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“I’m not sure what part of this story I like the least,” I say, discarding. “That you shared a cake with a dog, or that you both threw up in the back of a station wagon. I do like the Iron Maiden part, though.”
“It had that creepy mascot Eddie on the front, so I cried every time I looked down.”
This makes me burst out laughing, and it feels so good to be genuinely happy for a few breaths that I lean back in my chair. When I sit up again, I realize Carey has won this game of gin and is carefully laying down her hand.
“Holy shit, how did you win so fast?”
She shrugs, and it’s a sweet, blushing gesture that sideswipes me in a tender space near my lungs. “I don’t think you shuffled very well,” she says. “You dealt me two aces and three jacks.”
I look down at my own motley hand of random numbers and suits. “I think you just got a lucky deal.”
“Eh. I played a lot with the boys back home,” she says, reaching for the cards to shuffle them. “A lucky deal was when you joined Comb+Honey.”
“Lucky for who?” I ask, grinning.
She taps the cards on the table. “Me.”
I think about her words and her tone and her blush as she carefully cuts the deck in two and lines them up to shuffle them, slowly. It occurs to me, watching her, that she doesn’t hide her dystonia from me anymore. I don’t think she ever would have done this in front of me before this trip.
I wonder who else she’s this comfortable around. Certainly not Melissa, not anymore. Things between her and Rusty are still weird, like a stepfather and stepdaughter who don’t interact much. I know she has roommates, but she doesn’t talk about them often.
“Are your roommates back from their trip?”
She thinks for a second while she shuffles again. “No, I think they were supposed to be gone essentially as long as we were. I bet their trip feels like it’s flying by. Can you imagine?”
I give her a sympathetic wince. “What are they like?”
Smiling, she starts to deal. “They’re cool. Peyton is an insurance adjustor, which honestly cracks me up because she’s so energetic and athletic but chose a job where she’s in an office all day. She plays on like three different rec softball teams and umpires for the local high school league. She teaches yoga and is a really active member of a community garden project. And Annabeth is, like, the total opposite. She’s so sweet and gentle, sort of shy until you get to know her. She’s a flight attendant so they get to travel everywhere and …” She pauses, shrugging. “They’re cool,” she repeats, finally.
I see the cloud start to sweep in, the droop in her shoulders and downward angle of her mouth, and feel like an asshole for bringing up anyone outside of this crazy situation, anyone we know who has a normal life and a normal job and normal attachments.
But the more I think about what “normal” is, the more I wonder why I think my feelings for Carey would be any different in another circumstance than they are right here. I don’t have feelings for her because we’ve been forced together, or because I feel sorry for her. I have feelings for her because she’s frankly amazing: she’s brilliant, humble, beautiful, and resilient.
I open my mouth to speak—honestly, I don’t know what I’m going to say, but I need to barrel past this emotion clogging my chest. I’m just hoping some words come out and they make sense—but she shushes me, her eyes wide.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Do you hear that?”
I turn in a panic, listening for what she means. “All I hear is silence.”
Carey’s smile stretches across her cheeks; her blue-green eyes sparkle like the river outside. “Exactly.”
But then her smile fades at the same time the realization hits me, too: silence could mean someone has been murdered.
We tiptoe into the kitchen—no one is there.
No one is in the backyard near the river. No one is in the game room. But when we peek in the entertainment room, we find Melissa on one giant chair and Rusty on another. No gore or blood in sight, only the sound of two people snoring, with Joe Versus the Volcano playing on the enormous screen at the front of the room.
We stare for a second, shocked at the sight. Rusty’s mouth hangs open; his beer is perched precariously on his chest. I’d bet, even asleep, Rusty could hold on to that thing in a hurricane. Melissa is curled up in a tight ball, like her defenses are up even in her slumber.
Carefully, we back out of the room.
“I’m amazed they were watching a movie together,” Carey whispers, awed.
