“Oh. A little, I guess. You’re a bit…mysterious, to say the least.”
Laughing, Orion slapped my leg. “I’m trying to get you to trust me, if I have to spell it out for you.”
“Why?”
“So you’ll let me go back to looking out for your dad.” The car slowed as we passed by Three Hills Gifts and I thought he was going to park in front of it, but he just pointed and said, “That’s Claudette’s shop. I work there on Mondays and Tuesdays.”
I stared at the pretty storefront, windchimes and crystals hanging in the windows. “It’s her shop, huh?”
“Yeah.” He pulled up in front of a large stone building that used to be my elementary school before the town built a new one nearby. The building was now Hillock Town Hall. Orion parked and turned to face me. “Claudette split town. Now her sister Nancy mostly runs the gift shop. But Kora, Chapel, and I work shifts there, and we book a lot of psychic readings out of the shop. It’s a pain in the ass with Claudette gone though, she did all the inventory and shit. Now we have to.”
“Kora is the one you mentioned that could um…cleanse my house.”
“Yeah. She’s a foster kid of Claudette’s too. Basically my little sister.”
“So she…the woman. She doesn’t live in Hillock anymore.”
He smirked, but didn’t call me out on not being able to say Claudette’s name out loud. “Yeah, she moved to Florida shortly after your mom died. After your dad told her it was done for good.”
“Oh. Okay.”
“He’d told her they were done before, but this time was different. She said she couldn’t hang around waiting for Jasper to break her heart again. It’s happened too many times. You can ask me about that too, you know.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“All right. I understand. Just know you can.”
“Thanks, but I’m good.” I stared up at the old stone building. It was close to the hillocks, the three green mounds looming large behind it, a small visitor center with information and trail maps next door. I remembered playing at recess as a kid when this was a school, the hillocks always there beyond the baseball diamond and soccer fields, the frothy blue ocean visible off to the left. “Shit, I haven’t been out here in a while, it’s weird. I went to grammar school here.”
“Oh yeah? Been a long time since this place was a school,” Orion said.
“Yes, well, I’m old. What are we doing here?”
Orion’s hand rested on my knee. I glanced down at it, but didn’t move to push it away. I told myself I didn’t want to allow him to rattle me, if that’s what he was trying to do, but in truth, I liked his hand there. When I didn’t bat it away, he gave my leg a squeeze. “The office of tourism is inside. I work there sometimes too. But I’m gonna take you down to the basement floor and show you something. I need to ask a favor though.”
“What?”
“You can’t tell anyone about this. What I’m about to show you. It’s secret.”
My brows shot up. “And you…trust me with this secret?”
His fingers drummed on my leg, dark eyes studying my face. “I’d like to. And I want you to trust me. Would that be so bad? If we agree to trust each other?”
Sighing, I looked up at the town hall. Tourists passed by on the sidewalk, some returning from hikes up on the hillocks. Others with fishing poles, having been out on the jetties. I turned back to Orion. “Why does it matter to you if we trust each other?”
He shrugged, removing his hand from my knee. His handsome face appeared more serious than I’d ever seen it, dark brows knit together. “It just does.”
“Because of my father?”
“That’s part of it.”
“So…what’s the other part?”
He shrugged again. “You’re not like anyone I know. You don’t want nothing from me. Kind of like when I’m with Jaz. You’re like him, I guess.”
“Look, I know you think a lot of my dad, but I never followed the same path as him, because we’re not the same. At all. I just don’t want you to expect much from me. I’m not my father.”
“Nah, it’s not that. You’re different from him in most ways, I see that.”
“You got that right.”
“But being around you makes me feel the same kind of way. Like I can be my weird self and you just accept it as what it is, even though you and me are way different.”
“I thought you said I was judgmental.”
He snickered. “Sure, but then you let me pretend to seduce you in your kitchen. Most straight guys would have freaked out, but you knew it was just a laugh. Reminded me of your dad.”
I was pretty sure Orion already suspected I wasn’t completely straight, but I didn’t address his comment. “Wait…what do you mean it reminded you of my dad? You did that to my dad?”
“No!” He laughed hard. “No, gross, I would never! But I say weird stuff to try to shock Jasper all the time and he’s just like ‘Whatever, Orion, hand me my fishing rod’ like it just washes right over him. That’s kind of how it felt with you, when we first talked in your kitchen that night.”
“And that made you trust me?” I asked, feeling an edge of guilt. Because I had most definitely freaked out at his mock seduction. I’d just kept it on the inside.
“I trust you well enough,” he said. “I know you care about your dad, even though you’re a fuck-up about it.”
“Oh, boy, thanks so much for the compliment.”
He just laughed. “And I like how you love your kids. And I know you’ve helped people out in town, that you care about the people of Hillock Beach, same as me. But maybe I just wanna trust you because I like you.”
Heat climbed my chest, and I turned from his gaze, staring at the sidewalk. “You do, huh?”
“Yes. I even like the way you pretend not to care about anything when you obviously do.”
I turned back and smirked at him. “Maybe I’m not pretending. Maybe I really don’t care about anything.”
“Yes, you do. And I know you like me too, even though you really don’t wanna.”
“Certain of that, are you?”
“I’m intuitive. I know things.”
“I know you think you do.”
“You like me. Now let’s go.”
He got out of the car and I followed. Standing on the sidewalk, I looked up at the hillocks, the peaks growing pink as the sun began to set. Orion came around the car and joined me, squinting up at the Town Hall building. “Should we head in?” I asked.
“Yeah. Gonna take you down to the basement and into what used to be the gymnasium.”
“I remember it well.”
“It’s different now.” He looked at me. “I need to hear you say it. That you’ll keep this secret.”
“I will. I don’t gossip. I don’t care enough about anything to gossip.”
“It’s important, Kurt.”
“Okay, you can trust me. I promise.”
He narrowed his eyes, studying my face, then nodded. “When we go in, just act cool. No one should question you if you’re with me, but if they do, let me do the talking. And don’t react or look all shocked by anything you see. Pretend you expected it.”