Chapter 19

Victory flashes in Nicole's eyes, and to my shock, she hugs me, the bottle of bourbon trapped between us. "I knew you had it in you."

"I didn't," I say quietly, but now that the idea's been planted, it sprouts. "But you're right. We don't owe him grief. We don't owe him anything."

"That's the spirit," she says, nudging my arm. Then she lifts the arm with the bourbon. "Out to the fire pit!"

I head outside with her, assuming she knows her fire-starting shit, and promptly trip over a gaping hole in the ground—small but deep.

I go down hard, and Nicole tuts her tongue. "Defeated by a land beaver. That's got to be a new low."

"What the hell is a land beaver?" I ask, groaning as I pick myself up. A quick glance over the dusky ground shows there are another couple of holes within view.

"A cool term for a very uncool animal."

"Not making it any clearer," I say following her toward the fire pit, picking my way carefully now.

"Gophers."

I've heard of them but never seen one in nature. The extent of the wildlife we see in New York are pigeons, rats, mice, and squirrels, so the thought of a gopher infestation is pretty exotic.

"I'd like to see one," I say, getting a snort.

When we reach the fire pit, it turns out Nicole only has a Bic lighter in her pocket, plus the brush around the fire pit, which is damp from an earlier rain.

"This is harder than it looks," she says with a sigh. "I hate it when something is anticlimactic."

Then she looks up, her gaze drilling into the dark night, lit only by our house, the house next door, and thousands of stars. She points a finger at something behind me. "Him."

I turn and see Declan, out walking Rocket again. The dog has on a reflective vest, so clearly Declan cares more for his safety than he does for his own.

"You!" Nicole calls, louder. "Hot stuff."

Declan veers toward us, his gaze catching mine. I can barely see it, but I can feel it—it's a brighter burn than the bourbon.

"How afraid should I be?" he says as he gets closer.

"Do you know how to start a fire?" Nicole asks.

"Depends on what you want to burn," he replies. "I'm partial to my house." His gaze settles on me again. "And your sister."

I swallow. "As it happens, I'd prefer not to be burned too." I gesture to the box we brought outside, only then realizing that he might take offense to what we're doing. Dick was his friend. But I don't want to lie to him, and if he's going to start the fire for us, it seems only right that he should know what's going in it. "We're going to burn up some photo albums we found in Dick's things."

"Are you sure?" he asks, his eyes on mine. There's no judgment in gaze, and I'm more grateful for that than I probably should be.

I pause to consider, but it's a less complicated decision for me than it is for Nicole. All I'm doing is destroying photos of myself—of a life that Richard Ricci chose to watch from the sidelines, never involving himself in even the smallest of ways. I hate him a little for that. Or maybe I hate him a lot for it. And despite what I said to Nicole, despite the fact that I have an amazing father and didn't need another, I'm still sad. But all of me, even the sad part, wants to see those photos burn. It's not just because of him, but because of what I've come to realize—I've let so much of life pass me by, and it's time to stop.

"Yes, you?" I ask, shifting my gaze to Nicole.

She laughs. "I'll take any excuse to start a fire."

It's a glib response, but when I look into her eyes, so like mine, I see an expression in them I've seen often enough in the mirror. She's not feeling glib. She needs this. She wants to burn away the part of her that wanted his approval. She wants to turn it to ash and blow the ash into the ether, sending a smoke signal to her father's soul. I don't need you. I never did.

Declan nods solemnly, then hands me Rocket's leash, the brush of his fingers against mine awakening my nerve endings. "Hold him for me? He likes fires and has the survival instincts of a male praying mantis."

"I'll protect him from himself."

"You're good at that," he says. Then he shocks me by reaching up and tucking my hair behind my ear. "You smell like bourbon again."

"You're just jealous," Nicole says. Grabbing the half-empty bottle from the box, she holds it out to him, "Want some?"

He shrugs and then takes it from her, knocking back a swig, and I must be truly gone for him, because I feel jealous of the bottle.

How's Declan going to start the fire? My mouth gets dry as I think about the muscles in his shoulders working, his chest getting sweaty from the effort. I remember watching some eighties movie where a guy turns a stick around in circles and magically causes a blaze, but if it were that easy, wouldn't more people die in fires? Then there's the rock-to-rock method, another mainstay in movies…

I watch, riveted, as he gathers dry brush and sticks from areas he seems to magically detect and arranges them in some kind of predetermined order in the fire pit. There's something sexy about the capable, easy way he does it—like he starts fires every day and thinks nothing of it. Something tells me he didn't learn how in the Boy Scouts. Maybe his uncle taught him—the same one he's so certain my father would have disapproved of.

"How are you going to get it going?" I say, unable to contain myself anymore. "Are you going to use the rock method or the stick method?"

I feel his smile everywhere, as if it had reached out and stroked me. "I have a special trick."

"If you whip out your dick, I'm going to laugh before I hit you," Nicole says.

But Declan doesn't give her the reaction she probably wants. He's still looking at me as he pulls a lighter out of his pocket.

"Ah, I'm an idiot," I say.

"At least we didn't have to say it," Nicole interjects. "But I have a lighter too. It got me nowhere."

"You didn't really try," I comment, my gaze on Declan.

"I could definitely have pulled off the rock method, though," he says, his eyes sparkling in the dusky near dark. "I just want to save you ladies time."

The brush takes, the fire whooshes into being, and Nicole roars into the night. And I must be a little drunk because I roar with her.

"Are you going to dance around the fire too?" Declan asks with a grin, and he looks even better by the light of the fire he made with his hands. A little wicked. Very capable. The longer hair in front is dancing in the breeze, like even the wind wants a piece of him.

"Look at you with the good ideas," Nicole crows, and she really does start dancing. I might not have joined her if I were sober, but the bourbon's kicked in hard. I glance at Declan and find that he was already watching me. There's a glimmer in his eyes, an appreciation, and suddenly I don't want to just dance around the fire because it's fun—I want to do it because I know that he's here watching me.

"Let me take Rocket," he says, his voice husky. "I don't want him getting any bright ideas."

Our hands brush again as I hand the leash over, and this time he surprises me by squeezing my hand before releasing it. My heart beats faster. Has he changed his mind?

Have I changed mine?

It would still be messy as hell to get mixed up with someone who lives next door, not to mention he's made it perfectly clear he's not a one-woman man. For all I know, he was with one of his friends-with-benefits earlier tonight, a thought that makes me want to grit my teeth or maybe have a full-on, feet-kicking tantrum.

"Dance for me, Claire," he says in an undertone that makes me achy with wanting. But my whole life I've done things for other people. I want him to watch me; I want him to want me. I desperately want him to touch me, but I also want to dance for myself.

So I do. Nicole and I dance around the fire like witches, like heathens, like people who don't give a shit about what they might look like, and the whole time I feel Declan's gaze beating into me. Undressing me.

I have never, not once in twenty-eight years, felt so alive. And when we stop, breathless and laughing, Nicole nods to me. There's something serious in her face, almost somber. Intention flashes in her eyes. "It's time."

I pick up the box of photo albums, intending to dump the whole things into the flames and be done with it, but Declan grabs my hand, smoothing his thumb over the back of it. "Not the plastic. There would be fumes."

"So we have to take the photos out to burn them?" I ask.

I'd hoped never to have to look at them again, but Nicole nods resolutely. "Good. It'll be a more personal fuck you this way."

She starts with her book, peeling the photos out and feeding them to the hungry flames. Declan's thumb makes another pass over my hand, probably intending to comfort but revving me up instead. Then he steps back, giving me space to feed the flames.

So I start to do it too. In goes the photo of me in my pull-ups. Me frowning over spinach for the first time. Me eating my first cupcake, years before my real father would teach me to bake them. Me, me, me, my face curling and blackening and bubbling. And it feels like another awakening, like a new beginning. Like witchcraft, out here with the mountains in the background, the soft glow of our houses behind us.

"It feels surprisingly good to burn things," I say, glancing behind me, my hair whipping in the summer breeze.

"Don't make a habit of it," Declan says with a smile. I wonder, again, if he's sad about what we're doing. But he still doesn't seem judgmental. He's an observer. A witness.

I throw in a photo of my middle school graduation. Senior skip day. Senior prom, which Lainey and I went to without dates because we were just that cool—and no one asked us. High school graduation. The first three-tier cake I sold to a private client. My first day at Agnes Lewis. There are only a half a dozen photos after that, and it doesn't take a genius to figure out why. My mother had eventually stopped sending them. Maybe she'd already heard about the Tribe of Light, or maybe another obsession had overtaken the inconsistent interest she'd taken in being my mother. But at the back, behind the last photo, of me smiling fakely at the camera next to Agnes, who'd just threatened me with physical harm for bringing her the exact coffee she'd asked me to order, I find something unexpected—a folded piece of paper with my name on it. My heart quickens, and without looking at either Declan or Nicole, I tuck it into the pocket of my cardigan.

That done, I glance at Nicole, wondering if she found one too. Wondering what the fuck it means and whether I even want it to mean anything. Maybe it would have been better if both albums had gone directly into the flames. If Richard Ricci hadn't been allowed this last chance to say something to me. Because words can be more harmful than silence.

But before I have a chance to ask her anything, a familiar car pulls up to the house and parks. Damien emerges from it, and Nicole squeals and runs to him, meeting him partway to the bonfire.

He wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her neck. "You've only been home for a few hours and you're already starting fires?"

She glances up at him. "Would you expect anything less?"

"Never. I'll get the marshmallows."

I feel rather than see Declan step closer to me, the front of his shirt brushing my back. His hand skates down my arm, the calluses sending hot shivers through me as I remember what they felt like tracing the line of my torso—as I imagine what they'd feel like touching all of me. Then he gently removes the empty album from my grip. It's only then that I realize I had it in a death grip. Its cover is plastic, and Declan tucks it back into the box without comment. Then he returns, standing close enough that his heat is radiating toward me, or maybe that's entirely in my imagination since I'm standing next to a literal fire. His little dog is sitting by his side, such a tiny fuzzy thing next to this mountain of a man, and it's such an appealing picture that I wish I had my phone to capture it. I wish it were something I could keep forever.

"Do you feel better?" he asks, his words full of concern, as though my answer is important to him.

"I do," I admit, but there's that note, burning a hole in my pocket.

"Good." He glances at Nicole, now making out with Damien, and grabs up the bottle of bourbon, pouring the equivalent of a shot into the dirt next to the fire pit. "Slainte, you old bastard."

The little dog wags his tail and starts lapping at the dirt, surprising laughter out of me despite my throat, which suddenly feels like it has a tennis ball lodged in it.

Declan turns to me. "He has a taste for the good stuff. Dick's doing, I guess."

"Why not pour it into the fire?" I ask.

"I figured you like having eyebrows."

"You're a smart man."

"Doesn't feel like it right now," he says, giving me a sidelong smile that makes my heart beat faster.

"Agnes always said a person doesn't need to be both smart and pretty, but she's a terrible person, so who knows."

His mouth lifts. "You think I'm pretty?"

"You know you're pretty. Everyone thinks so."

"I only care that you think so," he says, then takes a swig from the bourbon bottle before setting it down.

There's a warm feeling inside of me, as if I'd downed that bourbon, but I don't have time to sink into it, or to do any of the things I want to do to Declan, because Nicole and Damien come back to the fire. She's riding on his back, and he's got a bag of marshmallows in one hand. "Looks like I've been missing some party," he says with a grin.

"Who says it's over?"

It takes me a second to realize I was the one who said the words.