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“Yeah.” She sniffled. “Luke, there’s been an accident at the apartment. A gas leak.”
Every last ounce of joy he’d just been feeling drained from him in a heartbeat. “A gas leak,” he repeated numbly. “Tell me” — Luke swallowed against the pressure in his throat as Dylan’s hand came to rest on his shoulder — “tell me Andy’s okay.”
“Oh, she is,” Kory said quickly. “I’m sorry to scare you, but… god, Luke, Petals is…” She couldn’t finish the rest. But she didn’t have to.
Luke already knew.
“I’m on my way.” He clicked off and started shoving his belongings into the beach bag.
Dylan scooped up Luke’s board and tucked it under his other arm. “I’ll drive you.”
Luke and Dylan walked right into Andy’s open apartment several minutes later. Inside, an older guy from the local utility company was inspecting her kitchen. Gaze rising to them, he nodded towards Andy’s patio. “You with the tenants out back?”
“Yeah, one of them is my girlfriend.”
The man stepped away from the stove to scribble some notes on a steel clipboard. “You can tell them it’s all clear in here. Couldn’t hurt to keep the windows and doors open for a bit, but the gas levels are safe now.”
He glanced over at Petals’s empty cage and shook his head. “Shame about the bird though. I’ve seen a number of ’em check out this way. Doesn’t take much from an open burner to put something that small to sleep permanently. I’m always telling people not to put caged pets near kitchens.”
He pulled off his work hat to scratch the remaining grays on his balding head. “Of course, paint fumes can do it too. I swear, people don’t even think sometimes—”
“Yeah,” Luke cut in darkly. “They really don’t.” He moved forward, fully prepared to throw the guy out if he didn’t shut his trap. The last thing Andy needed was to hear this shit.
Dylan was quick to intercede. “Yo,” he said, stepping in front of Luke, “you can save the verbal report. We’re good with the paperwork.”
The man ripped a yellow form from his clipboard, tossed it on the counter, and split. Luke didn’t watch him go; he was already headed towards the patio.
Slipping outside, he found Andy sitting in her patio swing. It was one of those rattan egg deals that only one person could fit into. Normally, it faced the patio, but someone had turned it to face the trees. Luke circled around it, and there, curled up in the cushioned swing, he found his girlfriend holding a bundled-up blanket.
Tear stains marred Andy’s cheeks as she peered down at the still profile of Petals’s face.
“Andy,” he said quietly as he dropped to a crouch in front of the swing.
She cocked her head slightly, but her gaze never wavered from her bird. “When I look at her, I can still see me.” Luke realized by the way she was studying them that Andy was referring to her reflection in Petals’s sightless eyes. “I can still see me, and I look so sad.”
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered.
Big blues lifted to him. Pooling with tears. Instinctively, Luke reached for her, but Andy jerked back into the deep basket of the chair.
“No,” she snapped. “Don’t touch me right now! I don’t want to be touched!”
Luke backed off, hands falling uselessly to his sides. “Okay. I won’t touch you.”
It killed him not to. His arms ached with the need to pull her to him, but if space was what she needed, he could be patient.
He glanced back towards the patio, meeting Dylan’s somber gaze for a moment before his sights shifted to the couple leaning against the wall to the right of the doors. Kory was pale, staring off into the distance. At her side, her boyfriend wore a tense expression as he locked eyes with Luke.
Gray Dude had something to tell him.
It had better not be that his punk ass had left the burner on.
Luke turned back to Andy. “I’m gonna go have a talk with your friends,” he said, trying and failing to keep the irritation out of his voice.
“Don’t,” Andy said quickly, eyes flashing up to his. “Don’t yell at them. I already did, and it’s not their fault. They didn’t use the stove this morning. They went out for breakfast. It’s not their fault. It’s mine.”
As she looked back down at Petals, her face crumbled. “If only I’d left her in the cage in my bedroom, she might not have died. You left my patio door open, and I forgot to close it when I left. The fumes in the bedroom wouldn’t have been so bad. Maybe Petals would have survived if I hadn’t clung to my stupid routines—”
“Andy, no. Don’t do this to yourself. It wasn’t your fault. I don’t know what happened here this morning, but Iwillget to the bottom of it.”
