Preppy: The Life and Death of Samuel Clearwater 2(14)

"Hi, you must be...Andrea, is it?" he asked with a big smile, shaking my hand. "I'm Easton Feather, but you just you can just call me East because that's what all my friends call me and I can tell from the second that we spoke on the phone that we are going to be great friends."

I smiled at his enthusiasm. "Yes, I'm Andrea, but you can just call me Dre. This is my friend Brandon," I said, and the two men shook hands.

"Do I know you? You look familiar?" East said to me, pulling his glasses down the bridge of his nose.

"I don't think so, but I used to come here every summer so you might have seen me around."

East snapped his fingers. "That must be it. It's a small town and feels even smaller when you overhear how some of the women gossip around here." East fanned himself with his clipboard and looked up at the house over my shoulder. 

"So Dre," East started, as I told you on the phone that I recommend that we tour the property first so I can see what we're working with and then I'll pull up some comparable homes that have sold in the area recently so we can get a better idea of price. Then I'll go over my listing plan with you and let you know what I'm going to be doing in terms of marketing like hosting an open house, posting on the latest real estate apps, and so on." He looked up at the house and made a few scribbles on his clipboard. "Sound good? Shall we?" he asked, ascending the porch steps and letting himself in the front door without waiting for an answer.

"I guess we shall," Brandon said with a laugh as we followed East into the house.

Over the next two hours East did exactly what he'd promised and made a full evaluation of the house as well as a plan to sell and market with a full list of comps. After taking pictures for the listing he shook our hands and said good-bye, promising to email me the link to the listing in the morning before it went live.

"He's an...odd one," Brandon whispered without moving his lips as we waved back to East who had just pulled out of the driveway and taken off down the road.

"I like him," I said. "He's nice. And honestly as long as he can do what he says he can with the house he can be as different as he wants to be."

"True story," Brandon said, holding open the front door for me while I passed through under his arm. "Wanna help me pack?"

"But you aren't leaving until tomorrow," I started to whine. But then I saw something in the corner of my eye, something in the back yard. When I went to the window and spied out the back I could have sworn what I saw hoping over the fence was a little kid. He disappeared as quickly as he'd appeared.

"What?" Brandon asked, standing beside me at the window. "What did you see?"

"I think there was a kid in the backyard," I said, opening the back sliding door and shuffling over to the back gate with Brandon on my heels.

"A kid? Like small and scraggly looking?"

"Yeah? I thought you said you didn't see anything."

"I didn't. Not right now, anyway. But the other day I was pulling out when I saw him standing behind me in the rearview mirror. By the time I turned around he was running away. Must just be a kid from around here, curious as to who his new neighbor lady is."

"Yeah, must be..." I said walking back to the house with Brandon. My phone buzzed.

"Hello?"

"So we're having a party tonight," Ray practically shouted in my ear. "Come to the house around nine. One of the GG's is watching the kids at her house so we're going to have a big bon-fire. Lot's of booze. Be here or I'm coming to get you myself!" Ray didn't give me a chance to answer. The line went dead.

"Party?" Brandon questioned. "I mean; I could go for a party." He paused. "Or would it be too weird for you to be there?"

The sound of a branch snapping caught my attention and I turned back to the woods. There was a slight rustling of the brush. I waited and listened.

Nothing.

"Dre, did you hear me?" Brandon asked. "Would it be too strange for you to be there? You know, since HE is going to be there."

"Stranger things have happened," I said, still looking out into the woods.

"Huh? No offense, but...what the fuck are you talking about?" he asked. "I'm talking about a party and you're looking out into space like you just saw the ghost of Christmas future or some crap."

"Party. Me. You. Got ya. I'm in," I said, heading back into the house with an eerie sense of dread looming over me. I didn't know if it was because of the party and the thought of seeing him again, or because when all the hairs on my arm stood on end I couldn't shake a certain feeling.



       
         
       
        

A feeling like I was being watched.

****





CHAPTER TEN


PREPPY

"Hey! Get your ass up and come to the garage. We have something for you," King boomed from the bottom of the porch. I sat on the front steps of fucking around with my new laptop. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"Looking up nude pics of your mom."

"Turn off the porn and come with me," he demanded.

"I'm not even looking at porn. Just checking to see what the fuck's been going on in the world since I dropped off the face of it," I admitted.

"Anything interesting?" King asked, putting a cigarette between his lips but not lighting it.

"Well, it seems I missed the election," I said.

"For what?" King asked.

"President."

"Of what?"

"Of the United States."

"Of what?" King asked, again.

I glanced up to see him smiling. He'd been fucking with me. "You're such a fucker. I was starting to think all that tattoo ink seeped into your brain," I said. "I thought I was the one who is supposed to have all the jokes."

Bear appeared next to King. "We're just filling in for you until after the surgery," he said, firing a text on his phone and shoving it back into his pocket.

"What surgery? What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked, wondering if I'd missed something.

"You know, the one to remove your head out of your ass," Bear said with a booming laugh.

I flicked him off. "I hope your kid doesn't inherit your dick-headedness, in fact, you better hope it doesn't get your looks either because you got nothing to offer in that department."

"I actually agree with you there. The more the kid gets from Ti the better," he said, looking less like the grumpy as fuck Bear I remembered and more like this weird happy guy who invaded his body. It was like watching one of those alien invasion shows and Bear was the product of some happy as fuck alien who decided to take up residence in his shirtless as fuck body. "But right now," Bear continued. "I need you to get your fucking ass up and come to the garage. We have something for you."

"What? Why?" I asked.

"Why? Because I fucking said so. Get up. Come on. Don't be a bitch," King said.

"I'll be there, give me one second." I pulled up the social networking site I'd been on when they'd interrupted me.

I'd told the truth when I told King I wasn't looking at porn. My dick hadn't exactly gotten the memo that I was alive just yet, but I had hopes for the fucker or else it was just a huge useless dead thing hanging between my legs about 60 years too fucking soon. 

Glaring back at me from the computer screen was shiny black hair and dark almost black eyes. In her profile picture she was standing on dark sand behind grassy dunes, nothing like the beaches in the Logan's Beach area. It was a candid shot. She wasn't looking at the camera, instead she was looking off in the distance, the shadow of whoever took the picture was overlapping part of her face and immediately I hated whoever that motherfucker was who took the picture. Guy or girl. Maybe because it was obstructing me of a full view of her face or maybe it was because she looked so unguarded and I hated anyone who wasn't me who'd gotten to see her that way.

She didn't post that often. The sporadic pictures that were on her timeline were all dated several months apart.

I clicked on the ABOUT info section of her page.

"Come the fuck on!" King yelled out and thank God he was at the garage or my head would be swimming with the sound of his deep bellowing voice.

"Jesus fucking Christ you two!" I shouted back. Before I shutdown the computer I might have made Bear and King wait forty seconds more so I could hack into Dre's Facebook account and updated her relationship status.

To married.

I wasn't sure why the fuck I did it, but I was happy as fuck that I did. And when I walked out the front door and headed toward the garage to meet Bear and King it was with a big genuine fucking smile plastered all over my fucking face.

PREPPY

"God, I've fucking missed you, you're so fucking beautiful," I cooed, like I was talking to an infant. I lifted the triangle of broken mirror to eye level so I could get a more up close and personal look at the perfect lines of white powder, separated in picturesque rows on top of the glass. "Fuck, I think I'm tearing up... it's been too fucking long, but that's alright, we're gonna fix that, right now. We're gonna fix it so fucking good, baby."

"You gonna snort that shit or fuck it?" Bear asked and both he and King laughed reminding me that there were two others in King's studio besides me and the blow.