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look every single day.” I waved
my wrist at him. “Of course you’re in my future. You’re the only
thing I know about the future.”
    His eyes blazed passionately
before he broke his stare. “Then if that’s true…where do you see
us?”
    Now what was he getting at?
What did he want me to say? That in five years I wanted to be
married to him, to have his babies, to be putting up a white picket
fence? These were dreams that I rarely allowed myself to
entertain…none of that ever seemed possible for us, no matter how
in love we were.
    “ I see
us…happy,” I answered feebly.
    “ Doing the
show?”
    “ I don’t
know. I don’t think so. It doesn’t feel like enough, if you know
what I mean.” His blank stare told me he didn’t. So much for mind
reading. “I mean, I think, I feel , like the show is a means to
an end for now…but it’s also the beginning of something, not the
end. I think one day we’ll be doing something that’s
more…respectable. Something that matters.”
    “ And
me?”
    “ And you’re
there with me. I don’t know what it is, but we’re doing it
together.”
    “ I don’t think
you can count wild monkey sex as a career, Perry.”
    “ I’m counting
it as a perk,” I said with a smile. “But I think we’re both
destined for something more. I’ve always felt that, right from the
very start. I think in five, ten years, Experiment in Terror will
be a memory. A scary, kind of fun and meaningful memory, but
something in the past.”
    “ And we could
be living in Seattle…or Seaside…”
    I took my hand off his knee and
started pushing my fingers into the cool sand. “Anywhere. San
Francisco. Boston. Anywhere. As long as I’m with you, I’m
happy.”
    I could feel his eyes boring
into me, and by the time I looked back up, he had taken out his
phone and was glancing at it. “We oughta get back to Rebecca. She’s
probably getting sucked into a timeshare by now or getting cotton
candy stuck in her hair.”
    Dex helped me up off the log
and took his sweet time brushing the sand and bark off my backside.
When we were back at the Lewis and Clark statue at the end of the
promenade, he put his arm around me and pulled me in close. “Are
you ready to say hi to Uncle Al and your dopey cousins?”
    Are you ready
to start making amends with your family ,
is what he was really asking, even though my uncle Al was barely
part of the equation.
    I let the strength and warmth
of Dex’s hold wash over me and nodded. As long as he was at my
side, I’d manage.
    At least I’d try.
     
     
     

CHAPTER FOUR
     
     
     
    It was just before seven when
Dex pulled the Highlander down a coastal lane past the beach town
of Manzanita. Uncle Al’s property took up a large chunk of land
that I was sure the state was eager to own. There were pastures and
an abandoned barn where an old dairy farm used to be, a couple of
miles of beachfront, as well as a small forest that dipped into the
shores of Nehalem Bay. And, of course, somewhere on the bluffs, the
charred remains of a lighthouse that may or may not have blown up
on our behalf.
    “ God, this is
weird,” Dex said under his breath as we parked at the end of Uncle
Al’s driveway. The house, a large rancher, looked the same, and my
twin cousins, Matt and Tony, had their two cars parked outside. I
remembered Matt’s truck well—Dex and I had to share the backseat
together rather awkwardly.
    “ Oh, it wasn’t
awkward for me,” Dex said with a knowing smirk as he jammed the
Highlander in park.
    I flushed at the unexpected
intrusion. “Could you hear me think that?”
    He slid his hand across the
steering wheel. “First time in a while, but it was so worth
it.”
    “ You heard her
thoughts?” Rebecca asked, leaning forward. “Lucky duck. I never
hear anything.”
    I gave her a look. “You know
you’re not missing out.”
    “ Well now I
want to know what wasn’t awkward.”
    Dex turned to her. “Perry and I
were squeezed in the back of that