The Truths We Make (House of Poe #1)

15. Uninvited Guests

Uninvited Guests

Friday, Present

D ellbrook floats amongst a bevy of cars. We’ve arrived in time for the expansion, a tradition long held by the Poes and their ilk, to elongate the festivities of mourning. It would be a shame to let a good death go by so quickly, after all. So many expectations to manage, oddities to fall into, that not for the first time I wonder how they’ve been able to keep this up for so many generations, especially with the advancements of the world.

The secrets of the Poes are more like whispered myths the public pushes them to hold. Alexander is more than happy to oblige, like every Poe son before him. So, the parties, that for normal society, would be better placed for celebration rather than sorrow, continue. There will be blood red tablecloths and dark gashes of tar-soaked skulls adorning tonight’s expansion. Talks of illness, how it would rot the skin if taken hold, and how we’re all lucky Paxton didn’t have to suffer that fate. A hint placed, to those close enough, that they should consider death themselves, and that there may be a grave or two available in the Poe’s private cemetery—for the right price. All of it only to prove to the gatherers they do not fear the sadness of losing their son.

A few photographers mill at the bottom back gate, knowing better than to sneak onto the property, but unwilling to abandon the perfect shot completely. They snap a few of our rental as it slides by, but the flashes do very little through the tinted windows. Oliver has been a statue since we started the trek back home. My body, familiar with the years of tension from him, lulls me into believing it’s a companionable silence, even if we’re anything but.

For the first time since South Carolina, I consider my phone, about the missed calls and how I’m going to explain to my mother, and Roger , why I’ve been remiss. She’ll worry I’ve fallen back into old habits of letting Oliver consume my every thought, easily pushing aside my life at his whims. I’m not sure how to tell her I haven’t when the lie sits fat on my tongue.

I cannot begin to try to wrap my head around what I’m going to say to Ro. Do I just ask him outright or is this a secret better snooped through? The knot in my neck creeps into my forehead, trailing a tight pain through the inner workings of my skull. I work at it, my fingertips spiraling like the mess I am, on each temple.

“Here,” Oliver says.

I lift my eyes to see him motioning for me to turn my back to him, his lithe fingers already reaching for my nape, as if it’s nothing. I’m reluctant to let him provide relief, worried I’ve crossed enough boundaries already. But the headache is more violent than my guilt or my common sense. So, I do as he’s asked, unbuckling the belt as we ascend the drive. My skin lights up with involuntary shivers at his touch. He smooths his fingertips down the curve, from chin to shoulder, pressing and pushing against the tension. He doesn’t give in to it. Instead, he demands it relax beneath his will. My eyes close and a soft whimper of gratitude escapes me.

“I miss this,” the traitorous words escape my heart’s cage in a whisper.

My rage pounds at the door. How stupid you sound, Evangeline. But I can’t take them back, can’t hide their existence in the space between his breath and mine. They’re alive, grounding us into this moment. All I can do is lean in. I push my neck into his hands, trying to say with my body all the surface things I want him to believe. I miss the touch. Miss the massages. Miss your fingertips and their familiarity with my curves. I’d rather he believe it purely lust than what it really is. What it has always been. What I cannot admit again.

All he husks out is, “Me too.”

I’m undone because I don’t know what he means. The car has stopped and now the driver is clearing his throat, obviously ready to be rid of us and whatever is about to happen. The brush of Oliver’s hand on my shoulder, his lips leaning down to tell me something in my ear. Warmth and the hum of his words. I’m too distracted by the new throbbing, and the ghost of his kiss to my neck, to catch them. Then he opens the door and I know the moment is over. I follow him.

The days have blurred what I remember and what actually is. I’m having the sneaking suspicion that Paxton, for all his games, knew it might do this. Or maybe he didn’t, and that’s the brilliance of who he was. Oliver grabs my bag along with his and we make our way to the kitchen door. The only thing I want to do is shower the Carolina coast from my skin and sink into the next part of Paxton’s letter.

Assuming Oliver is going to share it with me.

I’ve been asking for it only to be met with silence. His idle hands and far off look tell me he’s thinking, lost in the past, some memory they shared. It only makes sense that part two is for him, since the beginning was mine. But what it could be, I cannot even begin to fathom. The years between us feel longer when I think of all the signs I could’ve missed, all the clues he could’ve chosen.

The picture itself is proof of how much I do not know about their lives, if not their person. I’ve missed so much. I have no choice but to trust that Oliver knows he needs me if he has any hope of finding answers. I decide to try one last time before we part ways in the house.

“Oliver, I—”

I stop before I’ve even stepped through, the door still being held behind me. Oliver’s frustrated tsk sounds over my shoulder as he pushes into my stilled body. Here, in the kitchen where my whole life changed when I was seven, where I grew up and played and ate after midnight huddled next to two mischievous boys as we shared secrets, now stands Roger.

He’s holding two wine glasses above the sink, surprise at seeing me come through the door, frozen in his cheeks. Time stops. I can’t put together the two worlds I’ve lived in colliding at this moment. A brain freeze without the delicious ice of a summer treat. I work the rock of shame that’s lodged in my throat as I feel Oliver’s hands on my lower back, pressing me in. I worry how I can face him, when my feelings for this place are so raw and unfair to us both.

Then I remember the photo and it stirs me forward. Stirs my curiosity, and more importantly, my anger. You don’t get to be surprised. You’re in my childhood home , I internally scold him .

I don’t get the chance to say anything before Oliver pushes around me to see what’s caught my attention. He looks between us, knowing he’s stepped into something, but unsure what it is. Instead of questioning though, he puts down the bags and moves around the island to Roger, cuffing his back and pulling him into a side hug.

“Hey, Catz! Funny seeing you here. We were just talking about you.”

His words are friendly, but suspicious. He knows nothing is a coincidence, and from the look on Oliver’s face, Catz was not an intended guest this evening.

“Hey, Ol. I know, I know. I wasn’t on the guest list, but I didn’t come for Pax. Not that… well, you have my condolences, but it’s not just for Pax.” His fingers run over his hair, pushing back the strands until they’re mussed.

He keeps glancing over, shrugging, looking guilty as if he has an apology at the ready. I wait, hoping my own nerves will settle instead of being spurred along with his. He doesn’t want to tell Oliver the real reason he’s come, and he’s expecting me to jump in at any moment. To scream and spill our secret. A secret I didn’t even know I was keeping, one that he has made me an accomplice of.

And I want to. I want to lay it bare, cause a scene. But I can’t. Because this is an expansion. Because Oliver is here. Because I cannot stand to be this raw, out here in the open like this. I wish I knew what to do to stop this train wreck from happening. But if we’re going to crash, he’s going to be the one responsible.

Oliver removes his hand from Roger. “Alright. Then why are you here?”

Roger stares at me, stilling his wandering hands and anxious movements. I nod my head, just enough to let him know I’ll be of no help. I’m waiting for answers, too.

“Uh. I’m here for her. Eve… When she,” he changes directions and talks only to me. “When you didn’t answer your phone and your mother hadn’t heard from you, I knew I had to come out. You’ve never been one to just go silent. I thought maybe something happened.”

Oliver’s shoulders have been climbing up to his ears as he’s thrust into realizing this isn’t what it seems. His voice lowers and storm clouds gather around his entire demeanor.

“How do you know Eve? Better yet, why is Isabel contacting you about her whereabouts?” he asks through gritted teeth .

He’s violence and threats. Protectiveness and confusion. Oliver wears his anger like a shield, keeping the truths he makes for himself about who we are, and the lives we may have without each other safely behind them. I know he’s catching on to the only reason we might know each other. Nevertheless, he fights it.

“Ro,” I say, interrupting their stare down and bringing Oliver’s glare full force to me. “You shouldn’t have come. Especially because it seems you have a lot of explanations to give, which believe me, I am dying to hear, but this isn’t the place for this. For you. You should leave.”

“Eve…”

“Now, wait—”

Roger steps towards me, my name on his lips, while Oliver’s hands are reaching out to still anyone who might try to escape. That is until he realizes Roger is only moving closer to me. He roughly moves between us, his back to me, breaking any eye contact I had. I take a deep breath, knowing shit is about to hit the fan.

“Explain. Now,” Oliver rumbles to Roger.

Gone is the softness of my poet. The understanding, bleeding heart I’ve known. In his place stands the temper of a monsoon, more often glimpsed on the face of Paxton, and my blood pounds seeing how alike they are in this moment. To know Oliver will forever need to be both the shelter and the storm now that his actions are no longer in tandem with another, forces my breath to shallow in pain.

“Whoa!” Roger says, hands fisting, just as stunned at Oliver’s aggressive transition. “Oliver, I’m not going to hurt Eve. She’s… my girlfriend.”

“She’s…” Oliver starts before I interrupt, anger making my tongue lash out when I shouldn’t.

“Actually, Roger, or should I say Catz , I was your girlfriend,” I lower my voice, realizing someone could overhear, and the last thing I needed was Alexander and Madeline learning of this fiasco at their son’s memorial. “Now is not the time or the place. You really need to leave. We can talk about this back home.”

Tears threaten, from anger, from confusion and sadness. From the realization that I never knew the man in front of me, even if I thought for a second, I could. He was supposed to be my new beginning, the easy honesty of a future, and instead, the realization of this moment is that he’s only dragging me back to my past .

Oliver spins to me. “This is Ro? The Ro ? The picture…”

I watch as pieces click in Oliver’s eyes, lines being traced and followed to create pictures only he and Paxton could see, and I’m left wandering in the dark again. No one moves, as I’m sure he plays through conversations and timelines in his head. I’m tired of always playing catch up, especially when it’s my life that’s left me behind. Furiously, I move around both men, making it to the inner doorway that’ll lead me to the hall before either has the inkling to stop me.

“Fine. If you don’t want to go, I will,” I growl.

I don’t wait for a response, hoping they’ll take a hint, but knowing it’ll never be that easy. My head is spinning. I’ve lost someone I thought a friend, someone who had held me. Who had loved my body even when my soul refused him. And I lost him to a life that had already broken me. I didn’t want to stand humiliated in the house I promised I would never need again.

Deep vibrations and harsh sounding words echo behind me as I make my escape. If I can just make it to a locked door , I pray. But there is no such thing as luck in Dellbrook. Only destiny and hard truths and the weight of your name.

“Eve, wait!”

I pick up my pace, the stairs giving protest at being used when they know I know better. I don’t make it—two steps from the top, there’s a brush on my elbow, a hand at my neck, pulling me to the landing and into a chest of fine lines and hot flesh. The buttons of his rumpled dress shirt have come undone and my nose rests in the hollow of a throat that is bobbing with words.

“Oliver, let me go,” I sigh.

I refuse to let the trails of his skin call forth my tears. A sudden wash of relief hits me as a thought occurs. I’m so glad I never told him I loved him . It’s followed by rage at the man who’s holding me. For knowing that I hadn’t opened up. For being right. For causing all of this. I push my fists into him, but he holds tight.

“Eve, I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I would’ve never… I cannot explain… We’ll get answers. I am so, so sorry.” He’s muttering and clamoring for words that’ll make me stop fighting.

But right now, I’m not thinking of Roger. I’m too focused on the sharp reminder that Oliver Poe has ruined everything.

“You should be,” I spit. “This is all your fault. It’s always your fault. When are you going to stop causing chaos? When will you give up haunting me? ”

I give a final push and he lets me go enough to stare into my face. I’m positive I look feral, like the wild thing he met in the kitchen decades ago. He must see me sinking into the ferocity of my mother, to the depths of stubbornness where I can no longer hear anything but the ocean of my rage floating through me. His teeth worry his bottom lip and I know he doesn’t want to let me go, even though we both realize he should.

And then he does the last thing I expect him to. He leans in, rough around his edges, demanding, and kisses me. His mouth moves into mine, pressing, begging, to be let in. My thoughts only know torture, so I push back, rake my hands into his hair, nails gliding down into the small curls that drift along his nape. Somehow, my legs wrap around his hips and he’s sweeping me back into the wall.

I should back down. Away. Tell him never to touch me again. I should be livid, and I am, but the lines are so thin between passion and rage that I’m not sure which is driving me anymore. By the scattered heartbeat in Oliver’s throat, I’d guess he isn’t sure either. We might regret this when we’re through, but the heat of his tongue dancing around mine tastes of inevitability.

A picture drops to the floor, the sound of a cracked frame like a whip to our frenzy. I need more. He’s taken so much from me, so I’ll take this, leave him worshiping at my fury. I trail my mouth along his cheek, his chin, landing in the soft spot just under his jaw where the thrum of his need is felt best. This is not undying love or promises. I’m not a teenager asking him to stay. This is revenge of a woman scorned by loss. Bloodshed of our bond. A rupture of our future. This is the final straw, and I’ll be damned if I let him stand a champion in the end.

My lips and teeth are unyielding, yet he matches me with ease. I’ve lost track of our movements until a doorknob is resting at the base of my spine. My lungs are burning from too much shared air and the taste of maple trying to overwhelm my anger. Memories of Oliver pulling me close, brushing my hair from my face, telling me I belong with him, overtake the moment, and I’m lost in the past.

I slow my hands, then my mouth, before drawing back and sliding down from his hold. He’s reluctant to relent, shaking from the nerves of the calm energy taking over me. I reach back, finding the knob to open my door. He’s panting, eyes wide and pleading. Don’t, they whisper. He must know what’s coming. I lean with the inswing of the frame, placing the door to be shut between us .

“I should have never come back here,” I seethe before slamming the wood in his face.

Only when I hear the soft scuff of his feet retreating do, I let the tears go.