Twice Shy by Sarah Hogle (ebook offline reader .TXT) 📕

worse at my cousin’s house—he used to watch R-rated horror films while I slept (or tried to) in the armchair. Violet purses her lips. Looks like I’ll be giving Brandon a phone call, then.

I feel like a glamorous movie star in my tinted lip balm and glittery nail polish, smelling of Love’s Baby Soft perfume. Violet wears Elizabeth Taylor’s White Diamonds and curlers in her hair, flaming red with pale roots. Her earrings were gifted to her by Marlon Brando when she was younger, but don’t tell Uncle Victor that. Six fingers are adorned in heavy jewels that, she tells me, out the side of her mouth like she doesn’t want anybody to overhear, her siblings would gladly kill her to get their hands on.

I hiss out a long, unsteady breath. The little girl on the burgundy sofa has grown up, but being a grown-up isn’t at all the way she thought it’d be. She’s so lost now that it’s scary. The only one who’s ever looked out for her is gone.

The Violet in my mind’s eye winks conspiratorially at my childhood self, then dissolves. No one’s been looking out for her, either. At my feet, there’s a grimy blanket and a cup with a moldy toothbrush in it. A hot plate’s switched off but still plugged in, ceramic bowl on top, instant noodles glued to the rim. A dead rat’s tail peeks out from under a pillow.

My aunt’s house is eleven thousand square feet in total: elegant and sparkling, with a wine cellar, a butler’s pantry, and a surplus of unnecessary, beautiful extras. She has special rooms bigger than some people’s houses that were, in my time here, used only one day a year, doors kept closed for three hundred sixty-four days. Yet at the end of her life she was confined to a nest that roughly spans four by three feet.

“I convinced her to move into the cabin not long after I was hired.”

At the sound of another voice I emit a scream so powerful that it could probably carry a paper airplane on its wave. I jump and turn at once, ankle twisting, toppling right onto the dead rat, which turns out to be a live possum. Which rends another terrible shriek out of me.

Wesley doesn’t offer a helping hand, watching with a closed expression.

My knees knock together as I scramble to my feet, heart thumping something dreadful. It’s like I’ve swallowed a bomb. “Jesus Christ! Where did you come from?”

He points wordlessly behind him.

“Well, yeah, no shit. But how did you sneak in so quietly?” He’s huge. I should have heard him hacking through this jungle long before I saw him. Maybe he used a secret entrance. I try to summon a mental blueprint for this house, but all my Falling Stars knowledge has been turned upside down and shaken for loose change. With it looking the way it does now, I can’t even remember which direction my old bedroom is in. Somewhere upstairs. That’s all I know.

He scrutinizes me as though I’m the one who’s acting suspect. “What are you doing? It’s not safe in here.”

“Looking for somewhere to sleep.” I bend to unplug the hot plate, paranoid it’ll turn on even though the electricity’s shut off. This place would go up like a Fourth of July sparkler.

“Somewhere to sleep,” he repeats flatly.

“Yes. I moved out of my apartment because I was under the impression I had a new home with a nice warm bed waiting for me. Living it up like royalty.” I prop my hands on my hips, surveying our less-than-impressive environs. “I did not have ‘colossal hoard’ on my bingo card.”

“There aren’t any nice beds here.”

“I got that, thanks. I’m improvising. Saw a whole pallet of Nintendo 64s back there; maybe I’ll build myself a bed out of them.”

Wesley doesn’t smile at my joke. He’s frowning at me again. I think he has a low opinion of my mental competence. “You can’t stay in here, it’s dangerous.”

He’s absolutely right. “I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.”

Wesley hesitates. The worry line in his forehead cracks into a full-blown trench, and he’s silent for so long that I begin to think he’s a robot who’s spontaneously shut off, but then he opens his mouth. Slowly, he forces out the words: “You can come stay in the cabin.” It’s the most reluctantly issued invitation in history. “I suppose.” Another eternity passes. “For now.”

There is simply no way.

“Why not?”

It transpires that I’ve said that out loud.

Obviously, I am not going to tell Wesley that he’s my most recent ex and doesn’t know it, so I say, “There’s not enough room. The cabin only has one bedroom, from what I saw, which you’re already occupying. If I’m crashing on your couch I’ll just be in your way.” And I will not be a burden on anyone. “It’s fine. I’ll burrow into another room here that has fewer possums.” I try for a casual lean but accidentally kick over the toothbrush cup. Cockroaches scatter. “Never mind, I’ll sleep in my car. How good are you at jumping dead batteries, by the way?”

The disapproving frown deepens, bracketing his mouth. He wields silence like a weapon, letting it hang over us for several moments, before responding, “The cabin is a two-bedroom. My bedroom’s upstairs. You can take Violet’s old room downstairs.”

This perks me up. “Really? Are you sure?” Ordinarily I’d want to thoroughly vet a guy before agreeing to stay at his place for any length of time, but it’s gotten so chilly that I can see my breath, silver puffs disturbing the dust clouds. Besides, Aunt Violet liked him well enough to bequeath him half of Falling Stars. If he’s good in her books, he’s okay in mine. I’ll have to find a way to scrub my brain of all associations with Jack McBride and the fact that he’s a stone-cold stunner, of course, but that’s small potatoes. It’s been five seconds since I started seriously