“Are we going for the flag or what?” Milo snaps. “They’re going to beat us.”
I slowly back away, eyeing my friends. “I have another idea.”
Spinning around, I bolt down the road, past shacks and rundown lawns, houses barely held together with spit and glue and chipping blue paint.
“Where are we going?” Krisjen calls as we leave the lights of the main village.
“There’s another flag,” I tell her.
“Where?”
I twist around, running backward with a smirk pulling at my lips. “Their house.”
Her mouth falls open, and Callum laughs, everyone picking up their feet and running faster, excited. Their house isn’t on the way to Mariette’s—the only reason anyone from across the tracks comes over here—but I’ve driven past a time or two.
We race up to the house, an old Spanish-style pigsty that must’ve been great in its heyday, but lack of funds and the deterioration of the property values around it makes it look abandoned. The porch light glows bright, but no windows are lit up and no cars line the dirt road in front. I tip my head back, taking in the broken clay shingles and dead ivy scaling up the pink stucco walls to the second floor.
It was probably a very beautiful place once. The Seminole flag hangs above the detached garage, the bottom blowing in the light breeze.
“What a dump,” Amy grumbles. “If I lived here, I’d want to kill myself, too.”
Liv’s mother comes to mind, all of us knowing she died in this house. The story was she hung herself in the shower. Was Liv in the house at the time?
“I’m sure it’s tolerable when you don’t know anything else,” I reply.
Callum jumps up and rips the flag off the garage, and I step up to the door, touching my fingertips to the heavy, dark wood. Hundreds of years of rain weigh on it, and I run my hand up the surface, my body humming.
It feels like her. Cracks and splinters and sun and thunder, but she’s still here. I inhale a deep breath, gripping the door handle.
“Want a beer from their fridge?” I ask my friends.
I open the door, my heart skipping when it gives way. How did I know they would think they were safe enough to never lock their door? No one steals from Macon Jaeger, right?
“Clay!” Amy shouts.
I walk in, my friends following, all of us tracking mud into the terracotta foyer. Stairs sit right in front of us, and I look left and right, finding a living room—if you can call it that—and a pool table in what should probably be the dining room.
The chandelier suddenly illuminates, lighting up the whole space, and I hit the switch, shutting it off again. “Flush the bong water out of your head,” I growl at Milo.
Dumbass.
We filter out around the house, Milo and Krisjen heading for the kitchen and the beer, while Amy stays with me, and Callum inspects a tarnished silver candlestick before dropping it to the ground.
The crystal candy dish goes next, crashing into a hundred pieces on the tile, and I hear a commotion in the kitchen, knowing Milo is trashing the place. I pause, but then I realize Macon Jaeger almost killed me tonight, so fuck him.
“Don’t do that!” Krisjen yells to her boyfriend right before I hear something shatter.
“Shut up,” Milo tells her.
“God, you’re an asshole.”
“What are you gonna do about it?”
I round the railing to the stairs, their voices disappearing as I ascend, remembering her in the locker room this week. Come to my shitty house tonight. Sweat with me between the sheets.
Climbing the stairs, I draw in the scent of her that fills this house, hating how cold it is and how you can smell the mildew in the wood, but… While my house is clean, always tidy, and bright, it’s doesn’t have something hers does.
Gliding my hand up the railing, I take in the pictures on the wall on my way up, seeing some missing, as well, by the looks of the outlines where portraits once hung. Mismatched frames and some with broken glass feature black and whites and some from a hundred years ago, probably great grandparents and other ancestors.
There’s one of their whole family, including Liv’s dad, crowded into an air boat, and one with Iron holding up a baby alligator and looking happy.
There aren’t many of Liv. I’m guessing picture-taking hasn’t been a priority since her mom and dad died, and she was so young.
I wander through the bedrooms, dipping back out as soon as I go in, because the smell of boy makes me want to throw up, but when I open the door to the last bedroom on the right, it’s different. It’s not hers, though. I know that instantly.
The bed is made, the floor is tidy, and it smells like furniture polish.
Macon. I guess military habits are hard to break.