He still hadn’t said anything. He didn’t even seem to be breathing. I had a strange moment where I thought I remembered this—the way he’d seemed stunned, struck to silence by something. It had been with Hugo, I thought. Or when I’d been telling him about Hugo. And then the moment was gone, and I couldn’t call it back.

“Anyway,” I said into the stiffening silence, “please refer back to this conversation whenever you need a refresher on why I’m painfully single.”

Deputy Bobby jolted, and his face changed as though he were suddenly seeing me again. He worked his jaw. And then, in a tone I couldn’t decipher, he said, “Do you know what my dad said when I told him I was moving back to Portland with West?”

It was such a strange question, with such a yawning emptiness behind it, that I couldn’t answer; the best I could do was shake my head.

“He asked how I was going to find an apartment.” Deputy Bobby gave a jagged laugh. “And my mom said, ‘Good, now you can be a doctor.’”

“Jeez.”

He let his head fall back to thunk against the desk.

“I thought—” I stopped. “I mean, I just assumed you were going to be a police officer—”

“That would make sense,” Deputy Bobby said, and the words had an unfamiliar edge, “wouldn’t it?”

I thought about West, though. His anger. His fear that lay behind that anger. And, through the door that Deputy Bobby had cracked for me, if only for an instant, I saw a line of people behind West going a long way back in Deputy Bobby’s life.

“I didn’t mean to bring that up,” Deputy Bobby said. “My point was—I guess, parents are hard. I get that.” Then he gave me a sideways smile. “Even if they’re not famous.”

“The famous part is actually amazing. I go to fabulous parties with the Kardashians, and everything I own is made out of diamonds—”

“Even your underwear?”

“—and I’m offended you never once asked for my autograph.”

I got the goofy grin. Just for a moment. “I’m sorry I raised my voice.”

“I’m sorry I, uh, tapped into a strong passive-aggressive ley line.”

“You didn’t have any friends when you were a kid, did you?”

“Deputy Bobby!” But I was grinning.

“It’s like one thing after another that makes zero sense when it comes out of your mouth.”

I was still trying to tamp down my grin—and working on my comeback, obviously—when Deputy Bobby stood. He held out a hand, and I let him help me to my feet. He had a nice hand, by the way. Strong. Defined. Solid. And it was funny, I thought, how you could know right away whether your hand would fit just right with someone else’s. (Tragic backstory reveal: my hand did not fit just right with Shawn Laffleur’s during the 6:35 p.m. screening of 2003’s Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. He had popcorn fingers, and he gripped me way too hard. But we still made out anyway.)

“You’re not going to let this go, are you?” Deputy Bobby asked.

“Definitely not. I’m going to call all my friends and make them fly out here to prove I was popular.”

Deputy Bobby straightened my jacket for me. And then he gave me a look.

“It’s not right,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right.”

He nodded. “So, as soon as you’re out of my sight, let me guess—you’re going to break into Gerry’s beach house?”

“I actually didn’t know he had a beach house. Also, this feels like entrapment.”

“Maybe I should just arrest you right now,” he murmured.

“West would certainly have opinions if he found out you had plans to handcuff me.”

Deputy Bobby didn’t say anything to that. But, for an instant, his eyes came up to mine, and his smile wasn’t goofy at all. It was slow and small and sure, and I was suddenly painfully aware of his fingers still holding my lapels, of how close we were standing, of the cramped shelter, of the faint hint of that clean, masculine scent. If you’ve ever had a firework go off inside you—in a very, very, very good way—you know what I’m talking about.

“I’ve decided to enter a monastery,” I said.

For one last heartbeat, I got that other smile, the one I’d never seen before. The one with promises. And then Deputy Bobby released my jacket, stepped back, and said, “That would be a waste.”

I could still feel him, though. The echo of him.

He turned for the door and said, “Let’s go.”

“Oh,” I managed to say. “You’re going with me now?”

“If you’re going to be a smart aleck about this,” he said as he stepped outside, “I’ll lend Fox and Keme my handcuffs.”

Chapter 6

Deputy Bobby insisted we wait until dark before breaking into Gerry Webb’s beach house, but he also didn’t trust me not to go without him, which meant we had to kill time together. We got lunch at the Otter Slide. And then we stopped by the library to pick up some books (for me). And then Deputy Bobby needed one of those special TV boxes to pack up his TV. As we ran errands, I tried to do some light cyberstalking of Gerry, but I didn’t get far. Deputy Bobby kept saying interesting things. And I kept saying funny things. (At least, I thought they were funny; Deputy Bobby just got that little furrow between his eyebrows and stared at me earnestly, waiting for clarification.) And it was all so…good.

Faster than I expected, dark settled over Hastings Rock. Gerry Webb’s beach house was just on the north side of the bay—not far from the beach where the surfing competition had been held. It was hard to believe that had only been the day before; it felt like years. The house was set back on the lot, with privacy hedges on either side to screen out the neighbors, and the lawn and flower beds had a tidy look that suggested professional landscaping at the end of the season. The design of the house itself seemed to be based on a farmhouse aesthetic, built long and low with a gable roof. But some diagnosable whack-a-doodle had added their own twist on things—a sharp peak to the roofline above the entryway, for example, or the garages (yes, two), which had been built skinny and tall, the way a little kid might draw them. The general effect, I decided, was as if a six-year-old had tried to build a barn out of Legos.

The street—worn-down asphalt crumbling at the shoulders—didn’t look like it got much traffic, but Deputy Bobby made me drive to the end of the block. I parked, and Deputy Bobby said, “Hang here for a minute while I check it out.”

“Nice try.”

He gave me his professional-grade deputy stare, but maybe being on leave made it less effective. I unbuckled my seat belt and slid out of the Jeep.

As I made my way down the street, Deputy Bobby’s steps crunched the broken asphalt behind me. When he caught up, he had a little furrow between his eyebrows. “It might not be safe.”

“It’s cute, Deputy Bobby.” There was that word again. “And I appreciate it. But I know what’s going to happen. You’re going to search the whole house while I sit in the Jeep playing Wizard Princess on my phone—”

“What is Wizard Princess?”

“How are you a person? What do you do all day—lift heavy things, catch bad guys, and surf? Don’t you ever just scroll Instagram until your eyes fall out of your face and play games that make lots of awesome sounds and you have to tap the screen really fast?”

He seemed to give this serious—and in my opinion, undue—consideration. Finally he said, “I like Scrabble.”

“Scrabble is literally the worst game ever! Do you know what it’s like to have writer’s block and play Scrabble?”

“I know this is my first time breaking and entering, but honestly, I thought it would involve significantly less yelling.”

I refused to acknowledge that statement.