Page 40 of Even After Sunset

I pick up the flour again and start toward the storage cupboards, trying to seem nonchalant. “Nothing. Just… I’m right in the middle of baking right now. So if he asks, just let him know I really need to finish these last batches of cookies. Tell him I’ll call him and Meryl tomorrow night.”

He gives me a puzzled look, so I open the cupboard and start rifling through its contents, hoping it will emphasize how swamped I am with all this baking. Far too busy for a phonecall.

“Um, okay,” Silas says. “Sure.”

But I can tell he thinks it’s weird. He doesn’t push further, though. I offer for him to make the call in my bedroom so he can have a little more privacy, but he declines. Clearly, he has no intention of discussing anything even remotely personal.

And he doesn’t: his call with Richard is short and sweet. He’s polite, direct, and so,soclosed off. It’s like he’s in a competition with himself to see how short he can make each of his answers. And it’s not like I expect him to suddenly let down his guard with Richard and start spilling his feelings after two brief phone calls or anything, but it’s the fact that I suspect he hasn’t opened up toanyonesince he found his parents shot to death in his kitchen that worries me. Because seven years is a long time to stew in the kind of emotions that get triggered by the level of trauma he went through. I mean, I didn’t have to deal with half of what he went through, and I still have to work at coping with my mother’s death and the aftermath of her actions. And that’s after I had all kinds of support, and several people to open up to. Silas hasn’t had any of that.

When he’s hung up from his call, he leans back against the window, legs stretched out in front of him on the seat, ankles crossed. I can feel his eyes on me as he spins his phone absentmindedly on the tabletop.

“So…” he finally says. “Trouble in paradise?”

I can’t tell if he’s mocking my obviously made-up excuse for not talking to Richard and Meryl, or if he’s genuinely curious. Either way, it’s easier to go back to ignoring him in the hopes that he’ll just drop it.

I continue with my baking and he continues with his phone-twirling.

“Okaaaay then,” he drawls after a few minutes. And I try to keep ignoring him, but I can’t take the loaded silence any longer.

“My sales were crap, okay?” I say, practically slamming the spoon on the counter as I turn to face him. “You happy? Can we drop it now?”

But apparently he can’t.

“Because you burned the cookies?” He pushes, still sprawled oh-so-casually across the seat. And for some reason, his accurate deduction annoys me even more.

“I already told you: they were not burnt.”

“Whatever you say,” he chuckles, and it makes me want to hurl the spoon at him.

“Obviously you don’t know the difference between a burnt cookie and a crispy cookie,” I retort. “Why am I not surprised?”

But he just laughs again; this deep scratchy laugh that sounds almost seductive. Except for the fact that he’s being a total jerk. He arches a cocky eyebrow at me.

“Idon’t know the difference?” he holds my gaze a second longer then picks up his phone and starts scrolling. “Yeah, sure,” he snickers. “Let’s go with that.”

“Whatever,” I say, which even I can tell makes me sound like a bratty five-year-old. But I don’t care, as long as he drops this line of conversation.

Which he does, for a while anyway. Long enough that I turn and go back to placing the rest of the cookies onto the cooling racks. Then I spoon more batter onto the pans and slide them into the oven, almost forgetting Silas’ presence after a while. Until his voice interrupts me again.

“Are you doing this because they wanted you to?” he asks, sounding serious this time. “This whole ‘taking off and making your own way for the summer’? Was that their idea? Richard and Meryl?”

I whirl around. “No!” He has the entirely wrong idea about them.Totallywrong. “I’m doing this because I wanted to.”

He studies me for a moment, and when he speaks again, it’s softer and more tentative.

“So then, why are you so scared of telling them you bombed your first couple of nights?”

“I didn’t bomb!” I shoot back, horrified.

I totally did.

He’s watching me really intently now, like he’s trying to read me. And I don’t like it; I feel judged. He lowers his phone to his lap.

“You’re worried about what they’ll think,” he muses. “You’re scared you’ll disappoint them.”

I turn around and start cleaning up.

“My reasons for doing this are none of your business.”

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