“Big time, huh? Good for you.” I can’t tell if he means it or not.

“Pretty junior, actually,” I say, not to downplay it, just to clarify.

“Still, you got out. That’s something. That’s a lot.” This time, I know he means it. “Here.” He hands me the bottle without ringing me up. “On me. A welcome-home present.”

“You don’t have to.” I reach for the bag, and as my hand makes contact with his, something passes between us, a quick transfer of chemistry and heat.

That’s the whole problem with instincts: they’re all fucking wrong.

“I want to.”

“Thank you. That’s very…nice of you,” I say, taking the bag and walking away, fast.

“And hey, Abby,” he calls, when I’m already almost out the door. “Don’t be a stranger. I never forget a pretty face twice.” Condor’s smile is wide, and maybe, just maybe, genuine.

And I know right then that I’m in trouble.

Chapter Five

Less than a mile from my father’s house, the road narrows and becomes a gravel path, so familiar it shrinks a decade into no time at all. Tiny rocks ping against the car while birds—turkey vultures, this time—pick over a carcass in the road. I lean on the horn and they look up with those dull hooded eyes before lifting into the air.

It’s just dinner, I remind myself. Simple. Quick. My father has no power over me. He is just a person, even if he’s a terrible one. There are bad people in the world; sometimes, they are your own parents. But he can’t see into my thoughts. He can’t read my sins, like I once thought he could.

I can’t avoid him, anyway.

Like so many around here, my childhood home is a modest split-level dumped on a plot of land in the middle of nowhere. There’s nothing strange about it, no darkness to its gabled roof or clapboard siding, nothing peculiar in the concrete porch or the patch of yard browning in the sun.

Still, the house seems to rush toward me and not the other way around. Like it’s eager to get me inside. Like it’s been waiting.

For the first time in nearly a decade, I’m home.

I kill the engine and fuss with my hair, which is knotted on the top of my head, killing time, buying an extra few seconds. I almost never wear my hair down, and by now it reaches midway down my back. Every few months I take scissors to it myself, trimming away the dead ends. I’ve always wanted to cut it short, always sworn I was going to. Several times I’ve even been in a hairdresser’s chair before panicking at the sight of the scissors. My dad always told me that my hair is my one good quality, and somehow that idea grew into the very hair itself—that, and the memory of my mom running her fingers through it from scalp to end as she braided it so that it would later fall in waves. Somehow I fear that without long hair I’ll be ugly. But even worse, that by cutting my hair I’ll be cutting away this memory, one of my few very good ones. I’ll have to lose her again. But this time, it really will be my fault.