Page 95 of The Spider & the Storm

He sucked in a deep breath and turned slowly, like the last thing he wanted to do was hear what she needed from him, but still, he nodded. “What's up?”

“Give Charlie my number.”

I caught her gaze, and her smile touched her eyes with every bit of reassurance she thought I needed.

“Yeah, sure,” Blake replied before gesturing for me to follow. “Come on, man. I gotta get paper and something to write with.”

Stormy's brow creased with what looked like suspicion, but she didn't say anything more. She gripped my arm, smiled, and told me to shoot her a text as soon as I could. She promised to annoy me when she got the chance; I told her I was looking forward to it, and I meant it.

Then, I followed Blake down the hall, through the waiting room, and down another shorter hallway to what appeared to be an office.

He closed the door behind us and gestured for me to sit in a chair on one side of an old wooden desk. I complied, and as he sat across from me on the other side, I was struck with an unwelcomed memory of speaking to the school principal after Ritchie Wheeler had used his seniority and popularity to torment me in the second grade.

Blake didn't look at me as nicely as the principal had that day.

He grabbed a pad of paper and a pen and began to speak without wasting another moment. “Listen, you seem like a good guy, and Stormy's apparently really into you.”

He scrawled something onto the paper without glancing up at me while my blood burned to the temperature of molten lava at the thought of her beinginto meat all, let alone talking to her friends about it. But there was something else in his tone that had me sitting on edge, like he was about to drop a bomb onto my head.

“But, look, I gotta say this because I care about her. She’s a good friend—practically family. She's been through some shit. She's beenhurt.”

“We'veallbeen hurt,” I countered defensively while also listening intently to what he was trying to say.

He looked up to pin me with a stern glare. “It’s not my story to tell, and I’m guessing that when she's ready to tell it to you, she will. I’m not telling you not to go out with her or … whatever you guys are doing—it’s not really my business. All I'm saying is, be careful with her. And I'm telling you, man, if you hurt her—”

“You're gonna come for me?” I offered, leaning back in my chair while wondering how the hell I always found myself in situations where some asshole thought it was okay to threaten me with violence.

But Blake shrugged as he passed the piece of paper across the desk. “I can't speak for other people she knows, but no. Revenge isn't really my thing. I'd just be disappointed. Like I said, you seem like a good guy, and she really likes you, and …” He sighed. “She deserves something good, is all I'm saying. And if she can find it with you, then …”

I took the paper from his hand and tucked it into my jacket pocket. “I'm the last person you need to worry about,” I replied, removing any hint of defense from my tone.

He nodded. “I hope that’s true.”

I forced a tight smile to form across my lips as I stood and left the room without another word. When I left the hallway, I found Stormy was still in the waiting room, handing a nervous-looking young man a clipboard with a consent form and instructing him to fill it out while she went to make a copy of hisdriver’s license. She kept things professional at the sight of me but offered a small, glittery-eyed smile.

“Don’t forget to text me, Spider,” she said, her voice even and cool.

One side of my mouth curled upward as I replied, “Only if you don’t forget to drive me crazy.”

Then, I left the shop, feeling good about the future for maybe the first time in an incredibly long while. I knew better than to be too hopeful. I knew better than to expect too much.

But for once, I felt lighter, happier, and I thought,Blake has nothing to worry about. I knew what it was like to hurt, and I had no intention of inflicting pain on her.

And that was the kind of good feeling I held on to all the way back to Luke’s bike. I picked up the helmet and was about to put it on when I stopped in a fretful stupor.

I could do everything to not hurt Stormy. But there wasn’t much I could do to keep the past from breaking her heart. And once she inevitably learned about those skeletons hidden in my closet—stuffed deep and coated under an inch of dust—would she find it in her to stay?

And that was the question that swarmed through my mind and festered in my gut all the way back to my cottage in the middle of the cemetery, where I parked Luke’s bike in the back and headed for the door.

Only to be stopped by the faintest hint of cigarette smoke lingering in the air and an empty pack of a familiar brand of cigarettes, sitting precariously in the center of the mat right outside the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MASSACHUSETTS, PRESENT DAY

It was hard to deny the possibility of an afterlife after I'd spent nearly half of my life working in a cemetery. There were things I couldn't explain as being anything but otherworldly, and I accepted those things without argument.

Perfectly timed gusts of wind, the casting of shadows when there was otherwise nothing there, unintelligible whispers carried along a breeze when there wasn't anyone else around, and the indisputable feeling of being watched. Those were just a few of the things I was used to. Those were the things I could brush off as being occupational hazards, and they never ever scared me.

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