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I leaned over the couch and saw, neatly folded, a pair of sweatpants and a cashmere sweater. The sweatpants looked new—WYLIE FOR THE WYNN was written down the right leg—this was his Vegas residency, the one my dad had been so opposed to seeing. The cashmere sweater, though, I had a feeling was Chloe’s. I picked it up carefully. It was a light camel color, and maybe the softest thing I’d ever felt.
Washing my clothes was a really nice gesture—as was leaving me these—but I couldn’t help wishing they’d just dropped my stuff off and left me alone. Because now it felt like a ball had just been tossed into my court.
I traced my finger over the word Fishbowl. Somehow, knowing there was a time attached made this all so much harder to ignore. And made it impossible to just keep hiding out here, like I’d planned on.
Would Russell think it was weirder if I was staying in my guesthouse all night, refusing to come out? Or if I was playing some sort of game with his family members? And would it be too strange for him to see me back there again, with his family? After he’d already had what I was assuming was a hard talk with his dad?
You might not even see him, Didi pointed out, ever logical. He might have gone to bed. It’s late.
It was late—and yet, I was wide-awake. And hungry. The chips had only seemed to make me hungrier—the tacos that Russell and I had eaten on the football field felt like a whole other lifetime ago. And I had blown my hair out…
Before I could talk myself out of it, I grabbed the clothes from the couch and then hurried into the bathroom to change.
* * *
I had assumed that Tidbit would stay where he was—he had barely moved at all since I’d been in the guesthouse—but as soon as I opened the door, I heard the sound of paws hitting the floor, and then the dog came walking down the hallway, his head level with the bottom of the picture frames. “Oh,” I said, blinking at him. I honestly wasn’t sure I would ever get used to being around a dog this big. “Are you coming too?”
He leaned his head against me, and as I gave him a tentative scratch on the forehead, he closed his eyes, like he liked it. When I stopped he just opened his eyes and looked at me, and I laughed and scratched behind his ears this time. “Okay,” I said as I headed over to the door. “Shall we?” Now that he’d decided to come, I was actually pretty glad—because while Chloe had been clear that he could open doors, she hadn’t said anything about his ability to close them.
We crossed the lawn to the house together, the giant dog padding next to me like an honor guard. I stepped in through the glass door, and Tidbit shook himself, a full-body shake, then headed in the direction of his water bowl in the kitchen. I pulled the door shut behind me, since the last thing I wanted was for Andy to get out and for it to be all my fault, then looked around.
There was no longer the full crowd that had been here when Chloe and I had breezed through. There was just Montana, sitting on top of one of the kitchen islands with a glass of wine, bent over her phone, and Connor, Sydney, and Wallace all sprawled on the couch. The TV was now showing some kind of medieval-set video game that Sydney and Wallace were playing while Connor read a book. I was relieved that there weren’t quite so many people here now—and that the three-year-old had, hopefully, gone back to bed.
But most important—neither Russell or Wylie was anywhere to be seen.
“No! No! No! No! You absolute bellend!” Wallace yelled as he tossed his controller onto the giant ottoman coffee table.
“Don’t swear at my wife,” Connor said vaguely, turning a page in his book.
“I’m fine,” Sydney said, grinning. “I’m better than fine, because I just destroyed Wallace’s grain holdings and his dwarf fled his shire.”
Connor looked up and frowned. “Explain this game to me again?”
“And it doesn’t count if it’s British swearing,” Wallace explained, leaning back against the couch cushions. “Everyone knows that. I feel like your wife is taking advantage of my distracted state.”
“Alyssa will call when she’s free, Wallace,” Sydney said.
He sighed, then nodded at the television. “Go again?”
“Darcy!” Montana looked up from her phone and smiled at me. “You’re here. Oh, yay. Are you playing Fishbowl?”
“We’re never going to play Fishbowl,” Wallace grumbled from the couch. “I’ve given up even hoping. It’s like Waiting for Fishbowl over here. We’ve had the game set up for literal hours, but noooo, we had to stop and eat pasta first.…”
“Do you want any?” Montana asked me as she pushed herself off the island. She headed toward what I thought was a cabinet until she pulled it open and I realized it was actually a refrigerator—just in disguise for some reason.
“Sure,” I said, feeling my stomach rumble again. “That would be great.”
“Priya will be so happy,” Montana said as she pulled a glass container out of the fridge. “She hates when there’s leftovers; she always sees it as an indictment of her cooking, even when she’s made enough to feed an army.” She pulled down a bowl, then looked back toward the couch. “Anyone else still hungry?”
“I’m good,” Sydney said as she picked up her controller—apparently she and Wallace were going to play another round. “Hey, Darcy. Get settled okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, glancing back toward the guesthouse. “Everything is really amazing. It’s so nice of you guys to let me stay. And Chloe, um… gave me her clothes?”
Montana laughed. “She does that.”
“I think it’s just a loan, though, until mine get clean.”
“Want to play?” Sydney asked, holding up her controller. “I could use some real competition.”
