“Leave it here with mine.”
“Are we going somewhere?”
“Yes. And she never tracked us when we used to go there. Put on some shoes and let’s go.” He heads downstairs and I watch him for a moment before putting my phone on the dresser next to his. I slip my feet into the new shoes Valencia picked out and follow him.
He stops to wait for me in the mudroom between the kitchen and garage.
“I’m going to show you one of my tricks.” He reaches up to the sensor stuck on the garage doorjamb. There’s a small white piece of plastic on the jamb, and another larger one on the door itself. He peels up the smaller one slowly, and it instantly clicks over to the larger.
“Magnetized,” he says, pulling open the door. The contact stays attached to the larger sensor. “No alarm notification. You can use that if you need to sneak out once I’m back at school.”
Holy shit. My pulse quickens. Easton just showed me how to get out of here unnoticed. He leads me out to the garage, pressing the automatic opener. Mounted on the far wall are two kayaks. The aquamarine kayak in the top mount is a two-person, the red one below it is one-. He grabs one side of the aquamarine kayak and motions for me to get the other side. There are three paddles against the wall, and as we walk out of the garage, he grabs two of them.
I stare at the large garage door as we pass under it. “Mom and Dad don’t have an app for the garage door opening?” I ask.
Easton shakes his head. “There was one they could use to open and close it, but the company went bankrupt and the app isn’t supported anymore. They just use the openers in their cars.”
He takes the lead once we’re clear of the garage—using a PIN pad on the exterior of the door to close it—and walks down to the dock.
“Why isn’t this thing kept in the boathouse?” I ask, pointing to it with my free hand as we pass it.
“An empty boathouse means Marcus can bug Valencia about getting a boat to fill it whenever he gets the chance,” he says sarcastically, and the way he uses his parents’ names instead of “Mom and Dad” makes my lips pull into a smirk.
He sets the kayak into the water, doing most of the work himself, then holds it steady.
“You get in first.” He nods to the front seat. Nerves buzz in my stomach as I picture the kayak tipping over. But with Easton holding it for me I’m able to sit down without making a total ass of myself. He hands the paddles over for me to hold while he gets in the back and pushes us off the dock.
I hand one back and turn to watch him paddle, mimicking his movements.
“Now you row on the opposite side, so we go straight.”
Straight ahead to the island in the bay. “We’re going there?” I point to it.
“Yep.”
It seems so far away, but as we paddle across the calm waters of the bay, I’m shocked by how quickly we’re traveling. Water laps against the sides of the kayak. Easton’s strokes are almost silent, while mine are clumsy and splash water onto my hands.
I breathe in the salty air and a light breeze skims the water. The knots in the muscles of my chest, stomach, and shoulders all loosen. I breathe deeply and it feels like the first breath I’ve taken in days. I don’t think I ever realized how calming something like this could be. As we approach the island, I find myself wishing we could keep paddling around the bay.
But Easton beaches the kayak onto the shore and hops out. I follow, and he pulls the kayak up to a patch of tall grass. The edge of the island is dirt and rocks, not sand, and there’s a little path leading into the trees.
The house on the shore looks so much smaller from here. Maybe the island is bigger than I originally thought from the reverse point of view.
“Come on.”
Easton stands on the path heading into the woods. I look back to the house once more before following him.
“We used to come all the way out here?” I ask. He bends a saplingthat’s grown over the path out of the way, waiting until I pass to let it spring back.
“Yeah. I mean, I did all the work because you would always whine about getting tired halfway here.” He gives me a knowing glance. “Thanks for almost pulling your weight this time.”
“Almost?” My arms are already a little sore from paddling.
“Holy shit,” Easton says ahead of me. I can’t see his face, but I can hear that he’s surprised. “I can’t believe it’s still here.”
The path leads to a clearing with a large dead tree lying across the middle of it.
I step around him and focus on a little A-frame structure built against the tree. The top of it comes up to eye level, and it’s made of broken tree branches and tied together with frayed twine. Dirty old blankets covered in dead leaves make up the “walls” of the fort. It’s messy and structurally unsound. Obviously created by two kids who knew little to nothing about architecture and went with whatever stayed upright.
