Page 117 of It's One of Us

A sketchy trucker let him hitch a ride back to town. With the bandages over the chisel cut, Peyton figured he was safe from exposure so long as he kept the baseball cap on. The guy driving seemed as disinterested in him as Peyton was with the trucker. He dropped him at the exit into Bellevue and didn’t glance back.

It took him three hours to make it to Forest Hills. He wanted to go home, wanted to curl up on the sofa in the living room and let his mom make him hot chocolate like she used to, let her clean his wounds and fix him properly, but he couldn’t face her. He couldn’t face Scarlett, either. Things were too complicated, too out of control. Better to leave his family, the people he loved—if he can ascribe the strange fullness he feels when he looks at them as an emotion people know as love—and finish this the way he started it, with Olivia.

So he hoofed it to the Benders’.

Olivia’s Jeep was in the driveway. The sight of it lifted his heart. She was home!

He still had a full set of keys, to the house, to the cars, to the shed, though he wondered if by now, they’d had them changed. The cameras were running again; he could see the small red power light. Going up to the house would be harder. But he didn’t care. He wanted things to end. He wanted to die with Olivia’s arms around him.

He was about to scoot around the hedge to the porch when the garage door started up. He could hear Park Bender talking. Shit. He rolled to the ground by the hedge and froze. He’d been so careful, but had he been seen? Had someone called the police? Was this going to end right now, with Peyton covered in blood and muck, lying on the ground like a wounded squirrel?

No. Bender got into the Jeep, still talking. He sounded frantic, upset. Peyton listened until he heard Bender say, “Olivia, just don’t do anything until I get there. Okay? We’ll talk this through. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

She wasn’t home, but Bender was going to her. Okay. Okay.

If Bender had been looking at the house when he backed out, he surely would have seen Peyton still as a fallen log, lying under the hedge. But he didn’t. He spun the wheels and was out of the driveway seconds later.

Peyton smiled.

Change of plan.

46

THE WIFE

Dawn, again.

But this time, not alone.

Olivia has barely slept, but she’s also not had any bad dreams, and for that she is forever grateful to the man still prone next to her. It has been a long time since she woke up with Perry Bender’s arms around her, pulling her into him as snug as a snail to its shell, holding her through the night, keeping her nightmares at bay. He slept, but she lay there with him, reveling in the safety, the gentleness, his breath moving the hair by her ear, his tiny snores before he fell deeply asleep.

Her heart has been shackled for years; this she now knows. It’s remarkable, really, to have been holding herself apart from Park the way she has. Unintentionally. Unknowingly. And yet, the division had been there, and she didn’t realize it until she opened herself to Perry again.

She has a lifetime to examine the mistakes she’s made. But for now, she must pull herself from this blissful nest. She must rise, stretch, walk.

Confront.

Park should be here soon. He got on the road at midnight, though she’d encouraged him to wait until the morning. She doesn’t ask why he didn’t answer his phone. She thinks she probably knows the answer to that. She glances at Perry, still nestled in the bed. She can hardly fault Park for finding comfort elsewhere, as she has done.

Assuming he didn’t stop more than twice, he should be here in an hour. Enough time.

She sets the water to boil, pulls out two cups, gets the tea. Once it’s made, she takes her cup to the deck, drains it, then starts down the boardwalk.

“Wait up!”

Perry jogs out of the house, tying the string on a pair of shorts. Even in the barely dawn light, he is breathtaking. He joins her, matching her steps. Their rhythm is easy, the sand a gentle caress against their feet. It is chillier today than yesterday, and she pulls on the long-sleeved shirt she has tied around her waist.

They walk for several minutes before she speaks.

“I didn’t want to wake you.”

“You didn’t. I realized when you weren’t in the bed you were probably walking. But in case Park got here early...”

“You came to save me?”

“I came... Gosh, it really is pretty here.”

The sun’s glow has turned the sea turquoise. “You should see the storms. They’re breathtaking.”