Seb had tracked me there.
Perhaps I’d shown him the place once when he was hanging around, waiting for his mother to finish, then later forgotten. There was a chance I’d described its location in school, the only part of the property able to be pulled out for public viewing without a myriad of horrors flooding forth.
I don’t know what memories he pulled together, what random facts he spliced into a set of directions to my secret hideout, but he worked out it was there.
More importantly, he worked out I loved it.
He was about to douse it with lighter fluid when I discovered him.
The boy who tormented me. The one I thought of as a friend, then a potential suitor, then my nemesis, trying to take away the only place of safety I’d ever had.
He didn’t need the fire to ruin it; just his presence there tainted the privacy, the secrecy, theromanceof my hideaway.
Seb smiled that lazy grin of his and I’d been so enraged I finally summoned the courage to attack. A furious pelting of fists and feet and knees and elbows that it took mere minutes for him to subdue.
My last attack had been different.
It had been to reach down and take hold of him through his sweatpants, gripping him, stroking him, turning him into something I could finally control, something I had experience of. Something I wanted for the first time, so different from all the others. So different with someone who knew me, felt an emotion for me, someone who, even in his worst excesses, had felt like a person I could trust.
I know what our red flags look like to other people. I also know the inside of our relationship differs from the outside. I know how warm and comfortable it is, even in the height of the fear and toxicity.
No wonder I ran rather than following through on the promise I made him that day.
No wonder he followed me.
I shake my head, biting my cheek, bringing myself back to the presence, needing to be in the moment. The past isn’t a safe place for me to visit. To be fair, neither is the present and I’m done thinking of the future.
“There you are, love,” Allain says, waving to me. “We’re about to go down to the docks. Could you grab us another bottle of tonic water?” He frowns and shakes his head. “Our waiters seem to be missing.”
Richard follows along behind him, carefully shielding his glass from view while he tips me a wink over his shoulder. A man farther in front of him turns back and sees him do it. He frowns at me, then inclines his head in substitution for a wave.
I return the gesture, trying to place him.
Eventually I stumble on the name. Maxwell. Always with the insistence people use the whole thing when everyone would prefer it shortened.
Twelve to fourteen, that’s when I was his entertainment. Once for old times’ sake when I was sixteen, but he was so disappointed it scarcely counts.
Surely, he’s not coming back for another round. I understand why Richard’s here, his company is part of the merger that Allain’s selling futures in this weekend. But Maxwell? He’s in dog food.
Hardly a match.
He might be making an introduction. The thought makes me simultaneously shiver and break out in a sweat. I fetch the tonic water from the fridge, staring at a spill on the floor, then setting the bottle down to wipe it up with a paper towel.
The maid’s usually on top of things like this. I frown down the gentle slope of the back lawn to see if I can place her.
She’s not visible, either. Maybe she’s having a threesome with the two missing waitstaff. Good luck to her if that’s her thing.
I move to the bench, selecting a sharp knife from the block, testing it with a dimple on my skin.
Sharp enough but the tip of the knife is also rounded so it won’t get stuck in bone.
Perfect.
I tuck it into my pocket, protecting the blade with a napkin, then grab the bottle to follow everyone to the dock on the lake. It’s too late in the season for us to gather on the boat but Marnie does like everyone to see it in its mooring.
Just in case the house and grounds weren’t impressive enough.
I set the bottle down on the bench of the outside kitchen. A fancy description for a sink and counter set up near to the barbeque pit.
