“She’s my twin.”
Kenna buried her face in her hands and released a laugh of her own. She felt freer, lighter—or perhaps that was thanks to a third glass of wine. It may have been wrong to share laughter with someone who had caused her great pain, but her intuition advocated for this easygoing aura she and Dayton had stumbled into. Between the ramping up responsibility of grad school and the constant reminder via ignored phone calls that she had a family 2,000 odd miles away, she rarely had the chance to let loose.
And though her company was questionable, she was presently talking. Breathing. Existing.
Any further questions Kenna had for him were forgotten as he slathered rabbit liver on a slice of bread and playfully attempted to feed her. She turned her head a number of times, dodging the foul food, but finally acquiesced and tried it, wanting to please him in her drunken state. She thought he was baiting her for a kiss. He did no such thing.
Rather, he peered at her intently.
“That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
They ate their dinner and had what was perhaps their first pleasant conversation. He told her all about getting the practice off the ground when it first opened, and how he’d used his connections within the emergency room to get patient referrals. She listened, rapt, and waited for appropriate pockets to fill him in on what she was studying, trying whenever she could to connect those tidbits to his ambiguous anecdotes about his cases.
“Would you like to come home with me?” Dayton’s gaze flicked to her as he poured the last of the malbec into her glass. “I don’t mean any harm. I’ve enjoyed our conversation this evening and,” he paused, Adam's apple bobbing, “I’ve missed your company.”
With a meal and a bottle of wine in her system, and a false sense of safety created by the dinner, she eschewed their sordid past without batting an eye.
“That would be lovely.”
12
NO MONSTERS
Vicious pangs shot through her head.
Dizzy and bleary-eyed, Kenna adjusted to the light streaming in through the sheer curtains and highlighting the juniper walls. The cool, calm color had the opposite effect while she studied her surroundings. Full-length mirror. Mahogany dresser. The gallery wall of the same boy and girl.
She’s my twin.
Panic set in as she registered where she was and who she’d been with the night before, though her memories did not click into place to form a clear picture.
There were gaps missing, an alarming byproduct of her heedless alcohol consumption, and she paid the price: waking up hungover in Dayton’s bed.
Fear controlled her gross motor movements, hands flying to her torso, her legs. A weighted sigh of relief passed over her lips upon finding yesterday’s clothes sheathing her body. Being fully clothed was one less thing to worry about. The right side of the bed was made, comforter neatly turned down and the excess tucked beneath the mattress.
She’d slept alone.
Yet knowing that didn’t matter. Nothing could’ve comforted her in Dayton’s house of terrors; the place her lust-eclipsed illusion of him had been shattered.
The stillness of the room amplified the thunderous beating of her heart. Kenna drew in a deep breath and leaned over the bed, daring to peek at the space underneath.
Dust-covered floorboards. No box.
“No monsters under the bed.”
The voice startled her. She nearly lost her balance and tumbled to the hardwood. Once her heart slid down from the base of her throat, she turned her attention to the doorway, where Dayton stood. He was clad in running attire and muddied tennis shoes, holding two to-go cups from Bigleaf. Sweat bonded strands of hair to his flushed face.
Sitting on the foot of the bed, he extended one of the drinks toward her. “You slept late.”
The mere sight of the coffee shop’s logo, a silhouette of a maple leaf with scrawling cursive text, injected an ardor straight into her veins that had her cheeks flushing. It made her nostalgic for their mentorship hours. She recalled her genuine surprise the first time he’d brought her a coffee, days after he had attended her open mic performance and taken her out for drinks. Looking back, it all felt so far away when in reality only months had passed.
Kenna resolved not to dwell on that while in his home.
She drew her knees up to her chest and sipped the foam of the hazelnut latte. “You’re no stranger to a hangover, I’m sure.”
“Smooth deflection.”
Quietly nursing her coffee, she watched him unlace his shoes and then use his heel to slide them under the bed. His movements channeled the sluggishness of someone who’d reached the end of an exhausting day rather than someone who’d just returned from a morning jog. Putting his decaf Americano on the floor, he hung his head between his legs and Kenna feared he was seconds away from succumbing to a vomiting spell.