Page 67 of Love Bound

When I fling open the bathroom door, all I can see is her—completely naked, wet, scared, her eyes wide, mouth open. It takes a split second to determine that she's fine. She's not hurt or dead. She is alive and standing in front of me and then I press her to me, bury my face in her hair, my eyes burning from tears I don’t dare shed.

I've already scared her enough.

"Finn." She pushes away from me, pulling a light blue towel from the rack behind her.

My hands are shaking and I can’t catch my breath.

"Did you run over here half-naked? What's going on?" she asks.

I crouch down for a moment and bite my knuckle. I want to scream and just keep screaming. Then my phone rings. I look at her, rise, and leave her in the bathroom, closing the door tight behind me. I can hear the flutter of her trying to dry off fast.

"That's impossible," is all Nic says.

"It's not. He's been here. He was on my doorstep." I send him the picture of the box and the pie.

"And it didn’t come from the bakery in town or Cod's End?" he asks.

"Fuck no. There's no writing on the box."

"Writing?"

"Logo, the print that says Echo Bay. It’s Miller." Irritation laces my words. I can hear it, but I can't stop it.

"Not possible. He's here in Boston. He meets with his probation officer every Thursday and he doesn’t leave. Bryce is on him like glue, Finn. Miller's here in Boston," Nic says.

"No, he's not."

"I'll call Bryce to trail him again."

"Where does the asshole live?" I ask.

"I'm not telling you, as per your own instructions," he reminds me.

"Where the fuck does he live?"

Nic sighs. "He lives on the south side, close to the shore. We've got his address."

I’m grateful Nic doesn’t tell me not to worry. He knows better.

"What's going on?" Claire asks, coming down the hall. She's dressed in jeans and a light long blue sweater with a white Oxford shirt underneath.

I look at her and then look away. I don’t want to tell her what I’m sure of, but I don’t want to scare her either.

"Here put this on," she says, handing me one of my own flannel shirts.

"Claire, there's something I have to tell you," is how it starts. How I start. How my last days with Allison, which I never talk about, now suddenly become the very thing I have to talk about in every detail.

"I need some coffee," I say, grabbing the empty mug from the coffee table and pouring us both a cup.

I'm so undone, I forget Claire likes half and half in her's so she pulls the small carton from the fridge. "What the hell is going on?" she demands.

I lean against the counter and begin telling the story that unraveled my life, before she came along. That's how I look at it: Before Claire and After Claire. The eras of my life, like my own personal BC and AC. I can’t look at her face, can’t bear to see judgment in her face, knowing she has every right to judge.

"Allison had told me about this really nice guy who was working up the road."

"Finn. Stop. What's happening?"

"This guy was working on a hot tub two miles up the road at the neighbors. The Merkle's. Who were away, actually, in Italy. But I didn't check that out. This guy's car broke down and his cell phone was dead so she let him in to call a tow truck. This was after several days of chatting with him while she weeded the herb garden on the side of our house, so she felt like she knew him."