I swallow the lump of heat that’s risen to the back of my throat. Now that I know he’s fine, I’m embarrassed.
Now that I see he clearly responded to my pounding by running straight from the shower to the front door, a towel wrapped around his waist and a scowl set deep into his brow and jaw, I’m humiliated.
My whole body feels hot and tingly, that burgeoning sunburn feeling times a hundred.
“Alice?” His expression wavers. “Is everything okay?”
I step back abruptly from him and bend to grab the tea and croissant off the ground, holding them out at arm’s length. “Didn’t you see these when you got back from your run?”
His gaze dips, then rebounds to my face. “Yes?”
I balk. “Then why didn’t you take them?”
“Because I didn’t know where they came from,” he says, “and I’m not in the habit of eating and drinking things I find on the ground.”
I feel myself wilting. “I brought them for you.”
His dark brows flick upward, the light catching his eyes for a second, turning his irises the color of whipped coffee. Despite the latte sitting in my stomach, it sends a burst of thirst across my tongue.
He clears his throat. “I didn’t realize.” He reaches out one hand to accept the cup and bag from me, his other still clutching the towel against his damp hip.
Which, of their own accord, my eyes drop to, before snapping back to his face.
“Thank you,” he says.
“No problem,” I force out, keeping my eyes pointedly not on his water-speckled chest. Or the rivulets running from the dark hair tucked behind his ears down his neck. Or his stomach and hips and legs and towel and whatever’s under the towel and—“Anyway! Today’s our last day as neighbors. I booked my rental for the month.”
He opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it on a nod.
“Sorry again, if my snoring kept you up,” I say.
He hesitates before answering. “It was actually sort of soothing.”
I guffaw. “Are you serious? You could hear it through the wall?”
He lifts one shoulder, my eye tracking the motion, my body impolitely informing me that I might have a shoulder fetish. “I’m a light sleeper,” he says. “Don’t take it personally.”
“Oh, I try to take almost nothing personally,” I tell him. “I actually could probably afford to take a little more personally.”
The corners of his mouth twitch, and I have no idea whether it’s a gesture toward a smile or a grimace.
I take a half step back. “Anyway, in case I don’t see you again…”
“It was nice meeting me?” he says, parroting my words from last night, with one brow hooking upward.
I break into a grin. “Enjoy your stay.”
As I walk away, his low thunder roll of a voice says, “Nice meeting you too, Alice.”
That, I decide, is definitely a win.
That night, I awake to a screech. To flashing lights. To sheer confusion.
I jolt away from the sound and half tumble out of bed, bleary eyes darting around the dark room.
On the wall behind the bed, a mounted device flashes and blares, alternating strobes of red and white streaking across the room. My first thought is ambulance. My second is Audrey!
My sister. Pain spears through my chest right alongside the panic, and then I piece my surroundings together.
Fire alarm, I realize.
You wouldn’t think that would trigger such a wave of relief in me, but it does. My chest loosens, my heart very gradually slowing as I clamber to my feet and snatch my laptop and phone from the side table on my way to the door.
I step into my sandals, grab my room key, and dart out onto the walkway, joining the crowd of sleepy kids and grumpy adults stumbling toward the stairs.
The night is sticky and warm as we make our way down to the parking lot, hotel staff spilling out from the lobby, a manager shouting for us to “REMAIN CALM. THE FIRE DEPARTMENT WILL BE HERE SHORTLY.”
I join a group of guests standing on the sidewalk. With my laptop tucked under my arm, I check the time on my phone—just before four a.m.
Someone stumbles into me, and I look up to find a man about ten or fifteen years older than I am, swaying on the spot, his red-rimmed eyes fixed dully on me.
I reach out to steady him. “Are you okay?”
His toothy grin blasts me with the smell of liquor. He’s drunk, not simply tired. “Better now, baby.” His gaze drips down me like slime.
I’m wearing a blue nightgown from the sixties, loose and long enough to cover my knees, but he manages to make me feel like I’m naked, and not in a good way.
I try to step back, but he’s latched on to my elbow now. He seems more solid, steady, than I first thought. “I think we might be neighbors,” he says, squinting at me. “What room are you in?”
“I…” I look uncertainly over my shoulder, hoping for a friendly face, or even just proof that there’s anyone else watching, but no one’s looking this way. “I don’t remember.”
His expression darkens, the smile melting off his face. “You don’t remember?”
“There you are,” says a low, cool voice behind me.
I spin around, the drunk man’s grip loosening on my arm but not entirely letting go.
Hayden towers over me, his face stony. “Hi!” I try to signal with my eyes what’s going on. I’m not sure whether it’s working, because Hayden’s face remains exactly the same.
He turns toward the interloper as he asks, “Who’s your friend?”
“He’s our neighbor, I guess,” I say.
“I thought you were here alone,” the man says, either too drunk or too clueless to realize how horrifying that is to hear, as a woman who is, in fact, frequently traveling alone.
I open my mouth to try to excuse Hayden and me from the conversation, but Hayden’s faster: “Nope.” He curls an arm loosely around my waist. “Not alone.”
The man’s face slackens, his hand finally sliding off my arm. “You should’ve said so,” he slurs at me irritably.
Yes, I’m the one at fault here.
I shrug like, Whaddya gonna do?
“If you’ll excuse us,” Hayden says, “I think we’ll take this break from our room as a chance to go get breakfast.”
The man swats an annoyed hand in our direction as Hayden turns and steers me deeper into the parking lot, his arm falling away.
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m really bad at that.”
His gaze lances over his shoulder at me. “Bad at what?”
“Avoiding drunk people,” I say. “Avoiding creepy people. Not starting conversations with strangers. Getting out of conversations with strangers. You name it.”
The corners of his mouth tighten. He stops beside the passenger door of his rental car. I look back the way we came, and find our inebriated friend leaned at a nearly forty-five-degree angle against a tree.
“If we give it five minutes, he’ll be asleep and we can go back and wait with everyone else,” I say.
Hayden’s frown deepens.
“I mean, not that you have to stay with me!” I add. “Honestly, now that I know his whole deal, I’m fine. I just won’t engage again. I know we already said our farewells this morning, so.”
His head tilts like he’s puzzling over something. “I was serious, about going to get breakfast. If you want to join.”
“It’s four a.m.,” I point out.
“These things always take forever, even when they’re false alarms,” he says. “We’ll be out here at least another hour. Might as well go somewhere more comfortable.”
“But it’s four a.m.,” I repeat.
“So you’re not hungry?”
“I’m famished,” I say, “but nothing will be open.”
He turns and unlocks the passenger door. “Something,” he says, “is always open.”
Hayden punches Ray’s Diner into his GPS once we’re settled in the car. It’s twenty-five minutes away, back on the mainland.
“Maybe I should’ve mentioned,” he says, “the something that’s open is toward Savannah. Closest thing I could find. That a problem?”
I shrug. “Not for me. Like you said, these things always take forever anyway. But if you wanted to go back to sleep—”
“I can never go back to sleep once I get up,” he tells me, starting the car. “Thus why I know about Ray’s Diner.”
When we get there, a few trucks and cars are already littered throughout the lot. Bells tinkle over the door as we let ourselves in.
A server in a mint-green dress and apron is mopping between the tables, and oldies play quietly over the crackly speakers. A grizzly bearded man looks over at us, noticing that we’re in pajamas—or rather, I am; Hayden’s in black sweats and a white T-shirt, so he’s more discreet—but then goes back to eating his eggs.
The server looks up from mopping as we pass and nods a greeting. “Be right with ya,” she promises, and we settle into the corner booth.
“You’re a real corner-booth guy,” I say.
His brows pinch. “What?”
“You took the corner booth at Fish Bowl too.”
“The corner booth is objectively the best booth.”
“Says who?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I don’t know. No one needs to say it. It’s obvious.”
I gesture toward the other few diners, most of them likely long haulers or people getting off third shift. “None of them chose this booth.”
“It was probably occupied when they got here,” he says, unfolding one large plasticky menu and sliding another across the Formica tabletop toward me.
“How many times have you been here since you got to town?” I ask.
“Four,” he says, not missing a beat. “Counting today.”
“And how many of those times have you scored this booth?” I ask.
His eyes slowly peel up from the menu to meet mine. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“Smiling like you’ve just walked into a surprise birthday party,” he says. “When almost nothing is happening.”
“Something is happening,” I counter. “I’m getting to know your idiosyncrasies.”
“My idiosyncrasies?” He scoffs a little, sets the menu down. “You’re the one who sleeps in an I Dream of Jeannie costume.”
I devolve into laughter at that.
The server sidles up, her notepad ready and waiting. “Get ya anything to drink?”
“Coffee,” he says, then looks to me.
“Me too.”
“What about food? Ya ready to order?” she asks us.
Hayden tosses another quick look my way.
“I can be,” I promise, flipping open the proportionally gigantic menu.
“Egg whites, wheat toast, and the seasonal fruit, please,” he tells her, and her large brown eyes swivel to me next.
“Peaches and cream French toast,” I tell her.
“Have that right out for ya.” She walks away.
“Did you notice she never starts speaking at the beginning of the sentence?” he asks, ducking his head and dropping his voice.
I mirror his posture. “How many times did you get the corner booth, Hayden?”
His lips twitch downward. “If you want to move tables—”
“Oh, I don’t want to move tables,” I say. “I’m just fascinated by the way you see the world.”
He leans back against the shiny pink banquette. “It’s the most protected seat in the house. You have a view of every entrance and exit.”
“You’re by the toilets,” I add.
“You can see the server, anywhere in the restaurant, if you need to flag them down.”
“You’re by the toilets,” I say.
“Or alternately, if I sat where you’re sitting, no one would be able to see my face without trying pretty hard,” he says.
“You’re by the toilets,” I say, “and also, are you on the run?”
“I’m private,” he says.
“And I’m the one with the idiosyncrasies,” I tease.
One of his brows arches upward. He opens his mouth to retort, then shuts it again as our server reappears, flipping our mugs right side up and filling them from the steaming pot in her hand.
“Thank you,” Hayden says stiffly.
“ ’S no problem at all, sweetie.” She retreats again, pausing at the counter to top off the bearded man’s mug.
Hayden hesitates, considering something for a while, and I fight every impulse to rush him. He really does remind me of some huge, wild animal. Not dangerous, but skittish.
“I grew up in a sort of…public family,” he settles on.
Now I can’t help it: I lean forward eagerly. “Please tell me the Andersons had a reality show.”
He cracks a smile. At least I think it’s a smile. It could also be a wince. “Not that public. My dad was the mayor.”
“The mayor,” I repeat. “The mayor of Indiana!”
“Well, since states don’t have mayors,” he says, “no. But the mayor of a small town in Indiana, yeah.”
I scoot to the edge of my seat, only to remember that our combined height makes such an arrangement inadvisable. Instead, I pull my legs up onto the bench and sit cross-legged, as far forward against the table as I can. “So you learned to be private from them?”
“No,” he says. “I learned to be perfect from them.”
I must be making a face—probably another is this a surprise party, just for me? smile of delight, because what he’s just said is so utterly ridiculous.
“I didn’t say I still do it,” he says.
I stifle a laugh.
“Oh, come on.” He scoots forward now, our knees knocking even with my adjusted posture. “I’m not so bad that you can’t imagine me making a good impression.”
“I didn’t say you were bad at all!” I cry. “But no one’s perfect.”
“Oh, trust me,” he says. “My dad is. And my brother.”
“Is your brother the mayor now?” I ask.
“Worse,” Hayden tells me. “Louis is the local pediatrician. And his wife is the head of the school board.”
Another cackle of delight escapes me.
“Unless I joined the Peace Corps,” he says, “I was never going to live up to that.”
“Okay, well, one,” I begin, holding up a finger, “you won a fucking Pulitzer. I doubt they’re wringing their hands over how to shepherd the Anderson family black sheep back onto the right path.”
“Maybe not now,” he allows, “but for the ten years prior, yeah, I’m pretty sure they were.”
“And two,” I cut in, “that’s pretty much a perfect segue into the fact that my sister actually, literally is in the Peace Corps.”
He stares at me. “You’re kidding.”
Another round of exhausted giggles ripples through me. “I’m not. She’s, like, helping combat food shortages in another country right now, and I’m—to quote my mother—‘still doing that celeb gossip stuff.’ ”
His forehead wrinkles. “But you don’t write celebrity gossip.”
“Right, but what I do write is close enough that I can assure you, my mother will never feel a pressing need to understand the difference.”
He shakes his head, evidently confused. “But she reads your work.”
Inside my chest, it feels like a pinprick puncturing a balloon. “No, not really. I mean, the first couple pieces when I got the job, yeah. But it’s just ‘not really her thing.’ And I get it. I mean, I’d actually probably prefer she not read it, rather than force herself to and then pretend, badly, that she liked it.”
“The Scratch is a prestigious outlet,” he says. “They pay well and have great subscription numbers.”
I shrug. “It’s just not her thing. I get it.”
He studies me for a moment, so intensely that he—and frankly, I—jump when our server returns to plop our plates in front of us.
“Hot, so be careful,” she says, and then she’s gone again.
I clear my throat. “So,” I say, meeting Hayden’s gaze once more. “Are you excited for your first interview with Margaret?”
He shakes his head.
“You’re not?” I say.
“No,” he says. “I mean, don’t ask that.”
“Why not?” I press.
“Because I’m not going to talk about it with you,” he says.
I roll my eyes, slide my feet back down to the floor, scooting forward again. My knees wind up caged in by his, but I don’t retreat. “What do you possibly think I could steal from your answer to that question?”
He stabs his fork into his eggs and leans in too, his thighs pressing gently against mine in the process. He drops his voice to match my tone. “Alice.”
I feel a flutter of anticipation under my collarbone. “Hayden,” I say.
“I’m not going to answer that either,” he says.
Then he takes a huge bite.
This round, I think, is a draw.
