Page 5 of Villainous Summer

There were two hundred and fifteen minutes left of my day, and I was counting down each one. I had nowhere to be when I left work. No friends to meet at the local bar. No family dinner with a wife, two kids, and an overly rambunctious golden retriever. All I had was a television in need of replacing and season two of The West Wing.

Not for the first time, I wished this job was more demanding, that the hours were longer, and that the expectations were higher. That way, I could distract myself from the dark silent night ahead of me at the house I refused to call home.

Since coming back to Ridgewood after my decade-long self-imposed exile, I tried to keep up with my friends in Seattle. In the beginning, I could manage everything being a ferry ride away. But then there was the fall and the hospital and the guilt. My city friends had attempted to contact me, but over the months, the check-ins died down. Happy-hour pictures no longer featured me and then, slowly, new people were introduced.

As the crow flies, my house in Ridgewood was only nineteen miles from my old apartment at the Harbor Steps. But it might as well have been a world away. From my old apartment window, I could see the ferry coming in from Manzanita. Since then, my current view features Mr. Bishop’s rusted-out Ford truck. I exchanged a Brazilian steakhouse in my lobby with a fifteen-minute drive to the grocery store.

After what happened, I never wanted to come back here, but I had no choice. I let down the only person in my life for decades, and I needed to atone for that.

It had been a year since I took this job with SanoTech, and for the bulk of my time, I had spent getting my mom situated at Glenwood Homes on the outskirts of town. Coming back to Ridgewood after ten years away was a hard decision. The last time I saw its familiar Norwegian-themed downtown was the day I caught my sperm donor between the thighs of the woman who was assuredly not my mother.

Then, a year ago, my mom called me and told me the news that brought me home. I took the job, and though it didn’t pay as well as the Seattle-based firms, it was enough to pay the taxes on my mom’s small home and pay for her care. Since my father took off, I was all she had.

A tap sounded on my door, and I glanced up from a report one of my junior engineers had sent me.

My boss, Mr. Haruki, stood in the doorway, his hands shoved in his SanoTech fleece vest. As a man in his late sixties, he made an impressive name for himself for his ingenuity and diligence in the field of medical technology over the past two decades. He still had a full head of shaggy jet-black hair and trusting brown eyes. Those warm irises hid an innate sense of business acumen and a shrewdness that led into his firm’s success.

“Mr. Haruki. How can I help you?” I asked, setting the report down.

“Donovan, I’ve told you to call me Dennis.” He leaned against the door and studied my messy desk. “I was popping by to make sure you’ll be at the party I’m having next week.”

Every year, Mr. Haruki would invite staff to his Front Street home to watch the annual Fourth of July parade. Between lutefisk eating contests, carnival rides, strong-man competitions, and their own mini Viking village, there was a large parade downtown. As a teenager, my parents would give me twenty bucks on Friday night, and I wouldn’t see them until Sunday afternoon, a highlight of my younger years.

“I was planning on it, yes.”

While I would have rather watched the parade from the balcony of a local brewery, this invitation would be an opportunity for advancement in the company.

“Wonderful. My granddaughter Devin will be there, too. She’s a lovely girl. Twenty-five graduated from UW with a degree in graphic design and had been working in Seattle for that carbonated vegetable juice start-up.” He wrinkled his nose. “The stuff is truly awful, but whatever pays the bills, right?”

Trepidation settled in my stomach. No way would I be set up with my boss’s daughter. Allowing someone to rely on me would only lead to that person getting hurt. I knew who I was and what I could offer someone, and it would never be fidelity.

Since then, I’ve found ways to keep my bed warm, but I never let it get into anything close to commitment—or even worse, monogamy. Dating Mr. Haruki’s granddaughter would be career suicide.

“She sounds lovely. You must be proud.”

“I am. She’s good to her Jiji. She’s done everything I could hope for. All I need is for her to find the right man.”

I cleared my throat, hiding my hand behind my fist, struggling for something to say to get me out of this situation.

I couldn’t tell him I wasn’t interested. That would be blasphemy.

“Could I bring my girlfriend with me?”

His black brows raised at my comment.

“Girlfriend? I didn’t know you were seeing someone. What’s her name?”

“Summer,” I blurted.

Why I said that woman’s name, I couldn’t be sure. Had I thought incessantly about the beautiful woman who had broken into my home? Yeah, okay, guilty. It’s not every day you find a gorgeous lady dripping rainwater on your mom’s favorite rug, staring at you with the deepest blue eyes you’ve ever seen.

“Summer what? What’s her last name? Maybe I know her. I know a lot of people in Ridgewood.”

This was true. His company was one of the largest donors to the community, sponsoring softball teams, fun runs, and fireworks on the Fourth of July.

My brain worked overtime as I shuffled through the Rolodex in my mind. Taylor? Torres? Townsend. That was the one.

A week after she broke into my house, an envelope showed up in the mail addressed to “Guy Whatever” with a blank check inside from Summer Townsend of 223 Lindvog Way, Apartment D-4.

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