Vincent’s eyes were wide. He opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” Alec said.
Vincent glanced at me and then quickly back to Alec. I would’ve never imagined Vincent with a fearful expression.
Alec slammed Vincent’s back against the wall again. Vincent sank into the drywall an inch or two, and his head smacked against it.
Alec’s hands on Vincent’s shirt tightened.
Vincent pressed his eyes closed then opened them again as if trying to make the room stop spinning.
I moved closer and used a soft voice. “I’m sorry, Alec. I made him talk to me.” I rested a hand on his shoulder.
Vincent stayed pressed to the wall, his focus on Alec, as if he was waiting for more, for worse.
I laid my other hand on Alec’s chest. I could feel him better through just his shirt. He was a solid mass of compacted tension. I applied the slightest pressure.
He let go of Vincent and took a step back, eyes out of focus.
With a small step, I shifted to stand in front of him and touched his face. He looked at me, focused on me. The rage in his eyes cooled, like a deluge of rain on a blazing fire.
I risked a glance back at Vincent. He stared at me as if I’d just cleared a room of ten men in a bar fight.
I turned my attention back to Alec.
“I’m sorry,” Alec murmured.
A hand on his cheek, I said, “It’s okay now.”
His voice barely made sound. “Thank you.”
I kept my hand on his skin. It seemed to help.
“I’m all right now,” he said, and then glanced around me. “Thank you, Vincent.”
Vincent’s footsteps sounded out of the kitchen and down the wood floor of the hall.
Alec pulled me to his chest. “Thank you, Adriane. It would have killed me if…”
“He’s your friend.”
“Thank you,” he repeated.
He held me for several minutes in silence. His body relaxed around me, like a clam around its pearl.
Someone cleared their throat from behind him.
“Yes, Ben,” Alec said.
“Um, Anthony called. He said something about the schedule.”
I looked up at Alec. “You’re late. I’m keeping you.”
He smiled a little. “What if I want to keep you?”
I stood on my toes and wrapped my arms around his neck, but I didn’t kiss him with Ben there. “Just you wait.”
His expression was too serious. “I’m good at waiting.” He kissed my cheek, and left out the front door.
Ben was still in the doorway. “Good morning, Adriane.”
“Good morning.”
“What’re you doin’ today?” That was odd. Ben never started conversations.
“I don’t know.” Hanna was leaving soon to go to the nursing home she volunteered at. She said something about leading a crafts group. “What are you doing today?” I asked.
“I need to wash the cars.”
“Can I help?” It wasn’t going to be easy for him to wash the cars with that bandage on his hand.
“Um.” He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Alec said he don’t want you working.”
“But didn’t he also say to give me whatever I asked?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay, it’s settled. I want to help.”
His expression was somewhere between chiding and debating.
I walked past him out the front door and down the walk to the garage. He caught up a few seconds later.
There were four garage doors but eight bays—two cars deep per door. I recognized some of the symbols, not Chevys or Fords. Most of them I didn’t recognize. Ben pointed out a couple. Aston Martin sounded like a guy in the British Parliament, and I thought a Lotus was a flower.
Ben grabbed a bucket from a shelf in the back, and I took one too, while ignoring his huff. It was past noon by the time we were done with the cars. We went back inside, and I made him let me make his sandwiches.
We sat at the kitchen table to eat. Ben glanced at the dent in the wall—where Alec had slammed Vincent against it. Then he turned back to his sandwich.
“So,” I said, “Hanna says you’ve been here even longer than she has.”
He finished chewing. “I’m Alec’s second cousin.”
“On his mom’s side, right?”
“Yeah, uh.” He glanced down. “When my dad kicked me out, Beth took me in. Alec’s mom. Mr. Kaden didn’t like it much, but he did whatever Beth wanted.”
“Why wouldn’t Alec’s dad like it?”
“He…” Ben looked up. “He thought I was stupid.”
“Oh.” My eyebrows pulled together. “But you’re not.”
“I used to think Alec only kept me around ’cause I’m family. But he asks me to do stuff for him, real important stuff, and he wouldn’t do that if he thought I was stupid.” He smiled and took a bite out of his sandwich.
We were quiet for a few minutes, and I poured him a big glass of his favorite root beer.
The front door opened. Ben stood and went to the entry hall.
I glanced over just as Zoe looked at me. Then she looked quickly away, handed Ben something, and walked back out the front door.
I set the last couple bites of my sandwich down.
Ben returned and stood in front of me. I looked up. He was holding out a little bundle of two red roses tied with white satin ribbon.
“They’re from Alec,” he said.
I just looked at him, as though he were speaking another language.
Then I took the roses from his hand. There was a small card attached. “To my Adriane. Je t’aime, ma belle.” I stared at it for several seconds. I didn’t know what the second part meant, but the word my did funny things to my stomach.
“Um, I’m going to go put them in water,” I said and escaped upstairs.
As I sat on the edge of the bed, I looked at the roses in the cobalt vase on the dresser. I continued to try to make it all fit together, to understand him.
A few minutes passed.
Noises came up the stairs to me. Some pounding and the rough sound of a handsaw—sounds of Ben fixing the dented wall.
At least the flowers gave me hope Alec was okay, that he wasn’t still angry. What could Vincent have been about to tell me that was so bad?
I took a breath and pulled my feet up to wrap my arms around my knees.
Alec was hiding something from me, and Vincent knew what it was.