“Ah, past tense. So it didn’t work out.”
“No.”
“Can I ask how long you two were together?”
“Ten hours.”
Melinda chuckled, but when she saw that he was serious, she stopped laughing instantly. “Oh, I’m so sorry, I thought you were kidding. It’s just, I assumed,wrongly,that it would take time for you to build intimacy with someone.”
“Typically, it does. She was different.”
Melinda tilted her head to the side, her eyes softened. “Yeah, I can…I can see that.”
Thankfully, the subject changed, and they went on to talk more about his brain and the feelings he had associated with it. He told her about the party tricks he could do, how he could memorize a deck of cards in under two minutes, recite pi to a thousand places, and pick up a new language in a few weeks if he immersed himself in it. He could read upside down and backwards, and he could listen to a song once and play it back on the piano, even if he’d never heard it before. He could see a blueprint and build the object in his mind before touching the first tool.
But how none of that helped him in the moments that mattered, not really. It didn’t help him compromise, which he’d been told was his biggest flaw, or tell his mom he loved her, orapologize when he was wrong, which, to be fair, was rare, but not unheard of. Or tell his sister all the things he wanted to say to her about what she means to him, that he has in his heart, but whenever he attempted to say it out loud, he managed to say it wrong. She suggested he write his feelings down so he can edit them to make sure every word was right and then read it to her.
And finally they talked about why he knew he was responsible for the six lives that were lost. He explained that he did not have enough information to do what he was commanded to do, and instead of breaking rank, he obeyed the order. That was something he was going to have to live with.
By the end of the therapy session, Melinda had given him some tools to try and help him ‘shut his brain off’, to be fair, they were tools he’d never heard of. She also recommended some books to read to help him deal with the trauma of his final deployment, and she said that if he ever wanted to talk again, she would make herself available to him.
He’d fulfilled his mandatory assessment. It was a one and done.
For the first time, he was disappointed that the session ended. He felt a little lighter than he had in years, maybe ever. When the screensaver went back to the photo of him, Frankie, and Niko at the axe throwing place, he almost shut the lid, but instead he decided to do some digging to find out who exactly his neighbor was and, if he could, what his relationship with Poppy was.
If the man next door owned the home, he’d be able to find out everything he ever wanted to know about him. If it was a rental or an Airbnb that would pose more of a challenge but would not be impossible. He’d noticed a Washington state license plate when he arrived yesterday, so it wasn’t as if he had nothing to go on.
It turned out he didn’t even need the license plate. The man next door was Deacon St. Claire, whose parents were Abraham and Rachel St. Claire, both deceased. They’d been in a car accident the year before. His daughter, Tabitha St. Claire, was five years old, her mother, Kirsten, passed away in childbirth from heart failure.
The St. Claire family was old money, but Deacon had made his own way. He hadn’t relied on his trust fund or inheritance, both of which were substantial. He was a software developer. He started his own company at fourteen as a freshman in high school, went to MIT at sixteen, and made his first million by the time he graduated at twenty.
He moved to Hope Falls three months ago. It looked like Tabitha had been in and out of the hospital with a heart murmur since she was an infant. The puzzle pieces all fit together now. That must have been how Deacon met Poppy, at the hospital with Tabitha. Of course. That made perfect sense.
AJ closed the computer and was suddenly feeling very tired. Exhausted. Drained. He didn’t know if it was all that talking about his feelings, lack of sleep, or finding out that Poppy was next door with Mr. Perfect, who happened to be a billionaire.
He walked back to the bedroom and planned on climbing under the covers and blocking out the world when the faint sounds of barking and giggling made that impossible. Unable to stop himself, he looked out the back window.
Deacon stood on the grass in an MIT hoodie and sweats, looking like he was shooting a Ralph Lauren commercial. He was holding index cards, and beside him Tabitha was jumping rope. Poppy was sitting with her legs crossed on the lawn next to her, throwing a neon orange tennis ball for the Rottweiler, and it appeared she was answering questions Deacon was asking from the cards.
The scene in front of him was idyllic. They could be an ad for the perfect American family. It was so aggressively wholesome that AJ could almost hear the stock music swelling behind it, the kind of music that plays on syndicated sitcoms during the “family values” montage or in the background of pharmaceutical commercials where no one has any visible symptoms.
AJ should be happy for Poppy. She’d joked that she might be off the market next week, and it appeared she was. He’d seen the look of yearning in her eyes when the subject of kids came up and how she was going to lower her standards. It seemed she’d found someone who had given her exactly what she’d been looking for, and from what AJ had seen, he was a good man. No criminal history, no financial problems, nothing crazy on his social media, just a proud dad. He was everything she wanted in one package and more. Deacon had something AJ couldn’t give her, and she deserved, besides money, a family.
So if it was what was best for her, and AJ cared about her, which he did, why did it feel so wrong?
18
“You are looking criminally hot,and the charge is a felony,nota misdemeanor,” Zion complimented Poppy once more, adding to the dozen or so other creative ways he’d told her she looked nice.
When he picked her up to come to the rehearsal dinner, she opened the door, and before he said hello, he said, “Men will be dueling at dawn when they see you in that dress.” They arrived at The Castaway, and after she checked her coat, he commented, “The twins are definitely doing the heavy lifting, but you are definitely serving serious cake.” After posing for a group selfie, he checked the photo and relayed, “That dress understood the assignment.”
As they perched at the bar with a bird’s-eye view of the cocktail hour before the rehearsal dinner, he’d gone into fullRuPaul’s Drag Racecommentatormode, effusive in detail, describing how the fabric was just the right kind of slinky, the hue a blue that made her eyes look ultraviolet in the right light, how the scoop neckline was both suggestive and innocent, and how the hem hugged the curves of her calves before surrendering to gravity. Poppy wasn’t even sure what thatmeant, but it sounded poetic. Even now, he kept stealing glances and making little appreciative noises, like a sommelier savoring an unexpected vintage.
Being complimented by Zion felt like landing on a triple word score in Scrabble, it was just worth more than the average square. He was a six-foot-five walking masterpiece, exuding an effortless charm and effortless style. It made sense considering his father was Nigerian royalty and his mother a British diplomat. His movements were fluid and poised, as if every step was carefully calibrated to perfection. His hair was a vibrant halo of curls, which he constantly changed the shade of. His eyes were a warm, golden brown that sparkled with mischief and wit, framed by thick, dark lashes that fluttered with every subtle change in emotion.
“Have I ever told you that you areverygood for my self-esteem?” Honestly, the past couple months hanging out with Zion was like having a personal self-confidence cheerleader.
“These are not pity compliments, that would be blasphemy.” He picked up his drink and sipped. “It’s true, when it comes to lying my code is all fifty shades of morally gray but you know I hold all things beauty and fashion as sacred.”
