“Jesus, Haven!” he crows when I scramble over his lap to get out the driver’s side and knee him in the dick on the way. The cut on my foot screams when I half-tumble out the other side, but totally worth it.
That’s what you get for being a nosy fuck, Kai.
The crooked, ivy-covered gate squeals when I shove it open, and the wooden steps groan under me as I limp up to the red door. I try to open it, rattling it so hard that a few flakes of red paint drift down.
I turn back and fling out my arms like the door’s personally betrayed me.
“It’s locked!” I yell down the driveway.
Kai’s smiling as he clomps his way up the stairs, and reaches past me to a small box nailed to the door frame. I thought it was some kind of alarm system, but he presses a combo on the keypad, and takes a key out of the box.
He dangles it in front of me. “First time?” he teases.
“What do you mean?” I grumble, snatching the key from him and turning my back so I can unlock the flaking red door. “Just last week I Airbnb’d a mansion to throw a rager. Then there was that one time…”
My sour words trail off as the front door swings open.
I’m speechless.
This is nothing like Kai’s massive beach house.
This is cozy, and lived-in, and…perfect.
Kai jostles me aside with the duffel bag on his shoulder, kicking off his white sneakers, and letting the bag drop by the door.
“Didn’t look this cringey in the listing.”
“Shut up. I love it.” I slip past him, standing in the cozy living room with its two mismatched sofas that somehow go perfectly together. There’s even a flat screen on a rickety-looking cabinet. It’s already warm inside, courtesy of a space heater rattling away quietly in one corner.
I toe off my Uggs and take a quick peek at the band-aid on my foot. It was freezing down by the beach, but in Agony Hollow, it’s perfect fall weather. Just cold enough for a light sweater, not cold enough for mittens or a scarf yet.
Thankfully, it looks like I didn’t open the wound again. I’ve really got to learn to take it easy, or else this thing will never heal.
“Jesus, people still read the paper?” Kai mutters, snatching a newspaper off the coffee table.
I shove my Ugg back on. “It’s kinda sweet that they left it for us.”
He drops the paper, shaking his head as he surveys the room. “The TV looked bigger in the pics.”
“Like there’ll be time for TV,” I say.
I pick up the paper on my way past and snap it straight with a flick of my wrist.
AUTHORITIES PROBE POSSIBLE DRUG OVERDOSE?—
“You’d better be talking about sex,” comes Kai’s voice, “because no way I’m studying that hard for…”
Static floods my head.
Authorities are investigating the death of an Ashwood Crossing resident found in a storm drain near the Agony River on Saturday evening, in what officials say appears to be a possible drug overdose. Police responded to a call shortly after 6 p.m. reporting the body and later identified the deceased as?—
No.
No, no, no.
My eyes scan the newspaper again and again like the words will rearrange themselves into something real.
“Hey, you listening?”
