“She’s been a teenager for a while, and this—” I make a circle gesture with my hand “—like, all of this, is new.”
“I wouldn’t worry, honey. She’s a good kid, just moody. Kids are moody,” he says, putting his hand on mine, and I feel my heart fill and my head feel floaty and light. I don’t confide in him that I’m getting legitimately worried about how she’s so withdrawn over the last months and that I think she might be doing drugs. I want the night to be special, so I change the subject as I clear the plates.
“Are you still doing your golf thing with Lucas this weekend?” I ask, scraping my uneaten turkey and noodles into the disposal.
“Uhh, no, he had to cancel,” he says, cracking another beer and bringing it to the couch. I stop what I’m doing and follow him, wiping my hands on a tea towel.
“Why?” I ask or, rather, demand, considering the way it comes out. He stops midstride and turns to me.
“Wha—He didn’t say. Did you wanna sub in for him, or...?”
“Ha ha,” I say, abandoning my work in the kitchen and sitting next to him on the couch. Not the usual opposite sides, occupied by our phones sort of thing, but close. I pull the fleece blanket off the back of an armchair and cuddle up to him.
“I beat you at putt-putt once, so maybe I could sub in for him,” I joke. “I think he’s weird. For the record.”
“Who?” Finn asks, oblivious.
“Lucas Kinney. Hello.” Just then, there’s a crash. It sounds like glass shattering, and we both jump to our feet. There’s someone in the house. I hold my heart, and Finn grabs a baseball bat out of the junk closet next to the kitchen. He puts his finger to his lips for me to be quiet. The noise wasn’t from upstairs, but I still fight the urge to run up and check on Mia. It came from the basement maybe, or...
“What are you gonna do with that?” I ask, my hands trembling uncontrollably, my heart pounding, thudding between my ears.
“The gun’s upstairs. Shhh,” he says, and we both stand still, frozen in fear, trying to hear where the noise is coming from. After a couple minutes, we don’t hear anything else.
“Stay there,” he instructs me.
“No way,” I say and follow closely behind him as he clears the house, opening every bedroom and bathroom door with a jerk and then standing back, ready to swing at the intruder. When he swings open the door to the garage, I see the glass. His passenger window has shattered.
“Who’s there?” he yells into the darkness.
“Just lock the garage door and call the police. Don’t...” But he’s already flipping the lights on and examining the damage. I stand in the doorframe as he carefully walks around both of our cars.
“Who’s there?” he shouts again, sounding a bit comical if I’m honest, with his stupid bat. He peers inside where the glass used to be, checking for anyone in the car.
“Finn,” I call, and then he opens the doors of my car with his bat overhead, but there’s nobody there.
“It’s clear,” he says, and I race upstairs just to double-check Mia is okay. When I see her slouched on a beanbag chair, talking on the phone, I breathe a sigh of relief. I don’t tell her about the noise; I just slip back downstairs and go into the garage, where Finn is googlingspontaneous glass breakageon his phone.
“You think it broke itself?” I ask, my nerves calming a little since we checked every corner and it’s clear.
“Nobody’s here. The garage doors are closed. I don’t know,” he says.
“Maybe it was Lucas Kinney,” I say.
“What?” Finn says, sharply.
“You didn’t see the way he looked at me when he picked up his baby. He’s not right.”
“So anything that happens is his fault because you decided you don’t like him. Now he’s a magician?” Finn asks.
“Someone was in here,” I say with certainty, and Ifeelcertain. There’s something left over in the air—a little trace of electricity when a person has just occupied a space. Finn shifts back and forth in a mock attempt to look for the phantom intruder. I point to the narrow window close to the ceiling of the garage. Finn laughs.
“A guy a head taller than me snuck in through that, to do what exactly?” He sits in the driver’s side, avoiding the glass, and looks through the car. “I don’t see anything missing.”
“What if he made himself a key? Oooh, yeah, what if he let himself in just to mess with us—like our sense of safety? Did you ever see that movie,The Strangers? Liv Tyler and that guy fromFelicityare in this house, right, and they are tormented by these three creepy people who just show up and scare them...and then they kill them, like for no reason, just because they can—’cause they’re psychopaths. It could be like that. Who else would do this?” I ask. He goes back inside, and I follow, closing and locking the garage door behind me.
“I can’t even begin to tell you how many things are wrong with that, but let’s start withHow did he get a key?” he says, retrieving his beer from the table on the side of the couch and sitting down.
“You lost your keys a few months ago. Oh, my God! We’re changing the locks. Whoever found your keys, or TOOK your keys, got into the garage. Holy shit.”
