“It wouldn’t have killed you,” I say.
“It might’ve,” he says. “As we learned from Old Man Whittaker, secrets can be toxic.”
I straighten as something occurs to me. “That’s why you hated it. Because you’re from here.”
Now he shifts uncomfortably. I’ve found a weakness; I’ve seen through one of Charlie Lastra’s outermost layers, and the scales tip ever so slightly in my favor. Big fan—huge.
“Let me guess.” I jut out my bottom lip. “Bad memories.”
“Or maybe,” he drawls, leaning in, “it has something to do with the fact that Dusty Fielding clearly hasn’t even googled Sunshine Falls in the last twenty years, let alone visited.”
Of course, he has a point, but as I study the irritable rigidity of his jaw and the strangely sensual though distinctly grim set of his lips, I know my smile’s sharpening. Because I see it: the half-truth of his words. I can read him too, and it feels like I’ve discovered a latent superpower.
“Come on, Charlie,” I prod. “I thought you were always a fan of the truth. Let it out.”
He scowls (still pouting, so scowting?). “So I’m not this place’s biggest fan.”
“Wooooow,” I sing. “All this time I thought you hated the book, but really, you just had a deep, dark secret that made you close off from love and joy and laughter and—oh my god, you are Old Man Whittaker!”
“Okay, maestro.” Charlie plucks the beer bottle I’d been gesticulating with from my hand, setting it safely on the bar. “Chill. I’ve just never liked those ‘everything is better in small towns’ narratives. My ‘darkest secret’ is that I believed in Santa Claus until I was twelve.”
“You say that like it isn’t incredible blackmail.”
“Mutually assured destruction.” He taps my phone, an allusion to the Frigid document. “I’m just evening the field for you after those pages.”
“How noble. Now tell me why your day was so bad.”
He studies me for a moment, then shakes his head. “No . . . I don’t think I will. Not until you tell me why you’re really here.”
“I already told you,” I say. “Vacation.”
He leans in again, his hand catching my chin, his thumb landing squarely on the divot at the corner of my lips. My breath catches. His voice is low and raspy: “Liar.”
His fingertips fall away and he gestures to the bartender for two more beers.
I don’t stop him.
Because I am not Nadine Winters.
7
HOW ABOUT,” CHARLIE says, “a game of pool. If I win, you tell me why you’re really here, and if you do, I’ll tell you about my day.”
I snort and look away, hiding my lying dimple as I tuck my phone into my bag, having confirmed Libby made it home safely. “I don’t play.”
Or I haven’t since college, when my roommate and I used to shark frat boys weekly.
“Darts?” Charlie suggests.
I arch a brow. “You want to hand me a weapon after the turn my night has taken?”
He leans close, eyes shining in the dim bar lighting. “I’ll play left-handed.”
“Maybe I don’t want to hand you a weapon either,” I say.
His eye roll is subtle, more of a twitch of some key face muscles. “Left-handed pool, then.”
I study him. Neither of us blinks. We’re basically having a sixth-grade-style staring contest, and the longer it goes on, the more the air seems to thrum with some metaphysical buildup of energy.
I slink off my stool and drain my second beer. “Fine.”
We make our way back to the only open table. It’s darker on this side of the restaurant, the floor stickier with spilled booze, and the smell of beer emanates from the walls. Charlie grabs a pool cue and a rack and starts gathering the balls in the center of the felt table. “You know the rules?” he asks, peering up at me as he leans across the green surface.
“One of us is stripes and one of us is solids?” I say.
He takes the blue chalk cube from the edge of the table and works it over the pool cue. “You want to go first?”
“You’re going to teach me, right?” I’m trying to look innocent, to look like Libby batting her eyelashes.
Charlie stares at me. “I really wonder what you think your face is doing right now, Stephens.”
I narrow my eyes; he narrows his back exaggeratedly.
“Why do you care why I’m here?” I ask.
“Morbid curiosity. Why do you care about my bad day?”
“Always helpful to know your opponent’s weaknesses.”
He holds the cue out. “You first.”
I take the stick, flop it onto the edge of the table, and look over my shoulder. “Isn’t now the part where you’re supposed to put your arms around me and show me how to do it?”
His mouth curves. “That depends. Are you carrying any weapons?”
“The sharpest thing on me is my teeth.” I settle over the cue, holding it like I’ve not only never played pool before but have quite possibly only just discovered my own hands.
Charlie’s smell—warm and uncannily familiar—invades my nose as he positions himself behind me, barely touching. I can feel the front of his sweater graze my bare spine, my skin tingling at the friction, and his arms fold around mine as his mouth drops beside my ear.
“Loosen your grip.” His low voice vibrates through me, his breath warm on my jaw as he pries my fingers from the cue and readjusts them. “The front hand’s for aiming. You’re not going to move it. The momentum”—his palm scrapes down my elbow until he catches my wrist and drags it back along the cue toward my hip—“will come from here. You just want to keep the stick straight when you’re starting out. And aim as if you’re lining up perfectly with the ball you want to sink.”
“Got it,” I say.
His hands slide clear of me, and I will the goose bumps on my skin to settle as I line up my shot. “One thing I forgot to mention”—I snap the stick into the cue ball, sending the solid blue one across the table into the pocket—“is that I did used to play.”
I walk past Charlie to line up my next shot.
“And here I thought I was just a really good teacher,” he says flatly.
I pocket the green ball next, and then miss the burgundy one. When I chance a glance at him, he looks not only unsurprised but downright smug. Like I’ve proven a point.