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The doorman eyes my backpack suspiciously, but when I tell him I’m here to see Mr. Larsen, he leads me to the elevator with quick steps and a professional smile.
“Second door on the left,” he says, after pressing the button marked 3. I endure countless seconds of inane elevator music before the doors open with apingto let me out on the third floor. I head for my dad’s apartment, toying with my backpack’s strap.
Since this morning, I’ve been trying to muster up enough courage to broach the subject of Mom. We haven’t spoken about her since we left the city. It never seemed to be right time.
Also, I know he blames me… and I don’t think he’s forgiven me yet.
After knocking a few times, I’m wondering if I heard the doorman right, because my father still hasn’t answered the door. My stomach knots up a little. Most likely, he forgot about our meeting… but I can’t help thinking something bad happened to him.
As I’m taking out my phone, the door opens. My father backs out of his apartment, eyes on the cellphone in his one hand while the other tugs on the door handle. If I hadn’t squeaked out, “Dad!” and jumped back a foot, he’d have bumped into me.
He spins around, blinking owlishly at me from behind his round spectacles. “Evie? What are you doing here?”
Ah, so he did forget.
At least he’s not bleeding out in the kitchen or something after a nasty accident with a chef’s knife. I shake my head at the macabre direction my imagination often takes.
“We had plans. Remember?”
He blinks a few more times and then gives me an absent smile. “Why, yes, yes. Of course.” His faint European accent makes me instantly sentimental. “Come in.”
“Where were you going?”
“The town hall. Did you know it’s the oldest structure in Pinecrest? It was the only government building that survived the fire in 1808. Miss Gregory told me about it yesterday.”
“Miss Gregory?” I sweep my gaze over my father’s apartment. It must have been a furnished lease, because the place is filled with tasteful, minimalistic furniture.
The dining room table is covered with books and blueprints. Father was halfway through a project when we left; he brought one duffel bag of clothes and three boxes full of his engineering things.
“So… uh… are we ordering pizza?” I ask.
All I’ve had this morning was a cup of coffee with Sterling and Kat. He was the first one back from the lake, and to hear him tell it, the only Royal who survived the night. Liam and Ada were apparently passed out in Liam’s X7—still parked by the lake—and Oz and Wilder went to an after-party in the woods with a bunch of university cheerleaders.
My dad lets out a soft laugh that takes me instantly back to all the nights Mom came home after church and found us watching TV instead of getting dinner ready. “Yes, sure. I’ll order.”
But he doesn’t take out his phone, and from the slightly panicked expression on his face, I already know what’s happening.
I cross my arms, putting my head to the side, and realize I look exactly like Mom did on those nights. I quickly drop my arms. “Were you supposed to meet Miss Gregory at the town hall?”
He gives me a faint smile, waggling a finger at me. “You are too clever, my dear. Too clever by far.”
I throw up my hands, dropping my backpack on the floor beside the dining room table. “Screw it. Let’s go take a look at this place. If I’m going to be staying here for the next few years of my life, I might as well appreciate the architecture.”
Dad grins, slinging an arm around my shoulder as I join him outside. He closes and locks his apartment, already going on about the engineering marvel that is Pinecrest’s town hall—as if I’m not about to witness it myself. We’re in the elevator when I realize I’ve left my phone behind, but screw it.
I won’t need it where I’m going.
* * *
Miss Gregory is absolutely smitten with my father. It’s like she isn’t even aware of their twenty-year age gap. I can’t blame her—despite my father’s white hair, he still looks good for his age. That’s because he spends more time drowning in blueprints than he does smoking, or drinking, or going outside. I cringe when I think back to when my city friends first met him. They all thought he was my grandfather. He had a good decade or so on my mom when they fell in love. I thought it was romantic, but now I’m wondering if he has a thing for younger women.
Miss Gregory—AKA ‘please call me Lana’—keeps throwing me these looks from the corner of her eye. My unexpected arrival obviously threw a spanner in the works.
Or, maybe, she’s finally realized just how much older my father is.
I’d guess Miss ‘really, Lana is fine’ Gregory can’t be older than thirty.
“So Evie, how was your first week at college?” my father asks as he starts taking his sandwich apart. We’re sitting at one of the benches in the park outside Pinecrest’s town hall.
