He was right. She wouldn’t.
“But hey,” he said. “What about this smuggler’s hole? Mabel wrote that it’s near the cottage. Did Mabel and Jack own this cottage?”
I shook my head. “I don’t really know, to be honest. Nana inherited it from her mother—from Elsie, but Nana never mentioned it being passed down from Mabel. And I’ve never seen mention of any cottage in all the books that have been written about them.”
“If I were a betting man, I’d say this is Mabel’s cottage. Which means the smuggler’s hole she mentions is near here.”
I couldn’t imagine where. There was the cottage and the garage, a couple of trees, and a little grass that still needed mowing. Beyond that was sand and water.
“You know what I think?” Seb said.
“Please.”
“I think we have everything we need to find the treasure in this letter. We just have to put our minds to it and figure out a few details.”
“A few? How are we in any better position to find the statue now?”
He whistled at me. “You’re spinning out. Take a breath.”
Was I?He used to tell me that when we were young and I was freaking out about something. I stopped pacing and stood in front of him, exhaling a shaky breath. “I’m okay.”
He nodded. “There you go, see? We were on Treasure Hunt 1.0, and it led us to this. All we need to do now is a little research for Treasure Hunt 2.0, and we’re back in business.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Don’t you?”
Oh, I absolutely did. This was the break I’d been hoping for. Or maybe it was even the answer from Nana that I was hoping for last night on the beach. I said a thank-you in my head, just in case. “We can get started after you unpack... unless you have other plans.”
“No plans are a match for the Golden Venus.” Seb fell back on the bare mattress and sighed. “Besides, with all these roomie rules we’ve both agreed to, we’re going to need something big to distract us from putting our hands on each other again.”
The way he looked at me from the bed, blue eyes glittering with mischief, we were going to need a lot more than Treasure Hunt 2.0.
Chapter 22
Hard to believe, but Seb and I cohabited without incident for a couple weeks. We went out and bought new sheets for his room. Found an old rug in the basement that was in good shape and hauled it upstairs. Installed a video doorbell camera at the front and a dog door at the back that only unlocked with Punkin’s microchip. Ate takeout together on the porch swing. Got high. Watched bad TV. Laughed.
And we researched.
However, that wasallwe did, and I could thank myself and all those dim-witted “roommate” rules I imposed on both of us. Seb worked at the marina all day, so I had the cottage to myself until five or six. A couple of days, I had things to take care of, like a meeting with the family attorney to discuss how much was left in the estate trust—not nearly as much as I thought.
When I found that out, I counted back how many days it had been since I’d left that voicemail at my father’s brokerage (too many) and called his office again, hoping to catch a receptionist, or anyone, really. Three times I called, at various times of the day, and three times I got the same, old voice recording. The fourth time, I left a more forceful voice message. I both desired and dreaded a response.
When I wasn’t dreading, I spent time reading art history booksto get a leg up on my classes for the upcoming school year. Every night after Seb came back to the cottage, showered, and we ate, we’d go into treasure research mode. We’d pull out the laptop, maps, and books, looking for information about any towers near Sleeping Bear Dunes. And we found a lot of interesting things, most of them too obvious, like a lighthouse on a nearby island.
Nothing we found fit Mabel’s description.
But while we huddled together over maps, unwilling to give up, Seb didn’t once try to kiss me. Or touch me. Or tease me. He called us “roomies” and frequently made comments about following the house rules. So many comments the first week, I thought he was trying to push my buttons. But nothing happened. Not then. Not the second week. And not when the Wags all gathered at the cottage on the beach for Fourth of July to watch distant fireworks over the harbor. It was just a normal celebration with friends.
Horribly, horribly normal.
I only had myself to blame. The whole platonic, no-sex rule was mine, after all, and Seb was just doing what I asked. Maybe I needed to clear the air and find out what he was thinking. Or maybe I needed to figure out why I was getting cold feet about even bringing it up.
He slept in only his bed the first couple nights. After that, he fell asleep in increasingly back-aching positions on the sofa. I was worried that he was weirded out over sleeping in Nana’s old room but too afraid to ask him because I was beginning to think that us becoming roommates was a terrible mistake. At least, when it came to our relationship. Our friendship? Getting stronger every day. And I knew I was doing the right thing by giving Seb a place to stay.
But sometimes the right thing and the thing you want aren’t the same.
After too many nights of takeout, I tried to do something nice and roasted a chicken in the oven. But an hour later, it was still raw, and I realized the heating element was trashed. Embarrassed, I had to toss the bird when he walked in the door, but we ended up just eating the sides and he acted like it was great. It was not, but he was polite about it. Maybe that’s because he’d made a research breakthrough.
