Page 50 of The Oscar Escape
“No,” she answered from somewhere near his knees.
His knees?
He looked down and spied a metal flap.Christ, have mercy!She was talking through the mail slot. He crouched and met her piercing blue gaze. “Let me in, Aria. This is no joke.”
“Agreed. It’s no joke that you owe me an explanation. So, I’m locking myself inside this lighthouse, and I won’t even allow the keeper in until you agree to tell me what you want from me. Ships could sink, Oscar. Do you want to have that on your conscience?”
He came to his feet and sized up the door. He could kick the damn thing in, but that would only add more law-breaking to the mix. The island residents already had a negative view of Aria. If he broke into the lighthouse, they’d surely be branded the island’s Bonnie and Clyde. He huffed an exasperated breath.
“See, you know I’m right. You’re huffing,” she said . . . to his knees.
He scanned the side of the cottage for another way in when a plaque anchored to the wall caught his eye. Despite being water-logged and fucking freezing, a wily smirk bloomed on his lips. “You’re wrong, Pop Princess. The lighthouse is operated remotely by the Coast Guard.”
The metal flap clinked open. “How would you even know that? And stop calling me a pop princess.”
“I can call you whatever I want. Can you see my foot from that opening?”
“Yeah, why?”
He tapped out butthole douche nozzle.
“How dare you. And I’m tapping right back at you.”
“I can’t see it, so it doesn’t count,” he sing-song replied like they were seven again. “And I’m not lying about the Coast Guard. If you had taken a second before charging inside and locking me out, you would have seen the sign next to the door. The house is a museum. It was built by the island’s first residents, Homer and Evangeline Havenmatch.”
That was new info to him. Though he’d been here before, he knew very little about the island’s history.
The metal slat closed with a clang, and the click of the lock disengaging sliced through the torrent of rain.
She opened the door an inch. “I don’t see a plaque or a sign.”
This woman.
“Of course, you can’t see it. You’d have to open the door all the way.”
Without warning, she swung open the door dramatically, damn near taking his nose clean off his face. She stepped onto the porch, scanned the metal sign, and gave it an aloof half-shrug. “I must have missed it.” She darted inside, but he caught the door before she could slam it in his face.
“Why are you acting like you’ve lost your mind?” he lamented, edging into the house. He glanced around the space and took in the rustic cottage. With a simple wooden table in the center, a wrought iron bed covered with a faded baby blue quilt near a stone fireplace, and a life-sized plastic lobster peeking out of a pot on one of those olden-days stoves, the space was straight out of the Little House on the Prairie—the East Coast version. Three electric lanterns—the only modern touch besides the plastic crustacean—were scattered about the room and cast a dim glow. They allowed him to make out black-and-white framed photos covering the walls.
“I’m upset and rightly so,” she balked. “My entire musical career is on the line. But I know this for sure. I’m not the only one who won’t be able to stay on this island for twelve days.”
Every muscle in his body tightened. “What the hell are you insinuating?”
“It’s not like you can stay in one place.”
“That’s not true.”
“Really? You don’t take gig after gig, so you can keep moving?”
“That’s the job of a documentarian and the job of a photographer. It’s work.”
She shook her head. “You call what you do work? You might think it’s work. But it’s not work.”
Did she not see the value in what he did?
“I work my ass off when I’m on a project, Aria.”
“I’m sure you do, but it’s notjust work.” She leaned against the table. “You’re running. You’re running from . . .” She trailed off, breathless.
