Page 279 of Heart So Hollow

I tap the edge of Barrett’s door as soon as she climbs back into the driver’s seat, “Text me when you get home and let me know everything’s OK.”

“Don’t worry, I have a plan,” she says as she fastens her seatbelt, “I asked Clay to come stay for a couple of days. When I told him why, he got really excited and now I think he’s bringing Dalton, too,” she waggles her eyebrows at the last part.

I glance away with a grin. I can just imagine Barrett’s brother and his best friend posting up at her house; two linemen straight out of the holler, rolling in to clean out her fridge and look for a fight. At least she’s guaranteed to be safe with them.

“OK, before I leave, be straight with me,” Barrett slides her sunglasses up her nose, “was Colson ever serviced by—” she glances over my shoulder at Colson leaning against his STI, “Roto Rooter?”

My soul nearly leaves my body, “No,” I creak out through uncontrollable laughter, “no, he wasn’t.”

And I continue laughing as the Jeep’s taillights shrink in the distance and they disappear around the edge of the pines. I should’ve known Barrett wouldn’t have left here any other way.

Colson reaches into his backseat for his backpack, “What’s so funny?”

“You’d be mortified,” I reply, trying to compose myself. Changing the subject, I nod to the pole building behind the house, “Is your baby in there?” I ask, referring to his Bronco.

“Of course,” he shoots me a knowing look before lifting my duffel bag off my shoulder and taking it from me. “Pony!” he calls to the German shepherd and nods to the house.

Pony runs up the path, leaps up the stairs, and waits for us on the porch. Much lighter, I follow Colson up the dusty walk. The house looks old, like it’s stood here for the better part of a century, nothing like the Gothic waterfront estate he used to live in. He digs into his pocket for his keys, the black German shepherd waiting patiently behind me while he does so.

“You still haven’t said how you came to live right behind Bowen.”

“This house belongs to the family of a girl I know from high school. Her dad grew up here, but nobody’s lived here for years,” Colson opens the door and motions inside, “so, I told him if he let me live here, I’d start fixing it up.”

When I step through the door, it’s like walking into two separate houses. Light from the sliding glass door on the back wall floods into the great room, illuminating the entire first floor. The kitchen looks brand-new, with fresh white cabinets, new black appliances, and stainless-steel countertops, a stark contrast to the living room that still has maroon shag carpet and walls peppered with patches of spackle.

I gaze around the room, “So, you pay rent in renovations?”

“Most of it’s cosmetic, so it’s really not that complicated,” he steps over the threshold and nods for the German shepherd to come in before swinging the door shut and locking it behind him.

Colson leads me up the staircase where smooth, clean hardwood sprouts from the ancient, worn-down carpet. The walls in the hallway still need painted, but the upstairs is otherwise finished, with crisp white baseboards, refinished oak floors, and paint the color of storm clouds in the room where he sets down my bag before we return to the stairs.

“That’s…really nice of you.”

“It’s more than a fair trade,” he shrugs.

But I know the rent doesn’t matter to Colson. There’s still the unspoken reason—the one where Colson chose to live on this property because it’s the closest that he can get to the house where I lived with his sister’s murderer.

???

In some surreal twist of fate, I’m finally able to relax enough to space out at the kitchen table. I never thought I’d find myself back in a house with Colson, much less entering one willingly—out of necessity.

I don’t think too much about it at first, because if I don’t laugh about it, I’ll just start crying. The infamous German shepherd named after Ponyboy Curtis lays next to the sliding glass door behind me, staring out the window like a statue, scanning the trees for movement—animal or otherwise. Maybe Dallas was onto something when she named him. He’s a formidable dog with a dark and tough exterior, but all he wants is a good ear scratch, at least from me.

When Colson comes back downstairs, he’s changed out of his standard black pants, black shirt, and black boots into grey joggers and a black sleeveless undershirt. He moves through the kitchen, grabbing items from the refrigerator, dishes from the cabinet, not ignoring me, but just embracing the silence. I watch with odd satisfaction as he begins combining ingredients in a glass bowl. Egg yolks, olive oil…then he pulls a large knife out of the block on the counter and starts chopping anchovies. My mouth begins to water. Is this what he does when he’s by himself—makes Caesar dressing from scratch? That is, when he’s not hovering in my office or following me.

Jesus, he was out here all along…

When Colson turns to slide the bowl back into the refrigerator, I see that the constellations tattooed on his arm don’t end at his bicep. They extend over his shoulder and disappear beneath his shirt across his back and chest. The sky is big, but so is he. Maybe he’s not finished yet.

He exchanges the bowl for a rectangular glass container and strolls over to the sliding glass door. When he makes a clicking noise with his tongue, Pony immediately jumps up and rushes out ahead of him, disappearing somewhere off the deck. I watch Colson over my shoulder as he plucks four chicken breasts out of the marinade and tosses them onto the grill with a hiss.

As soon as the breeze rushes through the trees, stark green against the crisp blue sky, it catches the smoke and carries it through the open door. And once it hits my nose, everything suddenly feels familiar, smells familiar, and looks familiar.

I’m back in the house where I grew up. My dad is grilling chicken, just like this, and my mom is tossing vegetables in a bowl. Jo and I are somewhere outside running through grass, falling from tree branches, and watching the boats out on the water. Everyone is barefoot because you don’t wear shoes in the summer. The weathered deck, the kitchen tile, the oak tabletop, and the way the sun cuts through the glass and showers the living room in golden light—it feels like…

Home.

It still feels that way when Colson sets down the biggest plate of chicken Caesar salad I’ve ever seen in my life. The feeling lingers for a little while longer as I skewer each piece of chicken and lettuce and Parmesan, cramming as much of it onto my fork as will fit and shoveling it into my mouth. I haven’t eaten anything in two days other than a bowl of cereal at Barrett’s house when I finally started tweaking out from the near constant flow of caffeine I was mainlining. It’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted, and I eat every single bite.

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