“Thank you, Sam, for telling me that,” I say, nearly giddy hearing the words.
Though sex has left me drowsy, it takes a while to fall asleep. As good as tonight was, guilt is gnawing away at the edge of my contentment. I’m lying next to Jamie’s best friend, in a bed Jamie once slept in, no less. But at the same time, I can’t help but be grateful. Because I know now that my feelings for Sam were always genuine, not simply a manifestation of my doubts about Jamie, and that those feelings have been reciprocated. However complicated this moment is, I don’t regret what I’ve done.
I WAKE WITH A JOLT, AND IT TAKES ME A SECOND TO REALIZEthat the object between my head and the pillow is Sam’s arm. I check the clock and see that it’s a few minutes after three.
And then I realize what’s roused me. It’s the smell of woodsmoke drifting into the bedroom again. Unease ripples through me.
Once I’ve gently repositioned Sam’s arm, I slip out of bed, quickly put on a T-shirt and my underwear, and pad quietly into the hallway. The odor is definitely there, not simply something that came back to me in a dream. I have to figure out what the hell is going on. I briefly consider waking Sam but decide against it—after all, I’ve dealt with weird things on my own on the nights I’ve been here alone.
Leaving him sleeping, I creep down the staircase for the second time this week. My disquiet grows with each step, but I keep going. I reach the bottom and grab a breath. It’s dark, except for a faint glow coming from the kitchen. Because Sam was staying, I hadn’t felt the need to leave more than a single light on downstairs, the one recessed above the kitchen sink.
Just like the other night, the smell is stronger down here. I tiptoe through the dining room and take a step into the kitchen.
To my shock, I see a huge jar candle on the kitchen table, with flames flickering from three different wicks. And closer to the wall, sitting in one of the chairs, is the figure of a woman. Even in the dimness of the room, I can make out the menacing grin on her face.
26
IGASP AND REACH TOWARD THE COUNTER, GRIPPING IT WITHone hand.
“Whoareyou?”
But as she leans the tiniest bit closer, widening her grin, I see that it’s Percy.
“What are you doing here?” I demand, my heart racing crazily.
“What amIdoing here?” she says snidely. Her image is a little fuzzy in the candlelight, but I see that her hair’s pulled back and she’s wearing a black, long-sleeved shirt. “You can’t be serious, right? I basically lived here before you came along.”
“You lived—”
And then I get it. She means when Jamie was renting this place.
“You just can’t stand to think about it, can you?” she says. “Me and your ex here together, playing house, having sex, enjoying the kind of crazy love you two never had.”
No, it’s not possible. She couldn’t have been living here with Jamie.
“If you don’t believe me,” she says, as if reading my mind, “ask yourself why I have a key.”
She lifts a key chain from the table with her right hand and wiggles it for my benefit. I shoot a glance toward the back door. I can see well enough to tell the lock hasn’t been hacked off, that she hasn’t broken in, at least from the back of the house. But I can’t believe Jamie would have shared a key with her.
Instinctively my gaze shifts to the candle flickering on the table. This is where the smell is coming from, I realize. I’ve seen candles with a “woodsmoke” scent in small boutique shops.
“You’ve been in the house already this week, haven’t you?” I say. She must have burned the candle in the kitchen the other night and snuck out when she heard me coming down the stairs. And it must have been her who turned on the light in the kitchen, who ran the AC in my bedroom. “Why?”
“Just having a little fun with you.”
What the hell do I do?Sam, I suddenly remember. He’s here in the house. But if I call out for him, I might trigger her to do something rash.
“Please, just tell me what you want, Percy.”
She drops the key and taps her index finger against her lips a couple of times, a parody of someone deliberating what to say. At the same moment, a faint creak comes from above my head. Is it the bed moving? Footsteps? But Percy doesn’t seem to notice.
“Well, for starters,” she says, “an apology.”
Humor her, I think.Say whatever she wants and get her to leave.
“Okay, sure, of course. For...?”
“For?For showing up at the fucking party, that’s what. At first, I didn’t mind you were there. What difference did it make? But once I saw that you’d moved into Jamie’shouse, I realized that you must have had a whole game plan for that night.”
