I hauled the bin to the Dumpster and shook it out. I’d need to call the company to do a pickup and probably get a few more Dumpsters if they were going to fill up that damn fast. I shook out the dust and debris from my hair before I headed down to my Airstream. I was in desperate need of a shower and food. My coffee and granola bar had been consumed many hours ago.
I climbed the stairs into my trailer. I’d parked it with a direct view out onto the lake. No one was on this side of Crescent Lake even in this heat. Instead, the more populated parts were closer to town, where they rented boats and watercrafts.
I threw my clothes in the stackable laundry and stepped into the small shower.
Now that Dahlia knew my damn name—and the Universe had put me in the path of a woman who was friends with my sister—I needed to suck it up and go into town. I wanted to check out The Haunt, anyway. I’d read the articles about the opening, and the subsequent fame Macy was attracting for drawing in horror fans.
Supposedly, the food was just as good as the actual restaurant attractions.
I couldn’t deny the swell of pride. Both of us had gone out and done something with ourselves, even with the bullshit in our pasts. Macy had been forced to overcome more than I had. Leaving her alone to deal with our mother at the end hadn’t been fair. I’d had no relationship with my parents since I’d been a teen. Watching my mother make excuses for my old man, no matter how many times he stole the rent money for his drugs, had killed any love for either of them. When he’d stolen the money I’d saved up for a car, that had been the last straw and when she’d covered for him—nope. The last sliver of love had been dusted.
She was no better than he was—except her addiction was Jim Devereaux.
I’d moved out and couch surfed until I’d made enough money for a shitbox apartment. And a landlord who hadn’t cared that I was under eighteen.
Lou had been the nail in my coffin with my sister.
I’d thought my best friend would be good for her. But the grief from losing our mother so soon after our dad had been terrible timing for starting a relationship. On top of that, Macy had loved his little boy like her own.
But Lou wasn’t the guy I’d thought he was. Not that I’d been paying close enough attention. I’d been too wrapped up in the three jobs I’d needed to take to pay my damn rent and for the garage I was using as a workshop for my sculptures. I’d been too focused on myself and how I was going to get myself out of Chicago.
I hadn’t looked out for her.
And hadn’t stood for her.
I lifted my face to the spray. I wished it was just as easy to wash away my sins as the dirt and grit around my feet. The hot water made my face throb, but the heat helped the headache that was brewing. Even the top of line Airstream still didn’t have decent water pressure. One thing I’d need when I gutted the mansion. Up to date plumbing was a must.
I had to shampoo my hair twice to get out all the dust then I had to scrub the bottom of the stall, or I’d be in trouble with the outtake valves. Ahh, the life of living in a trailer. My old truck hadn’t been up to the task of hauling this thing across country and had died soon after I’d arrived.
My freaking new truck had been ruined by that woman too.
I shoved thoughts of Dahlia out of my head as I padded down the hallway to my kitchen. I hadn’t skimped on the amenities of this thing, and for the most part, I didn’t mind the small space. I’d bummed around the Pacific Northwest for a while until I’d found the Victorian.
Late night scrolling was always dangerous but not usually buy-a-house dangerous.
I stepped onto the deck in my towel and looked up at my house. Never thought I’d say those words in my life, let alone in New York. After my accident, I’d landed in a treatment center in Washington. The doctors had to do some skin grafting thanks to the burns from the red-hot metal shrapnel that had exploded off my piece.
That was what I got for getting sloppy with my welds.
Because I hadn’t cared.
It had turned into a job, not a passion.
The passion had leaked out of my art a damn long time ago. Starting with the first time I’d taken a commission piece. I’d sold off a piece of my soul with each one until there’d been nothing left.
I gripped the banister as a flash of the bright hot pain tried to drag me back to that time. Every once in a while, the nerves went a little haywire along my side. Taking the brunt of the rubble and wood falling on us had left a host of bruises along my ribs.
A little too close to when I’d been pinned under my own eight-foot-tall sculpture.
I stared out on the water, willing away the memory of the acrid scent of my burning flesh and the metallic tang of blood in my mouth. I’d been trapped under hundreds of pounds of metal for hours until someone had finally found me. The only reason I hadn’t bled out was because I’d been pinned to the floor. I was lucky I wasn’t dead because I’d become a hermitic asshole who had pushed all the people in his life away.
Except Maeve.
My agent hadn’t been able to get a hold of me and was too damn stubborn to let her calls go to voicemail for long. She’d saved me twice. Once when she’d sold my first piece to a gallery when I’d been a week away from getting kicked out of my apartment, and the second time when my art had literally almost killed me.
And she didn’t let me forget it.
I might have been an asshole about creating my art alone, but after today, I couldn’t be stupid with this house. There were too many unknown variables when it came to structure. Knowing my own weight and building scaffolding for a sculpture was far different than stone, wood, and glass. Not to mention the wear and tear of time on all three.
But I was hoping that rehabbing this house would make me feel something again.
I was so tired of the numbness.
Goosebumps rose on my flesh as the wind whipped off the water. Cold was a whole different thing. I was about to step back inside when my phone blared out of the trailer. I was tempted to ignore it, but the only person who had my number these days was Maeve and I’d already ignored her last night.
I ducked back inside and grabbed my phone. “What?”
“Just making sure you’re not bleeding out.” Maeve’s clipped New England voice reminded me of my old life. Of the endless phone calls about pieces she’d sold, and pieces people wanted.
Pieces that weren’t part of my life anymore.
“Close. Should see the porch that came down earlier today.”
“For fuck’s sake, Nolan. What are you doing out there on that damn lake? Can’t you be a normal millionaire and buy a fully intact house?”
“Nope.” I put the phone on speaker and tossed it on the table near the window as I rubbed the last of the water out of my hair. “What do you want, Maeve?”
“I can’t just check on my favorite artist?”
