Page 24 of Except Emerson (Detroit ABCs #7)

Levi put his arm around me, and I didn’t mind the thought of cat hair, dirt, grease, or sweat. “It’s a long drive, but he’ll take it slow,” he said. “He has all those sights he wants to see along the way.”

I nodded, but I wasn’t quite at the place where I could speak.

“You could fly out there,” he mentioned next, but now I shook my head.

“No, I can’t afford it. I have so many bills since the accident.” I had finally looked at my inbox and it was terrible.

“Why…” Levi started to ask something, but then stopped and seemed to change course. “Let’s go. We’ll take Coral and get out of here.”

“She’s awful in the car.”

“It’s too hot for her in your apartment. It’s too hot for any of us.”

I agreed. Even he hadn’t been able to pry open the window and the two rooms felt like the inside of Hernán’s scorching oven (which he had used, unlike the one in my apartment).

Somehow, Levi managed to get my cat into her carrier and retain the use of all ten fingers. I watched carefully for any injury, but she was remarkably docile with him. When I took the handle, though, she hissed and freaked out.

“I’ve got her,” he said. “Grab a bathing suit.”

“Why?”

“Most people use them when they go in the water,” he remarked, smiling. “The beaches are probably packed today but I know someone with a pool.”

“Someone,” I repeated. “Does this relate to your friend August and his real estate portfolio?”

“How would you like to submerge in a body of cold water right now?”

I wanted it a lot, to the point that I was willing to overlook any criminal activity associated with said water.

I went into my room, which now had a dresser and a chair squeezed in next to the bed, and found my bathing suit and some extra clothes.

“What will I do with Coral at a pool?” I called back.

“She doesn’t look much like a swimmer,” he agreed, so we gathered up more gear. “You have everything?” I nodded and he carried the cat, who was calm as could be, and walked to the door. “We can figure out a place for her. Did you know that I have functioning air conditioning in my car?”

“That sounds lovely.” And it was. He started the engine, buckled the cat into the back seat, and we all luxuriated in the cool drafts as he drove. I sighed and closed my eyes.

“Are you thinking about Hernán? I’m sure he’s fine,” Levi said. “Why don’t you text him?”

“He gets mad if people bother him while he’s driving, even if it’s his daughter,” I answered.

I would send a message later when it was around the time that he needed to stop and get off the road.

“You know what he told me? His ex-wife is trying to make him move out of the house when she comes to visit.”

“I could see how that would be uncomfortable, but now he lives there on Lucía’s invitation. Why should he have to go?”

“Exactly,” I said. “That was my opinion, too.” I squirmed, because my sweaty clothes were drying and becoming scratchy and tighter. “But they’ll have to figure out the guest policy.”

“For you?”

“No, because I’m not going to be able to visit,” I said again. “I’m in debt, which is embarrassing since my profession is keeping track of money.”

“Why didn’t you sue that guy? That boyfriend who caused the accident?”

“There was no point.” I had talked to a lawyer and she sent a letter, and my ex hired a team of attorneys to respond.

They had overwhelmed mine with a mudslide of paperwork.

She was just a sole practitioner going up against one of the biggest firms in Detroit, and up against the practically unlimited resources of Grant’s friends.

“It was never going to come to anything and I would have ended up worse off than when I’d started.

I’m getting out of it, slowly.” It was going to take a while, but I would make it if anxiety didn’t take me out first.

“I could give—”

“No, I wouldn’t accept money from you!” I said immediately. “You need to save. Have you looked at the options I sent you for retirement accounts?”

“Yeah. Saving seems like a smart plan.”

“It is. And it will give your parents and sisters a lot of peace of mind to know that you’re on top of all that.”

“Why are you so squirmy right now?” he asked.

“My shirt feels funny. I think sweat made it pokey.”

Levi glanced down at himself. “Do I smell? I feel like I smell.”

“Yes, but only because you were working really hard on your day off to help someone,” I said. “It’s the smell of righteousness.”

“I think it’s straight up BO,” he said, wincing, but he was polite enough not to comment on my odor.

All the way to the pool in his friend’s real estate portfolio, I thought about Hernán’s departure, but as we approached a big gate, I focused on that. “This is August’s house?” I asked.

“One of them. It’s his primary residence. He’s not here right now but he said to go ahead and swim.” He looked up at the gate. “It should read my license plate and open.”

“What?” I looked around. “Where are the cameras?”

“They’re hidden…there we go.”

The gate swung noiselessly to reveal the house behind it.

We were in an older neighborhood and had passed some places that looked like they would have fit well in a history book, but not this one.

It was ultra, ultra modern, to the point that it looked mostly like a block of steel.

There were plants around it, a few pointy, thin trees and some bushes with foliage of such an odd color that they reminded me of a Dr. Seuss book.

“It’s beautiful in a brutal way,” Levi said as he stopped in front of…it might have been a door, because there was an area of white stone on the ground in front of it. But I couldn’t see a handle or hinges.

“Are there windows?” I asked.

“Wait until you go inside. It’s amazing,” he assured me. “It’s ok, Coral. We’ll find a cool place for you to hang out. How do you feel about cabanas?”

He got out and opened my door because that was what he always did, and he waited to see if I needed help stepping from the car. I was kind of stiff, since I’d carried more today than I had in the last year, and we went slowly up to what might have been the entrance.

“Is this how we get in? Wait a minute. It seriously scans your eye?” I asked as he leaned forward toward a small camera lens almost totally disguised in the dark wall.

“August has all the bells and whistles. And biometrics,” he said as a slab of a door swung upwards rather than to the side. “Come on in.”

By some kind of alchemy, the exterior was a black cube but the interior of this home was as bright as a sunny day. “Wow,” I breathed as we went through the foyer and into the large space that seemed to be the living area. It felt like walking into the sky, that airy and open. “It’s all windows?”

“All of it,” Levi said. “He lives, literally, in a glass house. Which is why I keep telling him—” He stopped, grinning. “I’m not going to finish that thought, about how he shouldn’t throw stones. I want to save the joke for exactly the right opportunity.”

“Good idea.”

He laughed. “Wait until you see the pool.”

Due to its size, it was more like a private lake, but just like the house, it was square and totally uncluttered.

“There are chairs,” he said, pointing to some curvy pieces of metal.

They were the only things out here without sharp angles, because even the plants were trimmed and shaped in very different ways than what nature had intended.

“Do you want to join us, Coral?” he asked the cat in her carrier. “Let’s do the collar and leash.”

“I’m ready.” I reached into the bag of stuff I’d brought and retrieved my net. I would need to catch her when she bolted.

“Let’s see if she’ll let me do it,” he said, and put the case on a square stone table. “Hi, kitty. Don’t be mad. We brought you here for your own good.”

“She’s going to run and there’s no way to keep up, even if you have two good hips!” I whispered, but he opened the metal door without heeding my warning. Coral stepped out and stretched.

“There she is,” Levi told her, and gently stroked her head. “Feel better? Are you ready for your collar?”

She let him put it on. She batted a little at his hands, but she didn’t make a break for it and disappear into the sunset.

“You’re like a movie I saw with Rex Harrison,” I said. “It’s in color. He has this amazing way with animals…oh, be careful!” Because Levi was putting on the leash, and the click of that set her off more than anything.

“I usually do ok with cats and dogs, and also turtles,” he said and then told Coral, “Your leash is nice and long, so you can roam around in the shade.” He lifted her down.

“It’s cooler here.” It was because of all the fans—and maybe there was outdoor air conditioning?

The temperature felt twenty degrees lower than in my apartment.

He filled a bowl of water and I heard her purr.

We went into separate cabana cubes to change, and I couldn’t avoid giving myself a glance in the floor-length mirrors that hung on all the walls.

Obviously, I hadn’t been in a bathing suit since last summer, and the effect wasn’t great.

The stretchy fabric bagged in an unfortunate way in the chest area and in the butt region, showing that I’d lost weight.

I had the scars from Coral but I had others, too, like a long one down my right hip.

They had been more concerned with helping me than with beauty after the accident, and a few of the doctors in follow-up appointments had suggested that I could do some scar revision stuff to help make it less noticeable.

I hadn’t thought that anyone would be looking at me again in this level of undress, though, and I hadn’t cared. I still didn’t—not too much.