they talk, the faster their money is my money.”
Nancy laughs. “Now you have to go play. I need to hear that story. You’ll be a legend in Little River in no time.” With a wave, she opens the door, disappearing into the sunset light with a final, “Good night.”
She closes the door behind her, and then there’s nothing to break the quiet but the occasional creak of the house settling and the caw of a crow outside on the lawn. Colette shrinks in her chair, making it clear she isn’t finding the silence as easy as I am.
“You okay?” I ask her again, letting my arm stretch across the back of her chair.
She smiles brightly. “Yeah. Great.”
“You look like you’re about five seconds from crawling under your chair to hide.”
She glances down at her hands clenched in her lap and laughs. “Sorry. I’m being silly. Please ignore me and my overactive imagination.” She sits up, rolling her shoulders back as she reaches for the bottle of homemade salad dressing. “Let’s dig in. I’m famished, aren’t you?”
“Starving, but it’s not silly to be spooked. And the offer still stands, Cee. We can find somewhere else to stay if you don’t feel comfortable here.”
“No way. We’re staying. This place is great.” She turns to me, her gaze softening. “And my grandma used to call me that. Cee. Well, Cee-Cee, for my first and middle names.”
“What’s your middle name?” I want to know everything about her. I want to collect pieces of her story and horde it like a dragon guarding his treasure.
“Claude,” she says, giggling as my brows lift. “I know. My mom decided to name me after her grandmother if I was a girl and her grandfather if I were a boy. But she was so messed up by whatever drugs they gave her in the delivery room that she ended up naming me both.”
I lean in, pressing a kiss to her forehead. “I love it.”
“Now, your turn.” She scoots the salad dressing my way. “Tell me something embarrassing about you.”
“That’s not embarrassing. It’s cute. Anyone ever call you Claude?”
“Just Theo when she’s drunk and arguing with me about sex toys.”
I cough. “What?”
“I sell sex toys as my side hustle,” she says, matter-of-factly. “You didn’t know?” I shake my head, fighting to keep my thoughts from running wild. I really am starving and need to get something in my stomach before I race Colette to the bedroom, where I intend to make her come for me at least twice before we find something else to do to keep our mind off sex until morning.
I dress my salad and grab my fork, digging in as Colette continues with a shrug, “I thought everyone knew. It was such a scandal at first. All the old ladies in Hidden Kill Bay could talk about. You would have thought I’d started selling crack rock to babies, not BPA-free dildos to consenting adults.”