I quickly scrolled through possible excuses but realized my dad had skillfully painted me into a corner—I couldn’t say that Clark was busy, because he’d left the date open. Knowing when I’d been bested, I nodded. “I’ll ask.” I thought of something and looked up at him, eyes narrowing. “Is this actually because you want to get to know him, or because you want to ask him about the Luminosity thing?”
My dad shrugged as he signaled for the check. “You know,” he said with a smile, “two birds, one stone.”
• • •
Three hours later I sat on one of the lounge chairs by the pool, with Bertie, who had seemed thrilled by all the unexpected company, flopped across my legs. I’d never spent much time around Clark’s pool—the only time I’d ever even been in his backyard was when Bertie had managed to make it outside during his favorite game, Run From the Lady with the Leash. But now that I was out here, I could see it was lovely—landscaped and carefully designed, with lounge chairs placed at exact intervals. The lounge chairs were white and beige striped, which matched the striped towels that were rolled up in baskets placed around the pool deck. Basically, this looked like the kind of pool people had when they never used their pool, which was certainly not the case now.
Wyatt had spent most of the night floating around on a pool raft, looking like he wasn’t planning to move a muscle, lulling everyone into a sense of complacency, and then had started a stealth-dunking campaign. He would begin a conversation with you, and then just when you’d let your guard down, he would dunk you unexpectedly. After he’d gotten me twice in a row, I’d gotten out. Wyatt now seemed determined to dunk Bri, despite the fact that Toby was pretty obviously putting herself in his path. Clark was sitting in the hot tub, and Tom and Palmer were currently making out on the diving board.
My phone buzzed on the lounge chair next to me, and I picked it up, frowning when I saw it was from Toby.
TOBY
I looked over to where she was standing by the overstocked food table, but she was not meeting my eye, and I had a feeling she didn’t want people—people meaning Wyatt—to know we were texting about this.
ME
You’re sad because Wyatt’s not dunking you?
TOBY
ME
I’m sorry, T.
I looked up from my phone and over at Toby, and she gave me a small, sad shrug before she walked to the other side of the pool with a handful of chips, dangling her feet in the water near where Wyatt was currently floating on his back, her expression wistful.
After a few moments, I saw Bri look around for her. She swam over, pushed herself out of the water, and sat next to Toby on the edge of the pool. After a second I saw Toby smile and shove Bri’s shoulder, and Bri shoved her back, both of them laughing now.
“Hey,” Clark said, grabbing a towel from the towel basket, and I enjoyed my second look at his abs in one day as he walked over and sat on the lounge chair next to mine, since Bertie was taking up the remainder of the free space on mine. “Do you think people are having fun? Is there enough food?”
“It’s great,” I assured him. “I just hope you realize what you’ve done.”
“What’s that?”
“You know how you’re never supposed to feed stray cats, because then they’ll never leave?”
“Or put a salt lick out for deer,” he said, nodding.
“Right,” I said. Clark looked at me blankly, and I nodded out to the pool, where Palmer was now cannonballing into the water and it looked like Toby and Bri had teamed up to dunk Wyatt. “You’ve fed the kittens. You’ve salted the deer.”
“What?”
I pointed at the pool. “A parent-free house with a pool? They’re never leaving now.”
“Well,” he said after a moment, leaning toward me and closing the space between our lounge chairs. “Will you be here too?”
“I will. I’m not leaving you alone with these freeloaders.”
“So then maybe it’s not the worst thing,” he said.
“Well,” I said, like I was really thinking about this, “maybe not.”
Clark smiled at me and leaned in for a kiss, at just the right angle for Bertie to enthusiastically start licking his face.
• • •
“So does it come up in book two?” my dad asked as he rinsed off a plate and handed it to Clark, who carefully put it into the dishwasher. “You can’t just drop something in like that and not have it pay off, right?”
“Well,” Clark said, reaching for another plate, his voice coming out hesitant. “Do you really want me to tell you?”
My dad looked at him, and I could see the struggle plainly written on his face. “No,” he finally said. “I’ll just wait.”
“I think it’ll become clearer in the second book,” Clark said, transferring glasses to the top rack one by one. “It seems to, for most people.”
“Oh, good,” my dad said, brightening as he turned the water off.
I watched this from the opposite side of the kitchen island, still not quite believing what was in front of me—my dad and my boyfriend, getting along. My dad had grilled hamburgers, Clark had brought a cheesecake for dessert, and we’d eaten outside on the back porch. My dad had given Clark a hard time at first, which he had partially deserved, since he’d gone out of his way to memorize obscure policies my dad had put through and minor floor-debate victories, as though they were common knowledge. So of course my dad had pretended he wanted to talk in detail about these, asking Clark more and more questions, until I finally took pity on him and intervened.
But after my dad had finished torturing him, they actually seemed to get along well, which I had not been expecting—and it meant I could put aside the talking points I’d prepared in case of awkward silences or lulls in conversation. I’d learned my dad loved John Wayne movies, and apparently Clark’s grandfather had as well, so they had that in common. And unfortunately, my dad told Clark about the time I’d tried to run away from home when I was four and had walked all the way to the neighbors’ house, knocking on the door and asking if I could live with them instead, because my mother was refusing to let me have the cookies I wanted. I should have known I wasn’t going to get out of this dinner without an embarrassing story told about me, and I was secretly glad it wasn’t the one about the time my mom brought me to my dad’s first swearing-in and I had a full-on tantrum on the floor of his office.
And now, cleaning up from dinner, they were talking about Clark’s books, making me realize that I really needed to read them—if only so I wouldn’t be left out of any more conversations.
When all the dishes were cleared and the dishwasher was running, my dad gave me permission to “walk Clark to his car” but with a look that told me I wasn’t fooling anyone. “You know, it took you two hours to walk him to his car last time. So maybe you two need to increase your cardio or something?”
“Right,” I said quickly, grabbing Clark’s hand and pulling him toward the door, wanting very much to no longer be having this conversation.
We walked together in the moonlight, his arm slung around my shoulders and my fingers threaded through his, the pulse in his fingertips beating against mine. “I think that went well,” he said after we’d passed out of view of my house, like Clark didn’t want to talk about it until then, like my dad had supersonic hearing.
“I think it did,” I agreed, still a little shocked by this.
“Um, except for all that Secret Service stuff. Do you think he meant it?”
I bit back a laugh. My dad had started off the evening clearly trying to get in Clark’s head, happening to “casually” mention that he knew some of the VP’s Secret Service agents well, and did he know they were trained in all kinds of deadly force, not just firearms? “He was just messing with you,” I said, leaning my head on Clark’s shoulder. He kissed the top of my head, resting his chin there for a moment before we walked on. “So,” I said, turning my head and looking up at him. “Where were we?”
“Wasn’t there a tavern brawl?”
“Isn’t there always?” I replied, and he laughed.
I came back home a little over an hour later, Clark dropping me off in the turnaround, where we weren’t quite able to resist making out for another twenty minutes or so.
I let myself back in the house, half expecting that my dad would be in his office, watching the classic movie channel or reading a book. But he was sitting at the kitchen table, a half-eaten piece of cheesecake in front of him.
“Hey,” I said, smoothing my hair down. I hesitated, then crossed the kitchen toward him.
My dad looked up and smiled at me and pushed his plate slightly toward me. I decided more cheesecake was an excellent idea and grabbed a fork before sliding into the chair across from him. I speared a bite, realizing suddenly how nervous I was. What if my dad had been being his candidate self all night, pretending to get along with Clark while secretly hating him? I tried to tell myself it didn’t matter what my dad thought, knowing all the while that it did.
My dad was just calmly eating his cheesecake, like he had nothing to say, and I decided I wouldn’t ask. I’d just wait for him to tell me what he thought of Clark, but it wasn’t like I needed to know or anything. This lasted exactly one more bite before I blurted out, “So what did you think of him?”
My dad rotated the plate slightly, looking for the perfect bite, before he said, “He seems like a very nice young man. A little mistaken as to where Stagecoach fits in with Wayne’s filmography. But we can’t have everything.”
I rolled my eyes at that, not wanting to let my dad see just how relieved I was. “You freaked him out with all that Secret Service talk,” I said, rotating the plate back toward me as I cut off a piece with my fork. “I think he thought you were serious.”
“Who says I’m not? Though I suppose I didn’t need to say ‘Secret Service,’ ” he mused. “I could have just mentioned some of my old clients. Some very bad people would love to do me a favor.”
I looked up at him, remembering something that had been in the back of my mind ever since the night of Bertie and the chocolates. “Hey, what happened to the drawing that used to hang in the foyer? The one of Stabby Bob?”
My dad looked at me, surprised. “What made you think of him?”
“I was, um . . .” I took a breath. “Clark asked me how you and Mom met.”
Something passed over my dad’s face then, sadness mixed with something happier. “Did I ever tell you she wanted to invite Bob to the wedding?”
“No way.” I hadn’t ever heard this before and was starting to smile, even though there was a slight tremble to it.
“She did. She thought he deserved to be there, being the reason we were introduced.”
“So did he go?”
“Well, he was serving fifteen to twenty by then. So no.” I smiled at that, and neither of us said anything for a moment, but it was like I could tell we were both thinking about my mom. Like just a little bit of her was here in the kitchen with us. My dad cleared his throat, then said, “I can try to find him for you if you want. The drawing,” he said quickly, maybe seeing what I was thinking. “Not Stabby Bob.”
I nodded. “That would be good.” I took a breath, wondering if this was the moment to ask him the question that I’d never stopped wondering about—what he had done with my mother’s Mustang. I hadn’t asked, five years ago, when it didn’t come to our new house with us, and I just hoped that he had saved it rather than sold it off to someone. I was getting ready to ask him about the car, when my phone buzzed in my pocket.
TOBY
Toby clearly wanted to know how dinner had gone, but it was easier these days to call or video chat with her rather than text her. But then it buzzed again, and I saw Palmer was texting now too.
PALMER
HOW DID IT GO?
“Let me guess,” my dad said, picking up the cheesecake plate and pushing himself back from the table. “Bri?”
“Toby,” I said, shaking my head. “And Palmer, too.” My phone buzzed again. “And now Bri.”
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” he said, placing the plate, with at least three good cheesecake bites remaining, in front of me. Then he patted my shoulder quickly, just once, before he turned and headed down the hall to his study.
I watched him go, then picked up my fork, settled back in my seat, and wrote back to my friends.
Chapter ELEVEN
I looked down at the dog sitting in front of me, a smallish sandy-colored mix of some kind. This was a one-time walk; his owners usually spent the summers away but were back in town for just a day or two and needed him to get some exercise. The dog looked back up at me, his tail thumping on the ground. “Okay,” I said, smiling at him as I made sure his leash was clipped on tightly. “Ready for this?” I paused when I realized I’d blanked on his name. But in my defense, when I’d gone to pick him up, it had been a pretty chaotic scene. The dog had been running around barking happily, seemingly trying to get himself as underfoot as possible. Classical music was blaring and a girl who looked a year or two younger than me was doing a series of very complicated pirouettes in the kitchen, while a guy who looked like he was probably her brother sat nearby with a thick law textbook, seemingly unfazed by all of this, muttering about torts. It was a girl around my age who’d taken charge, giving me the dog’s leash and instructions for where to walk him.
“Sorry about all this,” she said loudly, trying to be heard over the music, as she gestured behind her. “We usually spend the whole summer at our lake house, but my sister has an audition for a dance company in New York tomorrow, so . . .” She shrugged, and I tried to hide my surprise, since the twirling girl looked like she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. But I’d taken the dog and said I’d be back in about half an hour. Now I knelt down to see if his name was engraved on his tag, but there was just an M, and his owners’ phone number.
“Okay, M,” I said, as I straightened up again, hoping that when I brought him home, I could give a report on how the dog did without having to use his name. “Let’s do this.”
The dog trotted forward, tail wagging, and I started walking him down the long, steep driveway toward the road. As I walked, I pulled out my phone, telling myself I just wanted to listen to some music, pretending that was the real reason right up until the moment I scrolled to my brand-new audiobook section. I’d transferred the discs Clark had given me to my phone two days ago but hadn’t listened to them yet. It seemed like the time had come.
I took a breath and pressed play, and the sonorous voice of a very famous British movie star filled my ears.
“If it had not snowed on the second day of the Aspen moon,” he intoned, and I noticed, not for the first time, how everything sounded better with a British accent. “The life of Tamsin Castleroy would have been quite different. . . .”
I turned up the volume as I walked along with the dog, trying to pay attention so I didn’t miss anything, as I listened to Clark’s story.
• • •
“Wow,” Maya said, looking at me with her eyebrows raised. She glanced down at the pile of dogs at her feet. It was the three terriers again, the ones that were normally so hyperactive that my arm was always sore afterward from having to pull back against the leash the whole time. But now they were flopped on the wooden floors of the tiny office Maya and Dave ran their business out of. I had been walking them nearby and figured I might as well stop in with them, since I needed to get a set of keys for a new dog, and this way I could pick up my paycheck. All the dogs looked exhausted, and Tofu—normally the most hyperactive of them all—was starting to fall asleep in front of me, despite the fact that another dog was currently sitting on his head. “It looks like they really got a workout.”
“Yeah,” I said, busying myself by folding up the extra plastic bags I kept in my back pocket, avoiding Maya’s eye. “There were . . . um . . . lots of squirrels today.” Maya nodded, and it looked like she believed me. My explanation was alm
ost as rational as the truth, though—that I was currently devouring Clark’s books, and the dogs I walked were feeling the direct effects of it.
Once I’d gotten the hang of listening to the audiobook, it hadn’t taken long for me to get swept up in the story of Tamsin, a rebellious princess who captured the attention of the Elder, the mysterious, Yoda-like figure who lived in the woods on the outskirts of her kingdom. There was a prophecy, and since Tamsin fit the description, many—including herself—believed she was the chosen one, the one who would unite the kingdoms torn asunder by a hundred years of war. I had my doubts about this, and the Elder did as well. But he started to teach her anyway, as Tamsin’s roguish brother, Jack, kept the kingdom more or less (oftentimes less) afloat, honing her abilities, especially her talent for communicating with birds. The first book had ended on a cliffhanger, as Tamsin and the Elder were forced to flee the kingdom, pursued with an invading army at their backs. I’d downloaded the second book immediately and was already about halfway through it.
I was listening to it constantly—in my car, in my room, before I went to bed, my phone propped on my nightstand and a sleep timer on so I wouldn’t miss anything. But the place I really loved to have the story told to me was while I was at work. There was something wonderful about being outside, moving, keeping an eye on the dogs in front of me while the rest of me was swept up in the story. As a direct result of this, all my dogs were getting much longer walks than normal, since I hated to stop in the middle of a really great part. The walks that were normally twenty minutes had turned into epic walks that took us all over town, and as a result, most of them were getting pretty wiped out.
“Well, it sure looks like they had fun,” Maya said as she bent down and scratched Banjo’s ears. Banjo immediately flipped onto his back and looked at her expectantly—he was a fool for belly rubs.