“Expected what?”
He grinned and took my elbow. “Come on, skeptic. You’ll love this.”
I allowed him to lead me up the wide stone steps, my curiosity piqued. And not only about what I’d find in the basement gym of my old school. Orion’s grip on my arm was pleasant, and I wondered if he knew, when he said I liked him, that I actually liked him. The way he squeezed my leg in the car, or held my hand back at my dad’s, all the constant touching…I wondered if it meant something, or if he was just a touchy person. My old, familiar mindset tried to tell me that it didn’t matter what Orion thought. But it did matter, and it was something I needed to examine openly and not hide from myself.
Because I wanted to touch him, too. I’d thought about it in passing before. But tonight, I longed to return his touch so badly it made my gut hurt. I’d experienced more pain the past year than ever in my life. But I didn’t expect this longing to hurt, like a wound that needed a salve. I was learning, since meeting Orion, that the pain of desire could be as intense as the pain of loss. But instead of something missing that was once there, it was the loss of something never experienced. And unlike the former, the latter involved a choice.
One I wasn’t sure I had the courage to make.
Chapter Eleven
The Town Hall building smelled exactly as I remembered: floor polish, old wood, and paper. All that was missing was the scent of chipped beef and gravy coming from the cafeteria. But there were no more lockers, no classrooms, and no students. Everything was offices now, and we passed several on our way down the hallways, most of them closed for the day, some with administrative types just packing up and leaving.
“Lemme stop here for a minute and talk to Missy,” Orion said as we approached an office with a Division of Tourism plaque over the door. “I have a key to downstairs but probably should make sure they know I’m bringing someone with me.”
We walked through an empty waiting area, and around a corner, a woman of about sixty sat behind a desk, squinting at a computer screen. “Missy,” Orion said.
The woman looked up. She had very pretty brown eyes and a wide smile with pink lipstick, her hair in a short black bob with bangs. “Orion, I was just going to email you again. You were supposed to get back to me about the parade route! Did you forget?”
“I emailed you back last night, with a bunch of attachments. You didn’t get it?”
She looked at the screen again, waving her hands around. “I’m looking at my inbox right now, I don’t see it.”
He stepped in behind her. “Let me look.”
I stood awkwardly by, glancing around at the wall decor. There were framed photos of Hillock Beach, some of them old and vintage featuring horses and carriages, people with old fashioned dresses and bathing suits standing on the beach, men with huge mustaches posing before the hillocks, and one of three little Native American girls sitting on the seawall, grinning at the camera.
“Here, it went into your junk folder.”
“Oh damn, there it is.”
“I sent it from my home email, that’s why. You’ll have to mark it as safe so it won’t go into spam.”
“Well how do I do that?”
I left them and walked over to the window, looking outside. Hillock was coming alive, summer tourists already flooding the boardwalk, locals leaving work for the day, the ocean glittering with orange sunset. “Kurt,” Orion called to me, so I walked back to the office. “Sorry, I was rude. This is Missy. Missy, this is Kurt, Jasper’s son.”
“Oh, of course, Jasper’s youngest, right?” She stood and leaned over her desk, reaching a hand out for me to shake.
I shook her hand. “Yeah. Nice to meet you.”
“I just love your dad, we all do. He’s such a hoot.”
“Oh…um, thanks.”
Orion winked at me. “I was just asking Missy to call downstairs and let them know I was bringing you through. I’m sure they won’t mind since you already know about the stuff.”
Missy eyed me expectantly. I cleared my throat. “Oh, yeah.” I waved a hand. “I know all about the stuff.”
“All right then. I’ll call down to Geoffrey. Orion, honey you’ve got your key?”
“Yep, I’m all set.”
“Okay then, go on down.”
“Thanks, Missy,” Orion said. “Look over that modified parade route I sent you, let me know if there’s any problem.”
“Will do. If there are no problems I’ll go ahead and send it off to the police department, if you think it’s complete.”
“Yeah, sounds good. See you later.”
“Goodnight, nice to meet you, Kurt.”
“Same here.” We left the office and started down the hallway. “That the Hillock Day Parade in October she’s talking about?”
“Yep. I help plan it every year.”
Orion turned down a wide marble staircase and I followed. When we hit the lower floor, I said, “Well aren’t you just the bigshot.”
“What can I say. I’m important.”
I snorted, then turned the corner ahead of him and took another stairwell. “Look at you,” he said. “Knowing where you’re going.”
“Told you, I went to school here. Suffered many defining moments within these walls.”
“Defining moments?” Orion laughed. “Wouldn’t you have been like seven or eight when you went here?”
“Yes, important days. First fistfight. First kiss on the cheek after class from Karen Silverstone. And of course, the first time I wet my pants in public.”
“First indicates it wasn’t the only time you wet your pants in public.”
I barked a laugh. “Okay, only time I peed my pants in public.”
“Ah, the glory days. I was homeschooled so I didn’t experience all that. Maybe I should piss my pants right now, just to get the feel of what I missed. Then you can pretend to be Karen Silver-whatever and kiss me on the cheek. Then we can have fisticuffs in the yard.”
“You’re fucked up.”
“You’re just figuring that out?”
We stopped outside the old gym, but the doors weren’t the same. They’d been replaced by heavy steel with a security lock. Orion pulled a keycard out of his wallet, then paused, looking at me. “Now remember. Act normal. Missy told them I was bringing someone, but they still might be edgy about it.”
“Fine, whatever, just show me what’s in here. I’m getting hungry and looking forward to that drink.”
“So impatient. Just like your dad.”
“I’m nothing like my dad.”
“Yeah, that’s what you think. You’re both grumpy fucks.” Orion slid his keycard in the lock and pushed the door open. As soon as we stepped inside, I was confused by what I was seeing. There were tables and desks set up sparsely throughout the wide space, some with computers, your basic office cubicles here and there. Roughly twenty people milled about. The old wood floor I remembered was gone, replaced with something hard like cement, all painted brick red. There were grates in the floor, and on the far side of the room, an animal stood over one as someone…. “What the fuck is—”