I looked him over. His smile was bright and yet the rest of him looked…rough. His hair was sticking up in every direction, dark circles were smudged beneath his eyes, and it looked like he’d slept in his clothes. “You look awful.” The greeting was beginning to get repetitive. But so was my brother showing up in the morning looking like death warmed over.
“I know!” he answered, letting go of my arms. “The guys at the firehouse invited me to a get-together. Even after what happened, they rallied around me.” Something that looked like surprised gratitude altered his features momentarily, and it made my throat feel suddenly clogged. The kid who’d regularly been shunned, the man who’d very recently been publicly shunned, had been embraced. “I’ve been up all night, drinking and smoking and gambling,” he finished proudly.
I felt the blood drain from my face. “Gambling?”
Oh God. I hadn’t thought things could get worse, but leave it to Easton to prove me wrong. “Please tell me you didn’t gamble with our money. It’s all we have.” I’d known he’d been devastated after the town meeting…embarrassed…ashamed, but was he really so self-destructive that he’d leave us high and dry in the middle of Maine without jobs （we’d both quit） and a place to stay （I’d let Betty know we were checking out of the Yellow Trellis Inn today）？
But he shook his head. “No, no. I mean, yes, three thousand of it—”
“Three thousand!” I sputtered. We only had thirty-two hundred that we’d been saving over the past two years so if we settled somewhere and didn’t immediately find jobs or my car broke down, we’d have a safety net. My mouth dropped open. We had both promised not to touch it. I wouldn’t even be able to pay Betty for our stay. “Oh my God, oh my God—”
“No, listen! I won! I won! I doubled that money.” He spun away, raking his hand through his already disheveled waves. When he turned back, the grin had widened.
I was frozen to the spot, watching him, my heart in my throat, my stomach churning as I shot daggers with my eyes. I was going to kill him.
“Did you hear me? I said I doubled our money!”
“You could have lost every cent of it,” I said between gritted teeth. “Don’t you ever think, Easton?”
“I know. I thought I was going to puke, Haven. But I didn’t lose. I won. And get this. At the end there, the pile got so big, Haven. Holy shit! It was, like, three a.m., right? We’d all been up drinking for hours. And Eric Philippe, you know the captain of the firehouse? He’s all out of cash, right? So he throws this deed to some land in the pot. ‘I have no real use for it,’ he says. ‘The wife and I have the perfect little place at the other end of town. Why should I pay taxes on a place I don’t even need?’ So in the pot it went. Every cent we have, plus the deed to that land in Calliope.” He raked his hands through his hair again, his eyes widening as if reliving the memory. “I was shaking so hard, I swear to God. But I won. I fucking won!”
I shook my head, trying to catch up, my heart slamming in my chest, anger and the desire to murder him for risking our security warring with any gladness I might have had that he’d doubled our money.
What if he’d lost?
But he hadn’t lost. He’d…won.
That meant we’d be able to get far, far away from here now, which brought both heartache and relief.
“Land?” I finally asked, his words organizing in my head as I gave it another shake. “In Calliope? What in the world are we going to do with that?” Sell it? Give it back? The man who’d gambled it had been drunk. His wife was likely burying his body as we spoke.
Easton let out a big breath, his smile softening. “Stay,” he said. “Wait until you see the property, Haven. I went there this morning. The air smells like fruit. It’s beautiful, right on the lake, with this old red barn. I told you about the position available at the firehouse and that it’s just a test to apply…the guys tell me they’re sure I can ace it. They’ve even offered to help me study.” He paused, breathless, as I stood, listening with my mouth hanging open again. “You said there’s only one nursery in Pelion, that all the residents of Calliope have to drive there to shop.”
My mouth snapped shut, chin tipping. “Yes,” I muttered. “And the way the plants on their clearance rack are treated is disgraceful!” I said, a burst of indignation energizing me momentarily.
He eyed me. “Yeah? So…what if we did something about it? What if we started a business on that property? We own the land now. The barn would be the perfect spot to set things up. There’s plenty of room for parking. We could use the money we have to start buying some inventory. You know, it would start small but I bet soon enough—”
“Stay?” I let out a humorless laugh. “Stay? Start a business? Join the firehouse? No, no we can’t stay. I’m glad the guys at the firehouse accepted you back, at least as a gambling and drinking buddy.” I couldn’t help the bitterness that still seeped into my tone. “But we’re pariahs here.”
I clenched my eyes shut. How many years would go by before I stopped cringing at the memory of that flyer?
My every fear and insecurity summed up in two words.
Most unwanted.
“We don’t belong in this town, Easton.” This perfect town where people drank lemonade on their porches and set apple pies to cool on windowsills while their children played in sprinklers watering lush, green lawns. They didn’t even know the half of it when it came to who we really were. The extent to which we didn’t belong. What would they all say then?
No. Run. Run away. We had to.
But Easton was still smiling. He looked dead tired, hungover, wrinkled, and exorbitantly happy. He tilted his head, his smile growing. “I think you should watch something.”
Movement in my peripheral vision made me turn my head toward the doorway, where Betty, Burt, and Cricket had come to stand.
“Before the party, the guys from the firehouse asked if I’d go with them to the town meeting. I didn’t want to but…they sort of insisted. I put on a ballcap and hid at the back.” He paused. “It was…well, it was interesting to say the least.” My brow dipped as he grinned. “Come with me.”
He took my elbow and led me to the door, Betty, looking practically giddy, looped her arm through mine as we followed the group of them down the stairs to the office. Cricket all but pushed me into the chair behind the desk and pulled up a video. I recognized the same room I’d been in several nights before for the town meeting.
“It’s…well…” Betty began, leaning forward to press play but pausing, her brow wrinkling the way it did when she’d lost a word.
“Astonishing,” Burt said.
“No…no, not quite.”
“Remarkable.”
Betty’s frown deepened.
“Extraordinary.”
She grinned. “Extraordinary! Yes. Yes, it is. Oh, wait until you see.” And then she pressed play as Travis, appearing sleep-deprived and moving stiffly, took the stage. He looked miserable…and scared. I leaned closer, my heart thrumming, barely registering the soft sound of the door clicking shut as I was left alone.