Page 28 of Tourist Season

Nolan shakes the can of whipped cream and dispenses a healthy dollop of white foam onto the top of each mug before passing one to me.

I deposit a couple of drops of the strawberry blood onto my whipped cream before reaching over and drenching his with a generous drizzle of the viscous red liquid.

“I’m not a huge fan of the strawberry flavor,” I say with a saccharine smile as I continue squeezing the bottle until he finally pulls his mug away.

“I prefer raspberry, but most people enjoy the strawberry more.”

“Thanks,” Nolan says as he looks down at the crisscrossed red streaks on his whipped cream. When he looks my way, I take a sip of my drink.

“Thank you , for this.” I raise my mug as though giving him a toast. “It’s thoughtful of you.”

Nolan nods. When he takes a sip of his drink and downs a mouthful of the whipped cream, I struggle to smother a wicked smirk.

“The rain is supposed to let up in about half an hour or so,” he says, casting a thoughtful frown across the floodplain.

“Maybe we should hang back a bit. No point in making it worse than it has to be.”

“Sure.” I bring my cup to my lips, positioning my finger to sweep it beneath the cloud of whipped cream.

When Nolan isn’t looking, I flick it into the shadows behind me.

He must still notice the motion in his peripheral vision, because his gaze shifts to me with a hint of suspicion in the crease between his brows.

“The bugs of Cape Carnage,” I say, flapping a hand in front of my face as though waving a mosquito away.

“They’re not deterred by a little rain.”

He nods, pulling a second folding stool out for me before shifting his over to make room.

Even still, there’s not much space beneath the tarp when I join him.

I can feel his heat at my side. His presence seeps into my skin despite the layers of fabric between us.

We don’t speak for a long while. It shouldn’t be a comfortable silence, but it is.

I’ve grown accustomed to his quiet countenance in the night.

I’m not sure if he actively tries not to talk to me, like I try not to talk to him.

Or maybe this is just his nature. Stoic.

Sparing with his words when he doesn’t have any desire or need to be charming.

But as much as we try to keep our conversations impersonal and centered only on our work, there’s often still a pull to say more. At least, there is for me.

“Bet when you were a kid you never thought you’d be here,” he says, not taking his eyes from the pan of silt that stretches into the dark.

I follow his focus. Our recent excavations are hard to discern in the darkness, the disturbances in the soft and sparsely vegetated soil washed away by the heavy rain.

I take a sip of my drink. “Can’t say it was on my dream boards, no.”

“Did you really have those?” I dart a questioning glance in Nolan’s direction and find he’s watching me with more interest than I expected. “Dream boards?”

“Yeah,” I reply, a wistful smile tugging at my lips. “I did. For a long time, actually.”

“What was on them?”

When I look over at Nolan this time, I let my attention linger on him as I push the hood back off my damp hair.

Why is he asking? Does he genuinely want to know?

How much do I say? How much do I keep to myself when that thread between us tugs at me like a plea to give a little something to see what I might get in return?

“Disney princess shit at first,” I say. “I wanted to work in a zoo or train animals. So it was a lot of outfits for my dog when my parents finally let me have one.”

“I didn’t peg you as a dog-wardrobe type.”

I shrug, shifting my attention away. “Different life. Different time.”

“Did your parents indulge your dog-wardrobe fixation?”

A bittersweet smile flickers across my lips. “While they could.”

I don’t elaborate. I don’t even look in his direction.

I just keep my eyes trained on the graveyard that stretches before us.

Looking back, I feel as though every time I begged for death to leave me alone, it only dug its talons in deeper.

And when I finally decided to embrace it, I found death was the key to living.

I’m immersed in it now. Wielding it. Protecting it.

Fighting for it. But that first sting of loss?

That first kiss of grief? I’d still trade anything to not feel it.

“You don’t have them anymore,” Nolan says.

“The dog outfits? No. I got rid of those when Pips attacked Mr. Taylor’s pant legs and then shit on the stage during my sixth-grade talent show. I was forced to face the stark realization that I was a pretty crap animal trainer.”

Nolan chuckles. It might be small, but it’s a genuine laugh, and I haven’t heard one from him since the first day we met in the coffee shop. It hits like a dart, scrambling my senses. “I would have paid good money to see that.”

“Yeah,” I say with an eye roll, “I’m sure you would have reveled in my humiliation.”

I take a sip of my hot chocolate, and I feel the weight of Nolan’s gaze on the bandage that covers the back of my hand.

His presence looms in my periphery, and at first I think he won’t push me for more.

But then he says, “I didn’t mean the dog outfits.

I meant your parents. You don’t have them anymore? ”

I swallow. Shake my head. “No.” I look down at my hands as though there’s something I’ll find there that I haven’t seen before.

“It was a car crash. Drunk driver. I was at a sleepover so they could go to dinner for their anniversary. We were having pancakes when the police showed up at Caroline’s house. ”

I’m just staring down into my mug, blinking, fighting away the memories.

I’m sure Nolan thinks a thousand horrible things about me.

Maybe some of them are true. I might not have been the one to hit Nolan, but I did see him on that road.

I did leave him there to his fate. And my moral compass was skewed long before we met.

Because since the day my parents died, all I could think about, all I could wish for, was the destruction of those who had done evil deeds. Even if I had to become like them.

“Is that why you left when you hit me on Division Road?”

I turn to face him, my motion slow and purposeful.

He stares right into me. Just like every night, the light is too dim to make out the wedge of brown in his eye.

But I saw it today. The way its darkness seemed to deepen when he thought he’d struck a mark with his comment about La Plume.

And I wonder if that’s what’s happening now too.

He will never think anything differently of me. So why fight to convince him that I’m a better person than the one he thinks I am?

I only give him one word in response. And I deliver it with precision, and clarity, and finality when I say, “ No .”

I’m the first to break our connection, shifting my attention back to the shoreline as I force us into silence.

I finish my hot chocolate but hold on to my mug, and Nolan does the same.

We don’t talk as the rain gradually diminishes to a drizzle and the drum of droplets eases to a gentle patter on the tarp above us.

I’m thinking about voicing a suggestion to start working when I hear a sound in the distance, something from the direction of the road.

I sit straighter, twisting on my stool.

“Did you hear that?” I whisper.

“No …”

I strain to listen, hoping that it was just my imagination, but then I hear it again. The sound of a car door or trunk closing. That unmistakable clunk so deeply ingrained into daily life that it’s still recognizable despite the distance.

“What’s going on?” Nolan asks.

“I heard something. It sounded like a car door.” I duck from under the tarp to look in the direction of the road.

There are too many trees and thick bushes to see anything from here.

I take a step in that direction, straining to listen for any other sounds.

“It could be nothing …” I say. But I never discount my instincts.

And my instincts are telling me that I most definitely heard something.

I take another step toward the path that leads to the road.

“Did you see that?” Nolan asks, and he sounds so genuinely freaked out that I spin around to find him crouched down, staring at the lantern with his mouth agape in shock.

Oh shit . “Umm … see something …?”

Nolan edges closer to the lantern, his head weaving side to side as though he’s searching for something within the light. “It moved .”

“I’m sure it’s just the wind.”

“No.” He frames the lantern with his hands, disbelief painted across his face. “There was some kind of … creature … inside the light. Did you see it?”

“Shh.” I wave a hand in his direction and strain to listen for anything coming from the direction of the road. “It’s your eyes playing tricks on you. Lack of sleep, probably.”

“No, Harper. I’m not making this up. Look at it.” The distant sound of a quiet voice reaches through the trees. We’re not alone. “It’s moving —”

I yank the lantern from him, tossing it over the bank and into the water to the sound of Nolan’s horrified gasp.

“It’ll drown, you monster —”

I drop to my knees and slap my hand over his mouth, catching his distressed protests in my palm.

“Listen to me right now, Nolan Rhodes,” I hiss.

His eyes are wide with alarm, and I stare into them in an attempt to reach whatever deteriorating clarity might be lurking in their depths.

“There is nothing in the fucking light, okay? No creature or fairy or sprite or whatever. It’s all in your mind. I might have … given you something.”

His muffled question vibrates through my hand.