Chapter 8

The porch light rendered a chiaroscuro Deputy Bobby: the light gleaming on his hair, his eyes, along his jaw, where a hint of very un-Deputy Bobby stubble showed. The rest of him was shadows, just a suggestion of the hollow of his throat, slumped shoulders, the outline of those strong arms. His mouth did something strange, and I realized he was trying to smile.

My conversation with Indira flooded back to me: what she’d said about him; what she’d said about me. My mind went blank, and all I could come up with was “Oh. Hi.”

“Hi.” It seemed like maybe that was all he could come up with as well, but then, the words labored, he managed, “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine. God, are you okay?”

His nod was a ghosting movement in the dark. He wasn’t standing all that close, but his presence—his silence—was unbearably intimate. I thought this was the Deputy Bobby that maybe nobody else was allowed to see. And I thought, again, about what Indira said. About what it might mean.

Assumptions, I told myself. Interpretations. The reality—cold, hard reality like a sober morning—rushed through me. We were friends. That was all. We’d always be friends.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said.

He stood there. Behind him, the brittle outlines of hemlocks stirred in the breeze.

“About how I reacted. When you told me. Uh, that stuff about Damian. And yes, I promise I can speak in full sentences, it’s just, uh—” I tapped the side of my head. “—a little choppy in here right now.”

His breathing was uneven. Like he’d been running, a part of my brain thought. Like he’d run all the way here.

“I know you did it because you want me to be safe,” I said. “I know you did it because you’re my friend. And I appreciate it, I do. I shouldn’t have said what I did. I might be kind of sensitive about dating and relationships and my generally bad judgment in men, but I shouldn’t have projected that onto you.”

“You don’t have to be okay,” he said.

“No, I overreacted.”

“You can get angry. You can—you can yell.”

There was something so strange about his voice, like he wasn’t really talking to me, that my reply came out cautiously: “I don’t want to yell at you.”

“I’m just saying, if you’re not okay, that’s okay.”

“It’s okay not to be okay?” I wanted it to sound like a joke, but it fell flat.

Deputy Bobby nodded again, just that suggestion of movement in the darkness. “You can tell me if you’re not okay. You can talk to me about it.”

“Bobby—” I struggled for a moment, and once again, I came up with a moment of sheer poetic genius: “I’m fine .”

He did this little breath thing that was so awful I didn’t realize, until an instant too late, it had been a laugh. And then, in that way as though he were talking to someone else, he said, “I just wanted to check on you.”

“Okay,” I said drawing out the word until it was almost a question. But he didn’t reply, and he didn’t move. “Do you want to come in?”

He shook his head.

I want to take full ownership of this moment and acknowledge that I am not a particularly bright man, because it didn’t occur to me until exactly that moment what was happening.

Then I said, “Bobby, are you okay?”

He jerked out a nod.

“Are you sure? Because you don’t seem like you’re okay. And someone very wise and much, much older than me once told me it was okay not to be okay.”

“I, uh—” The way he stopped broke my heart, but it was worse when he tried to smile again. He sounded like he was setting up a joke when he said, “The guys took me in. I had to call West from the station.”

“Oh God—”

“It’s fine. They didn’t arrest me.” The pause that came after had a numb quality. “But West told me not to come home tonight.”

I waited, but no punchline came. Where the ambient light caught his eyes, his gaze was blank and unprocessing.

“Oh God,” I said. “Bobby, I’m so sorry.”

“He’s really mad.”

“It’s going to be okay. Come inside.”

He didn’t move, so I took his arm and brought him into the vestibule. I hadn’t bothered with the lights, so we stood together in the shadows. A part of me was aware that I was still holding his arm: solid, dense with muscle. A part of me was aware of the heat of him. And a part of me was aware that he was trembling.

Deputy Bobby put his free hand to his forehead and held it there like he had a headache. “He’s so mad.”

“I’m sorry, Bobby.”

He shook his head, barely more than an impression in the gloom.

“He’ll get over it,” I said. “It’ll all work out.”

“He’s right to be angry. He should be angry.” The only reason I knew he closed his eyes was because that hint of reflected light was extinguished. Despair tilted his voice as he said, “Oh my God.”

I should have known better. After that conversation with Indira, I definitely should have known better. But it didn’t matter; he was in pain, and he was my friend, and his heartbreak was so intense it felt radioactive. I slipped my arms around him and pulled him against me.

His body was stiff at first, his muscles tense, joints locked into stiff angles. I always forgot I was taller, and it was disorienting how he fit with me, his head resting on my shoulder, his face turned into my neck. His breath was hot on the sensitive skin there. With every breath, I could smell his hair.

The thing you don’t learn writing mystery novels? Romance. When Will Gower was a rough-and-ready private eye, he had sex—lots of sex. (Too much sex, if you asked Phil, my parents’ agent.) And when he was a jaded cop with a drinking problem, he had sex. And when he was an icily intellectual FBI profiler, he had sex (in one manuscript that will never see the light of day, with the serial killer he was trying to profile). Will Gower got his heart broken by the systemic cruelties of a corrupt world. Will Gower, the white knight who never knew when to give up, lost people he cared about. But he didn’t fall in love. And the part of my brain that never turned off, the part of my brain that turned everything into stories, the part of me that recorded details and saved them for the next time I needed them, thought: the way I’m holding him, his shirt is slightly rucked up, and I can feel a hint of bare skin low on his back; the way his hair tickles my nose and I want to sneeze; how he splays his fingers against my ribs, like he’s not sure if he’s pushing me away or grabbing on. My heart, I thought, like I’d come apart from my body. How fast my heart is beating. And I wanted to turn it into a story, to make it safe and manageable, sewn up from beginning to end. But I didn’t know how, and even if I had, I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to do it. To take this, all of it, and make it...less.

By degrees, his body softened until he felt real again. And my heart slowed down. A little. Like, there wasn’t an imminent risk of a cardiac event. He stirred. His fingers flexed against my side and drew back. I relaxed my arms, and he retreated a step. He tried to look at me, but his eyes were fixed on something behind me, and he rubbed his jaw.

“Let’s get you something to eat.”

He shook his head.

“Let’s sit down, then.”

He swallowed, and it looked painful. “I should go.”

“Bobby,” I said.

And now he did look at me. I didn’t know exactly what to call what I saw in his face. A plea, maybe. Asking me for—what?

I changed what I’d been about to say. “Where are you going to spend the night?”

“I don’t know. The Rock On.”

The Rock On Inn was adorable, but I said, “No way. Cheri-Ann will put it on Facebook two minutes after you check in.”

Deputy Bobby rubbed his eyes.

“You can stay here,” I said.

“No.”

“Yes, it’s perfect. There’s a million bedrooms, and they’re all haunted, plus secret passages for easy murdering, and all those taxidermy birds to stare at you while you try to sleep.”

He stopped rubbing and just pressed his fingers against his eyes. “Dash, I can’t—”

“You can. It’ll be fine. Do you—I mean, did you have, like, a bag or something?”

He nodded.

“I’ll grab it,” I said. “Be right back.”

“No, I can—”

I squeezed past him and jogged out into the night.

The air was cool verging on cold, with a snap to it, and after the relative warmth of the house, my glasses fogged. Or maybe that was my breath, because it certainly felt like I was overheated, like I was drawing in lungfuls of the mist as I tried to bring my body temperature down. I wiped my hands on my jeans when I got to his Pilot, and as I opened the door, I thought, What am I doing?

Before I could consider that question more carefully, I grabbed the backpack from the passenger seat and hurried back inside.

Deputy Bobby was standing where I’d left him, a silhouette in the murky vestibule.

“Sure you don’t want anything to eat?” I asked.

He didn’t respond.

“Come on,” I said.

I had to touch his arm to get him moving, but after that, I was careful to keep my hands to myself. We moved through the house in the dark, heading for the central staircase. I kept to the rugs. I went slowly on the stairs. The sounds of our steps were muffled, but they seemed magnified in the house’s silence. I felt like I’d gone back in time, like I was sixteen and sneaking Justin Anderson into my bedroom to make out. In the thick shadows, every shape became Indira, and a flash fire went through my face. Not because she would think badly of me. Not because she would even care. But because of what she’d said earlier. Because a part of me was still running away from that conversation.

And look, a part of my brain pointed out, how well that’s going.

I led Deputy Bobby down the hall and into one of Hemlock House’s many bedrooms. The house was so quiet that I could hear every noise: the rattle of the door’s old hardware, the ancient latch squeaking back, Deputy Bobby’s ragged breathing. The bedroom itself looked like all the others in Hemlock House: the damask wallpaper, the four-poster bed, the cavernous fireplace, a gilt candelabra that looked like something straight out of Castle Dracula (perfect for holding dramatically while standing on a staircase). The mirror above the dressing table caught us, and for a strange moment, everything was reversed.

Shaking off the sensation, I carried Deputy Bobby’s bag to the bed. He trailed after me into the room, his steps soft and scuffing. “Welcome to Dashiell Dawson Dane’s bed-and-breakfast. Bathroom is through there—it’s a Jack-and-Jill, so we share it, which means remember to lock the door. We have some very important house rules, so I’m going to ask you to pay attention. First, we have a strict policy about not getting out of bed before noon. We put the bed in bed-and-breakfast.”

Apparently, even in the depths of despair, Deputy Bobby could still roll his eyes.

“Second, breakfast is whatever Indira is gracious enough to make. And if she decides not to make anything, we’re going to Chipper, and you’re buying me the Dash Special.”

“It’s not really a special, you know.” His voice sounded like he was fighting for normal. “And I don’t see why you have to have all four breakfast sandwiches at the same time.”

“Wait, someone told you about the Dash Special?”

“Millie put it on the menu board.”

“Oh my God.” I drew a deep breath. “Third, if you’re going to search for hidden treasure, please don’t break anything.”

“What was it this time?”

“Keme tried to climb a downspout.”

Deputy Bobby rubbed his eyes, but he looked like he was trying not to smile.

“And fourth, if you need anything—anything—please tell me.” I put my hands on my hips and said in my sternest voice, “Please.”

He nodded.

“I’ll get out of your hair,” I said.

He nodded. Whatever animation had filled his face was draining away again, and he looked around the room as though still trying to take it in, his expression dull.

“Or,” I said, “I could stay.”

I got another nod.

There aren’t a lot of times in my life I’ve been brave, but I think maybe this one counted. Black spots flecked my vision. It felt like somebody else was breathing through my mouth. My guts had collapsed into that black hole of whirling, sharp objects. But somehow, I managed to say, “Bobby?”

He looked at me.

“I’m going to stay. Just until I’m sure you’re okay.”

Nothing. But I saw in his eyes—what? That plea again, maybe, although I didn’t know what he was asking for. A hint of panic. He began to pace, moving his way back and forth across the room. I sank onto a chaise. Springs compressed under me, groaning. The scrolled wood of the back felt cold, and my hand was slick and oily. Deputy Bobby moved from the dressing table and the backwards world inside the mirror to the fireplace. He studied the porcelain figure of a woman there. He touched the tortoiseshell lid of a trinket box. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, and even now, the vee of his body was strong and straight.

“What’s going on with your parents?” he asked as he moved to study a massive oil painting of a—I want to say a stallion. (And again, I have to emphasize in Millie style: MASSIVE.)

“What’s going on with them?” I asked. “I don’t know. I guess the usual. They don’t talk to each other. Then they talk about writing. Dad cleans his guns. Or he shoots his guns. Or he goes down to the gunsmith and talks to the guys and buys a new gun. Mom reads court transcripts or books about psychopaths or medical journals. She gets the eggs from the chickens. She checks herself into a residential treatment program.”

Deputy Bobby jerked his gaze toward me.

“She’s fine,” I said. “She does it almost every year. She thinks she’s going to get some dramatic inside scoop, you know? Like, uncover abuse, or meet someone who will inspire a character. That kind of thing.”

“Does it work?”

“God, no. The places she picks are practically spas.”

Deputy Bobby laughed, but it faded quickly. “I meant what about your story?”

“What?”

“Your story. For the anthology.”

“You already asked me about that.”

“I know.”

“It’s been, I don’t know, a couple of hours. It’s not like I drove home after almost being caught by the police and suddenly had the muse whispering in my ear.”

“I meant—” He turned away again, tracing the back of a slipper chair with one hand. “Like, what do your parents say?”

Talking about my writing always opened that black hole in my stomach, and talking about my parents and my writing was like turning those spinning blades up to ten. But I’d worked hard on not reacting to those feelings. And this was, after all, Deputy Bobby. I took a deep breath. And then another. I watched him: the way his hand followed the back of the chair, the way he angled his body away from me, the slight hunch to his shoulders. And because I’m so very, very smart, it only took me that long to realize, once again, we weren’t really talking about me.

“Well, they haven’t said anything yet. And I really am going to try to finish that story. But I won’t. I mean, I probably won’t. And my dad will get angry and give me this gruff, manly speech about ‘digging down deep’ and ‘doing the work.’ And my mom will have a panic attack, and once that’s over, she’ll spend six weeks researching every therapist in a hundred miles and start making appointments for me.”

The look on Deputy Bobby’s face was priceless.

“This is why I always tell people it’s a good thing that they forget about me most of the time.” I kept my gaze on his face as I asked, “What about your parents?”

He shook his head, and his hand stilled on the back of the chair. “They’re good people.”

I thought I could hear the clock ticking in the hall. After what might have been a minute, I said, “They must be excited that you and West are going to move back to Portland.”

“I guess.” Deputy Bobby gave a pained laugh. “My mom is. I mean, she loves West. Loves him. My family jokes that she loves him more than she loves me. My dad—who knows? I told you about the apartment thing, right?”

I nodded.

“It’s like that. Actually, that’s good, to be honest. A lot of time, it’s nothing. We don’t say anything. West and I go back to visit, and he’ll say, ‘How long are you going to be here?’ And that’s it. That’s the only thing we’ll hear all weekend. The first time I took West to meet them, West tried so hard. He kept asking questions. He was so polite. And my mom answered all the questions, no matter how hard West tried to get my dad to talk. He thought my dad was mad at him until I told him that’s how it always is.”

When I realized he wasn’t going to say anything else, I said, “That sounds hard.”

“It’s…it is what it is.” He shook his head. “God, if West breaks up with me, they’re going to be furious.”

“West isn’t going to break up with you.”

“It was bad enough in college when I told them I was gay. And they lost their minds when I told them that I wasn’t going to med school and, instead, I was going into law enforcement—and, on top of that, I was moving across the state.” His mouth twisted. “My mom lost her mind. My dad went out to the garage and didn’t come back inside until I left. If West breaks up with me, that’s strike three.”

It was such a strange thing to say that I didn’t know how to respond. The wind batted at the panes in the old windows, swallowing the tick of the clock.

“I just don’t know what to do,” Deputy Bobby burst out. “I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to—I don’t know how to talk to him about it. My parents never fight. They never disagree. They never talk. But everything I do lately seems to make West angry. More than angry. And I want to say something, I want to talk to him, I want to fix it. It’s my fault. I know I can fix it.” His knuckles blanched as he gripped the back of the chair. “But I open my mouth, and it’s like—remember what you said about razor blades? It’s like that. I can’t think. I can’t talk. I can’t get a single word out of my mouth. I just freeze.” That unhappy laugh boiled up again. “But I’m talking to you, so what’s the matter with me?”

“Nothing’s the matter with you. Talking to me isn’t the same as talking to West. With West, there’s more on the line. That’s a lot of pressure. It can be scary.”

“I do fine with pressure. I’m under pressure all day.”

“I know. I just mean there’s more at stake. He’s so important to you.”

Deputy Bobby shook his head, but his hand relaxed around the back of the chair.

“You could try writing it down,” I said. “I could help you. You could write down everything you want to say to him, and then when you’re ready to talk, you’ve got it right there. You’ll look like a total dingus, but you always look like a total dingus, so West won’t even notice.”

His laugh was sudden and shocked. But it was also real. And for the first time in what felt like an eternity, he flashed that goofy smile at me.

“This is why we’re friends,” I said. “I have all the best ideas.”

“It’s a terrible idea.”

“It’s an amazing idea. I literally solved all your problems in like fifteen seconds.”

“You didn’t solve all my problems. You are like eighty percent of my problems.”

“Only eighty? I need to try harder.”

I got that goofy grin again.

“Well?” I asked.

It felt like a long time before he said, “Maybe.” And then, more quietly, “Thank you.”

“How about we make a deal?”

“Dash, I can’t eat an entire birthday cake by myself. I definitely don’t want to eat one by myself.”

“No, that was a challenge, and only because Keme—it doesn’t matter. How about this? I’ll finish my story. Even though it’s going to mean pulling my hair out, and ripping out my fingernails, and screaming into the void as I face my total lack of talent—”

“You’ve been spending too much time with Fox.”

“—and you write down what you want to say to West and have a conversation with him. Explain what’s going on. He loves you. You love him. You need to work this out. Plus it makes me super sad when you’re sad. And I don’t want to be sad. I want to be happy. And full of cake. Like, an entire cake, even though Keme doesn’t think I could do it.”

He came across the room to where I sat on the chaise, and he looked down at me. The dark bronze of his eyes looked even darker than usual because his pupils were swollen, and the angle, with me staring up at him, made it hard to read his expression. He was close enough I could feel him again, that awareness of his body like a sixth sense making the hairs on my arms stand up.

“I’m sorry,” he said. It was like a spell breaking. I was suddenly aware of my flushed cheeks, the heat under my breastbone, the tingling hollowness of my legs. “About earlier.”

I stared at him, unable to bring out any words.

“Damian,” he said.

“Oh.”

“You were right. I was out of line.”

I shook my head because I didn’t trust my voice.

He crouched. He put his hands on my knees. To steady himself, maybe. Or maybe not. They felt like anchors, and the rest of me was trying to float away. He looked me in the eye and said, “You are a good friend. I want you to be happy too.”

I listened to the rhythm of our breaths. Felt the warm weight of his hands. For an instant, he seemed to have his own gravity, and I felt myself tumbling toward him, tipping into him.

And then he adjusted his weight, moving back a fraction, steadying himself, a hint of a self-conscious smile, like a boy wobbling while he tried to do a trick. And it was over.