Page 5 of Even After Sunset

I drop my hand. Open my mouth… Close it again.

He’s so tall now. Even though he’s sitting, I can tell he’s at least six-foot—maybe more. His shoulders are wider, his chest broader: everything just…bigger.

“Why are you… What are youdoinghere?” I finally stutter. “Are you in trouble? I mean, are you okay?”

What if something’s wrong and he came to me for help and here I am threatening to call the police on him? Two minutes in and I’m already failing him all over again.

He scoots over so he’s sitting at the edge of the bed now, his long legs hanging over the side. He combs a hand roughly through his hair and my eyes can’t help zero-ing in on the tattoo that runs from his wrist all the way to his elbow.

“Is there a bathroom in here?” he asks, and my jaw drops a little, becausereally?He hasn’t seen me in almost seven years, and that’s his first question: where to find the bathroom?

But I just nod. “Uh, yeah. Sure.” I motion toward the narrow door on the right side of the small passageway separating the main area from the bedroom. “It’s just in—”

But he’s already up, brushing past me and yanking open the flimsysliding door.

Two seconds later, I hear him puking his guts out into the toilet and I just stand there, frozen for a second, because none of this makes any sense and my head is spinning. I feel kind of nauseous myself, to be honest. It’s all just… weird. And improbable and confusing and exhilarating and justso muchall at once that it’s impossible to process.

But then slowly, it starts to make sense.

Silas must have been one of the guys who crashed Scarlett’s party: one of the three guys from Allerston Lake. One of the guys that Xavier and the others had to throw out.

Maybe the guy who smashed his fist into Xavier’s jaw.

But I can’t let myself think about that right now. It’s already too much, with him just being here. In my camper—where he must have gone after he got kicked out of Scarlett’s house. Because I guess if you’re plastered and get thrown out of a party almost an hour from your home, a massive gleaming yellow camper is kind of a beacon. It makes sense, in a messed-up drunken perspective kind of way, that it would be the first place you’d stumble to if you were in a haze and looking for a place to crash for the night.

I hear water running and a few minutes later, Silas emerges from the bathroom. He leans against the wall, wiping his hands on his jeans.

“Wow.” I laugh nervously. “You’re so big now!”

And as soon as I realize that I said it out loud, I cringe. Way to sound like a great aunt who hasn’t seen him since the last family pot-luck.

“Yeah,” he says. “I guess.”

“I mean, obviously.” I roll my eyes.

Please let him see I didn’t mean to say that out loud.

But he doesn’t respond, and it’s impossible to read what he’s thinking, because even though his eyes are still that same pale slate-grey almost silver, now they’re eerily emotionless.

His face looks pale too, I notice, and he wreaks of liquor. He’s definitely hung over; possibly still drunk.

God, please don’t let him still be drunk.

“Are you okay? I mean, do you want a glass of water or something?”

He shoves his hands in his pockets and it makes his arm muscles tighten against his T-shirt. “Yeah. Water would be good.”

I walk over to the cupboard above the sink to get a glass, and he brushes past me to sit at the table. I get the jug from the fridge and fill the glass with cold water, but when I turn to give it to him, he’s slouched in the seat, arms crossed, eyes closed, and the left side of his face resting against the window.

I shift awkwardly from one foot to the other. I have no idea what to do, so I just plunk the glass down loudly on the table in front of him, hoping the noise will wake him up. But it doesn’t, so I nudge his boot (his massive, definitely at least a size eleven boot) with the toe of my pink Converse.

“Silas?”

He stirs but doesn’t open his eyes and I nudge him again a little harder. “Silas… Hey. Wake up.”

He’s out for the count. His lips are slightly parted and his breathing is slow and even. And the longer I stand there staring at him, the more I start freaking out. Like, really freaking out. Because Silas Carmichael has mysteriously appeared in the food truck I’m driving across New England and I may have planned for a lot of things but I definitely didn’t plan forthiskind of thing or anything even remotely like it and even though I want to rock this whole food truck business thing there’s nothing I want more in the world than to help Silas Carmichael but this is not how I thought that would happen and maybe this is my only shot and if it is I have no idea how I’m going to get him home again or if home is even where he needs to be right now and also… I need to breathe.

I need to calm down… Breathe and calm down. Two easy things to focus on, right?

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