Broken Pretty Things by Amber Faye
Chapter 53
The weekend before Logan’s party
“You help me,I help you. It’s not fucking difficult.”
I’m heading downstairs for water in the middle of the night, scrubbing my tired face, when a hushed voice stops me in my tracks. The lakehouse is pretty huge — eight bedrooms — but there’s only me, Cole and Logan here this weekend. It was going to be a quiet couple of days with nothing much to do, so we came down to drink beer and fish on the lake.
The voice, though quiet, carries through the old slats of wood that make up the kitchen walls. Cole, my best friend in the world along with Andie, never uses this tone. It almost makes me back up the stairs again, wondering if some stranger has broken into the house.
“Yeah, well, it’s starting to get to that point. I’m wondering if you want me to— OK. Good. Glad we could figure that out.”
Something pushes me into the shadows, back against the wall as Cole strides around the corner past me and out of sight.
* * *
I leanover to him the next morning, as we put together coolers of snacks to take out on the boat. “Everything OK, man?” I ask. His forehead is twitching, working, as if he’s thinking about stuff so all-encompassing that it can’t stay contained inside his head.
He looks up at me, surprised, and then his face falls in that warm, easy smile people go fucking crazy for. “Everything’s great. Sun’s out. No girls around. Just us and the lake.” He gets up, wiping his palms hard on his pant legs, and I can’t help but feel like he’s lying. Because, right now, with that glassy-eyed grin, he kind of reminds me of me.
A shiver runs over my skin as one possibility dares to enter my mind. “Everything OK with Andie?” I ask, trying to sound casual.
Please say no.
He raises his eyebrows and searches something in the distance for a minute. Then something in his glassy smile cracks and a real one shines through. Just for a second. “Actually, we are having some issues,” he says. “I’m wondering if we’ll last.”
I nod, acting like I don’t care and taking a bite of toast. Then I realize I should be reacting in some way, so I twist my face into sympathy. But my heart is fucking pounding. I’ve only known that I love her for a short time, but every second since has been a dull ache. “That sucks, I’m sorry,” I lie, my voice catching in my throat.
He doesn’t look like he’s paying attention, though.
So, was it her he was cursing at, telling off, on the phone last night? Or was that something unrelated?
I forget all about it, though, once we’re out on the boat. She’s all I can think about, as always. Always in the back of my mind. She’s going to be single. I’m going to be single. I can’t jump in there too soon, but how long is long enough? Fuck — what if she’s really upset? What if somebody else jumps in there first?
I’m too distracted to notice the fish flopping, alive, onto the floor of the boat. “Holy shit,” Logan says, and jumps away from it so violently that he slips in a little water and lands hard on his ass. “Fuck, what do we do?”
“Calm down,” I laugh, holding out my hands. “We just have to—”
I don’t get to do anything, though, because Cole grabs an oar and smashes it onto the fish again and again. “Jesus,” he curses, flicking his hands through the air. Bloodspatters span several feet from the oar’s arc.
“What the fuck,” Logan says, pushing himself away on his butt. Cole is still brandishing the weapon, chest heaving. He’s so goddamn huge, but he’s always so kind and gentle it’s easy to forget his sheer size. His width. “What the fuck? Why?”
“It was suffering.” Cole exhales, then turns and spits over the edge of the boat, wiping his mouth with his arm. “Calm down.”
Logan and I exchange a look. His eyes are wide, questioning, but I don’t have any of the answers.
I’m not sure who it is we’re seeing this weekend, but it’s not Cole.