Page 34 of Villainous Summer

“You don’t strike me as someone who loses control easily.”

She chuckled. “Well, I have been known for my temper. But, mostly, yeah, I have standards for myself, and that night was not it.”

“We all have bad days. If I’m getting cake out of every mistake made, screw up more often.”

“You really don’t want me to tell you?” she asked, her eyes hopeful.

“Not unless you feel like it.”

Something about my answer seemed to pass a test because her smile grew wider and brighter.

At The Cabin that day, I interrupted her dinner and told her she wasn’t a sunny person. But the expanding sensation in my chest felt like the warmth of an August day. Radiant on your skin as you savored the heat.

“Redo?” she offered. “If you need me for any other work functions, I’m your gal. I’ll stick to mineral water the whole night, be your DD, whatever you need.”

I didn’t have any mandatory work functions coming up, but the offer was intriguing. A part of me ached to spend more time with Summer and get to know her better. What I wanted from her, I didn’t know.

Still, the yearning to have her with me had me saying, “I’d love that. This weekend, I was—”

A knock sounded down the hall.

Cursing whoever was on my front step, I excused myself. At the door was my neighbor, Harvey Hubert, who was standing on the porch with a scowl.

“Donovan. I’ve told you and your mom a hundred times, no street parking on my side of the road. Get your guest to move the car, or I’ll have it towed.”

While this wasn’t an enforceable rule, I wasn’t in the mood to have Mr. Hubert calling the police. He was trigger happy with his landline and had called on many of my neighbors before. Most of the time, it ended with a shouting match in the street and shaking his cane at the parking enforcement officer. There was room beside my truck in the driveway, which was easier to deal with than arguing with an octogenarian.

“I’ll get it moved, Mr. Hubert.”

He grumbled as he bumbled down my walkway with angry little stomps.

When I returned to the kitchen, a big portion of the cake was missing, and Summer set her fork down, eyes averting, tucking her hands under her legs.

“Sorry, I went overboard. I’m not used to sharing it. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah, my neighbor is the parking police today and doesn’t like where your car is on the street.”

She jumped off the stool, opening her purse to find her keys. “Oh, geez, sorry. I’ll go. I don’t want to get you in trouble with your neighbors.”

Taking the keys from her hand, I shook my head. “He’s a crotchety old man who had nothing better to do than stare out his window and suspiciously look for kids skateboarding. You’re not going anywhere. I’ll move it, but we have more talking to do.”

Her keys in my hand, I left her and the half-eaten cake.

Inside her older red sedan, I had to pull the seat all the way back. A clear plastic cup with what looked like melted ice and dregs of coffee was in the middle cupholder. A sticker on the left top corner of the windshield said she was due for an oil change at the one-hundred-fourteen-thousand-mile mark. On the passenger side was a book with a bare-chested man baring pointed teeth at a woman in a red silk dress. Sitting beside the book was a large clear bag filled with small keys. I usually wouldn’t have snooped, but I couldn’t stop myself from grabbing a key at the top.

Silver, with a plastic name tag attached in precise print, it read Please return to Cory Thompson 360-555-0128.

I grabbed another key.

They all had this Cory Thompson and the same number written on them.

It was an odd thing to find in her car, but something told me to reserve the questions for later. It wasn’t my business, and how could I ask it, anyway?—Hey, I was snooping around your car and found five hundred identical keys with some dude’s number on them?

No, I’d file that under the none-of-my-concern category.

I turned on her car, and the odometer read one hundred twenty-three thousand miles beside a myriad of other warning lights. Pulling the car into my driveway, I parked alongside my truck. I climbed out of the driver’s seat of her car, popped the hood, and grabbed a rag from my glove box. It took me less than a minute to check her oil level to find it low but not dry.

After putting everything back, I made my way inside.

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