Page 27 of The Heartbreak Hotel
I swallow and reach for it, catching my own reflection in the beveled mirror. My cheeks are smoldering pink.
“How’s it going?” I ask, handing Henry the screwdriver. I keep my eyes trained very purposefully to his face, which is clean-shaven again.
“All right,” he says, his gaze flicking to mine. He reaches above his head to twist a screw into place, and his biceps move in a way that I have to look away from. “The valve was broken, but I’m almost finished.”
I can tell he’s going to make me bring it up. And Ishould. I have to. So I sit down on the closed lid of the toilet across from him and force out, “I’m so sorry about the other night.”
Henry adjusts the shower handle. “Which night?”
“Henry.”
He glances at me, smiling, and I can’t believe I touched his mouth like that. “How are you feeling?”
“Mortified,” I say. “Like I should live out the rest of my days under a large, flat rock.”
“I wasn’t sure if you remembered any of it.” He tightens another screw and this time I watch the muscles in his forearms tense. “I didn’t hear from you.”
I drop my head into my hands. I need to stop looking at him. I need tostop.“I didn’t know what to say. I’m so sorry.”
“Do you?” Henry asks. I risk a look at him and he’s pulled himself up to sitting against the tiled wall of the shower. He props one elbow on his bent knee. “Remember any of it?”
“Enough.” His eyebrows lift, and I add, “Like the part where I basically assaulted you.”
Henry’s lips twitch. “I don’t remember that.”
“Oh, great,” I say, “maybe I made it up.” Then I realize how this sounds, and start scrambling. “Not that I thought about—or, I didn’t mean I’ve been—”
“Louisa.” Henry’s smiling again. All it ever took, apparently, was me making a fool of myself. “It’s all right.”
“It’s not,” I say, raking a hand through my hair. “It was so unprofessional, and I’m really embarrassed, and I’m really sorry.”
Henry shakes his head, making to stand. “I’m just glad you’re okay. And that we got the power back on.”
I bite my lip, and Henry’s gaze drops to my mouth. A great rush of heat whooshes up from my belly, and I wave an arm toward the shower to change the subject. “Were you a plumber in a past life?”
“No.” He starts packing his tools into a black case sitting on the vanity. “But I did a lot of the remodel on this house myself, a long time ago.”
I’ve always known the house had been meticulously updated—its stained glass, its claw-foot tubs, its beautiful transom windows. But I never imagined Henry as the one who carved it apart to make it what it is now.
“When was that?”
“Ten-ish years,” he says, glancing at me. It’s tight in here; from where I’m sitting on the toilet, my knees are nearly brushing his legs. “I took it over from my parents, who took it overfrom their parents. They moved to Florida when they didn’t want to deal with snow anymore.”
“Did you grow up here?”
“Only place I’ve ever lived,” he says. He zips the bag, then reaches for the towel on the floor of the shower. “They never updated it, so it needed a lot of work.”
“Why’d you leave?” I can’t imagine it: the gift of spending your entire life in a place like this, just to go and rent it out.
Henry looks at me, eyes flickering between my own like he’s deciding what to say next. But he doesn’t have to respond, in the end—a scream tears through the house, shrill and undulating and distinctly Mei. Henry jerks around, but I’m already scooping up my water glass and grocery list and darting past him.
“Mei?” I call, halfway into the hallway. Henry’s right behind me. “Are you okay?”
“Help me!” she shrieks, and a brutal thought flashes across my mind: There’s a murderer in my house. There’s a murderer in my house on the first full day that I have a guest. My entire life is about to be dead in the water, literally and figuratively.
But when Henry and I hit the landing, I can see Mei in the living room—alone. She’s standing on the couch, phone clutched to her chest, hopping up and down.
“Get it!” she says, turning to us with her eyes wide. “Get it, get it, get it!”
