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I nod and wait for her to say more.
October runs a finger over the rim of her wine glass. “Is this what you expected to find when you came here?” Concern for me is her first response.
It’s been a while since I’ve actually felt like someone truly cared about me, and it’s an addictive feeling. To be loved. I didn’t realize how much I’d been missing that these past six years.
It can’t last, Zo, I silently remind myself. Mistpoint Harbor is just a midpoint. Not a destination. I can’t let myself believe things here will last beyond just a quick pitstop.
I shake my head. “I came here with zero expectations,” I admit. “But running headfirst into a mystery wasn’t in my top ten list.”
She sets the wine glass on the nightstand. “Maybe it won’t be much of a mystery. Missing persons sometimes aren’t even missing at all.”
Her parents.
I know she’s talking about them. The day she found out the truth—that her parents abandoned her and Babette for Canada—she called me to meet her on the fishing pier and she released the truth like someone trying to set a caged animal free. I’d never seen October cry before that day.
“Have you ever spoken to them? Your parents, I mean?” I wonder.
Her eyes soften for a second and then I watch her construct wall after wall. “Rule number one,” she reminds me coldly. “No discussion of family.”
A frustrated sound leaves my lips. “We’re really keeping these rules intact?” I raise my brows. “One. You just fingered me, Kenobi.”
She smiles like she’s pleased with herself.
Fuck it, I love when she smiles, so I don’t mind that much.
“Two,” I add swiftly. “You’re already smack dab in my family drama.”
She sinks back into a lumpier pillow, considering for a long second. When I was alone in the Poe room, this dingy, gothic atmosphere creeped me out, but with October here, I could live in this room for eternity.
Like we’re two women in a 16th century romance. Lace bodices, unwieldy corsets, fashionable stockings—clothes we’d get tangled in and then slowly slip off each other. Only to kiss.
I bite my lip.
Still wishing to kiss her.
Maybe in another lifetime, we held each other bare. We kissed. We made love and woke to a sliver of sunlight in a musty room. The sweet scent of each other was all we needed. All we wanted.
All we ached for.
I’m good at dreaming about October. So good that if I could actually write worth a damn, I might just be able to pen the saddest tale about the girl who calls herself a ghost. The girl I’m not supposed to have.
October sighs in defeat. “I tried calling my parents. A couple years ago. I should’ve left it alone.”
I frown. “Why?”
“I don’t want to hear what they have to say. Not really. They’re better left a mystery.” She sits up more, and I reach for her, splaying my hand an inch or so from her hand on the bed. Our fingers brush.
Her narrowed eyes flit up to me like, back away.
I don’t.
I can’t.
She can’t.
And I just ask, “Did they say anything? A hello or a how are you?”
“No.” Her voice is tight. “They didn’t answer, so I figured they don’t want to talk.”
I hate that.
For as much crap as my dad has gotten over the years, he never iced me out. Never totally left. Even though he’s on a freighter for eight months out of the year, he still always tries to keep in touch with Brian, Colt, and me. I hate that her parents could so easily leave behind October and Babette like they meant nothing, and I can’t begin to imagine the pain the abandonment must have caused her.
I left too.
That annoying thought churns guilt through my stomach.
“They’re shit,” I tell her. I’m shit, I want to say.
“It is what it is,” she says. “I’m not crying over it. They already had my tears once. They won’t get them again.”
Wind whips against the heavy drapes and rattles the windowpane. A burst of cold infiltrates the room. I shiver, and October glares at the window like the wind has accosted me. She rises to her feet. “Kelly purposefully hasn’t sealed the window in this room.” She stomps towards the Keurig on a little oak desk.
“Maybe she thinks freezing your ass off makes you believe in the supernatural.” I grab a knitted quilt at the end of the bed.
“I’m sure it’s worked on at least one gullible tourist,” October replies. She brews a cup of coffee, and then meanders back to my side. “Here.”
I take the steaming mug. “Thanks.”
“It’s hot. Don’t sip it yet.”
I blow on it instead, making a show of staring hard into her eyes as I do so.
She drills a pointed look into me. Like I’m both maddening her and mesmerizing her. “Zoey.”
