SATURDAY, AUGUST 3RD
14 DAYS UNTIL THE READ-A-THON
Two things happen Saturday morning.
First, Ashleigh calls out sick and Landon has to fill in for her. Second, a storm rolls in, driving everyone in Waning Bay inside, and most, it would seem, of the under-eight crowd into the library.
I’m kept running right up until it’s time to start gathering Story Hour supplies, at which point the automatic doors whoosh open, carrying a distant rumble of thunder and a sideways sheet of rain inside, along with Miles Nowak.
He stops on the mat inside the doors to rustle his wet hair, like a dog shaking out postbath, and I suppress a deeply charmed grin.
When he looks up and catches me watching him, though, he doesn’t return the smile. Mine dissipates as he approaches and sets a cup on my desk. “Brought you tea.”
“Thanks.”
I can tell he’s waiting, so I take a sip, the spicy sweetness zinging from the back of my tongue to the base of my spine.
“Delicious,” I confirm. “Did you come all the way here to bring me this?”
He gives a flimsy grin. “I came all the way here to hear a story.”
I lean around him, half expecting to see an ostrich-feather-clad Starfire and my Canadian-tuxedoed Dad in tow.
Miles glances down at his hands braced against the desk and clears his throat. “Ah. So.”
“They’re not coming,” I say. “Are they?”
He inhales slowly. My stomach’s sinking. I do my best to intercept it.
It’s not a big deal. If anything, it’s a relief. I always feel awkward being observed by nonlibrary people during Story Hour. Now I can finish my workday in peace and meet Dad and Starfire at the axe-throwing bar she was so excited about.
Miles is still looking at me like I’m a puppy whose paw he’s just accidentally stomped on.
“It’s fine,” I assure him. “I’m reading a book aloud to some kids. It’s not my Broadway debut.”
“No, I know, it’s . . .” His gaze cuts over my shoulder and back to me again. “You should probably go get set up, right?”
The way he says it, I can feel the gap where something unsaid hovers.
My heart speeds. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” he says. “It can wait.”
“You’re freaking me out,” I say.
“That’s not what I’m trying to do,” he says.
“But it’s what you’re doing,” I say. “Just tell me what’s going on, or I won’t be able to concentrate.”
He leans away from the desk, hands gripping the edge, and blows out a breath. “I didn’t think this through.”
“Miles.”
“They left, Daphne.”
“Left?” I say. “Who?”
“Your parents,” he says. “Your dad and Starfire. They got a last-minute invitation to meet some friends up in Mackinac.”
I glance toward my phone. It’s on the desk, face up. No new messages. No explanation.
Of course there isn’t. There never is. The explanation is implied: something better came along.
There is no reason for me to feel surprised. There is every reason to feel nothing. This is what I should have expected.
Last-minute invitation, Miles said.
To meet some friends up in Mackinac.
The “friend” he made yesterday, no doubt. Some guy who owns a hotel and likes the Grateful Dead. At least, that’s my guess, if I have to make one. And I do. Because Dad didn’t tell me himself.
Miles murmurs, “He left you a note.”
I flip my phone face down, searching for today’s Story Hour books among the mess, but my hands feel clumsy, like my brain’s just learning how to operate them.
“I told him to call,” Miles says.
I find the books, the smallest bit of relief seeping into me at the feeling of something solid in my grip. “Not his style.”
