We had both been blindsided, but the poor guy was clearly scrambling to try and recover.
Taking his hand, I noticed he had the same freckles dotting his face as Charlie—barely visible unless you were close. The corners of his eyes crinkled in the same way Ellie’s did when he smiled. And speaking of his eyes, they were bright green with an underlying look of cunning intelligence that seemed at odds with his flustered appearance now. His jaw had absolutely no facial hair to speak of but the defined line of his facial features kept him from looking like an adolescent. It really shouldn’t have worked. But on him? It kind of did.
Charlie excused himself shortly after our re-introductions, clearly proud of the chaos he’d orchestrated. His son and I were left standing there, two strangers who’d had their lives smashed together like badly matched puzzle pieces.
I followed Colton down the front steps as we made our way out to our cars trading some quips back and forth, while I was still trying to wrap my head around how quickly this arrangement had been decidedforus.
While I didn’t agree with his methods, I did see reason inthe madness Charlie had just thrown me into. I had needed a place to stay—he’d delivered the solution. Even if it did come at the expense of his youngest son’s sanity, it seemed.
“You sure you don’t want to run now?” Colton asked over his shoulder with a grin that looked half-forced, half-feral as we made our way closer to the street.
I smirked. “Bit late for that, don’t you think?”
“Nottoolate,” he said. “I mean, you could fake an emergency. Or tell my dad you’re allergic to houseplants.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work unless you’ve got a jungle going on over there.”
“Oh, I do,” he deadpanned. “I’ve gotonesucculent I haven’t watered in months. If it doesn’t kill you, the air fresheners might.”
I let out a loud laugh before I could stop myself for the second time in so many minutes. Now that this guy wasn’t choking on social niceties, he was pretty damn funny.
Once in our vehicles and making our way toward Colton’s house, it struck me the direction we were headed. Ellie had always made it seem like the town had been split into factions of North and South, which was interesting considering other things she’d mentioned about Westwend. But as we drove over the bridge that separated the town, I was surprised to find that Colton was living on the Southern side—opposite from his parents. Was there a reason for that? It seemed at odds with the tight-knit dynamic I’d pictured of the Shaffer family.
A few minutes after the bridge, we pulled up to a modest one story home with a simple brick exterior. It wasn’t anything flashy but it had a certain charm—kind of like its owner. Once inside, Colton moved around like a whirlwind, his hair pulled back into a loose ponytail as he flitted between what I assumed was his room and the one I’d be moving into. After dropping my bags behind the couch as instructed, I looked around the living space.
You could learn a lot about someone by their home decor, or lack thereof.
A wall of framed photos caught my eye. The first showed the full Shaffer family—matching white shirts, jeans, and that all-American, wind-in-the-fields portrait vibe. Colton’s hair was shorter, Charlie had less gray, and Brooks looked exactly how I remembered from undergrad.
Next was a group shot around a campfire with a few other kids that looked around his age. High school, probably. Colton looked baby-face, but still unmistakably himself.
Then came graduation. Cap and gown, flanked by family. Definitely college. His hair was curled around his jaw and he wore a confident grin while holding up a diploma cover high over his head.
The last one made me pause. Colton stood before a shop with a sign that read ‘Bikini Beans Cafe’, featuring a coffee bean in a bright pink bikini. He had this smug smile like he’d just conquered a small nation, hands firmly on his hips. There was definitely a story behind this one.
Turning back to the rest of the room, the furniture looked like a marriage of practicality and sentiment—worn but cared for. The couch had clearly seen better days and maybe a hundred movie nights. Probably a hand-me-down.
Moving out of the living room, I meandered down the hallway opposite where Colton had been scampering about. I peeked inside the only door into what was clearly his bedroom. I wasn’t snooping, just… investigating the lay of the land. Thoroughness was a habit, not a crime.
The space was chaotic in a lived-in way. There were clothes tossed on the bed and his sheets were rumpled like someone had just rolled out of them. The wooden furniture in the room all matched, which surprised me given the state of the living room. Something on the dresser caught my eye. Placed right in the center as if in memorial was…
A sock. A white sock. With googly eyes glued onto it.
It stared at me.
I stared back.
“That’s Gerald,” Colton’s casual tone behind me had me nearly jumping out of my skin. “He likes to judge people that come into his kingdom.”
“It’s a sock.”
“Withstandards.” He replied in a gruff tone, narrowing his eyes. “I told you before not to make it weird.”
I blinked at him. So, okay, yeah, he had done that. But in my defense, I just thought that was some witty commentary to lighten the mood. But this?
I looked back toward the sock perched between knick-knacks and cologne bottles, its nose and mouth still defined like it’d been molded that way through years of use.
“You did,” I agreed slowly, glancing toward him. “But, I wasn’t expecting a literal sock.”
