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I shut Lenore in a bedroom with her litter box and food, sayingsorry sorry sorryand promising to find a cat treat she actuallyliked once we were in her new home. I’d already put down first, last, and security deposit on an apartment in the same complex where I used to live near the university, and my landlord had said he’d leave the key in the front office lockbox for me.
I managed to rock the desk back and forth on its legs to halfway out the front door before I gave up and texted Conner, trying to see if there was any way he could drop by on his way to work, just for five minutes.Otherwise,I texted,I’ll leave the desk here and it will be up to you to ship it to me by the start of the semester. Your call.
“Need a hand?”
Sam’s voice was gruff behind me. When I spun around, he was so close I could see the rings of navy around his irises. He was dressed in a new variation on neutral professional I hadn’t seen before, this one with nice jeans and a forest green button-up shirt, rolled up neatly to just under his elbows. He was obviously dressed to go somewhere, and it was seven thirty in the morning.
Not that it was my business anymore. And he had no obligation to help me. Truly, maybe the best option was just to leave the monstrosity of a desk here and figure it all out later.
“I got it,” I said. “Thanks, though.”
“Phoebe. Just accept help, okay? You want this strapped onto the top of your car?”
“That was the plan...”
He grasped under the desk on both sides, hefting it up with a grunt. He had to walk slowly with it down the driveway, leaning back to distribute the weight, before he set it down next to the car.
“I always wondered how you’d moved it by yourself,” I said. “That first night.”
“Turns out itisheavy.”
The exchange felt enough like one between friends to make my heart skip a beat; just enough like one between strangers to make my stomach twist with regret. “Sam, I—”
But he cut me off. “I am going to need your help getting it up top, though. If I take one side, can you get the other?”
I lifted the side closest to me while he did the bulk of the work angling the desk enough to lower it upside down on the roof of the car. When he asked for the straps, I popped the trunk and grabbed them from on top of the suitcases and boxes I’d wedged back there.
“So you should be in North Carolina by dinnertime or so?”
“If I drive pretty much straight through,” I said. “But I may end up making a few stops on the way. It depends on Lenore.”
“Can I say goodbye to her?”
“Oh,” I said, blinking a little. “Sure.”
He finished tightening the straps that he’d wrapped around the desk legs in an intricate crisscross, pushing against the desk and seeming satisfied when it didn’t budge. I led him back inside the house, to my bedroom where I’d put Lenore.
She was under the bed, of course. I’d cleaned out a lot of the stuff in my room, but had left the bed because I’d still needed it to sleep on. I told Conner he could do whatever he wanted with it. We’d also never gotten around to repainting the black, but Conner said he didn’t mind taking care of that and a few other remaining items, since he’d had to take a couple weeks off when hehurt his wrist. He mentioned that he’d already talked to Josue about possibly coming by to check out the house, and seemed to think it would sell by September. I didn’t know that I had his confidence, but it was mostly the real estate agent’s problem now.
“Did you know that in Florida,” I said, “you don’t have to disclose if someone died in a house even if it was a murder or suicide? You also don’t have to disclose a haunting because none of those things are considered a material fact.”
Sam was crouched down on the floor, holding his hand out as if to invite Lenore to sniff. “That,” he said, “is an incredibly creepy thing to tell someone after you’ve invited someone into your room.”
I felt my cheeks heat up. Of course, he was right. I hadn’t even thought about that angle—just let my mouth run away with me as usual.
He glanced up, giving me a sad little smile. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m used to it from you.”
He stood, apparently giving up hope that Lenore would come out. He looked around the room, taking in the bare black walls, the bed still made up with sheets. I wondered what he was thinking. If he was remembering, the way I was.
“I should probably get going,” he said. “I have a team meeting at the school.”
Ah. That explained why he was dressed up. I was hit by a sudden panic, that this would be it, that I’d never see him again, that I’d never have a chance to tell him how I felt. I didn’t know if this was love, this cold, sick feeling in my stomach, but I had to tell him how important he was to me, how much I’d valued our time together, how much I would miss him.
But the words stuck in my throat. It was different with Sam than with Alison or Conner. The stakes were so high. I couldn’t expect anythingbutrejection from Sam. I would deserve it, too.
“Here,” I said, reaching for my guitar, leaned against one wall. “Take this.”
He raised his eyebrows at me. “You still want me to fix your guitar?”
