What are the Chances? Read online

  “I don’t want you to move away.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t stay here forever.”

  She looked incredibly disappointed and I couldn’t handle it. I dropped extra mini marshmallows into her hot chocolate, but she didn’t take the mug when I offered it to her. She stared down at the tile pattern on the floor, still rocking. She had flip flops on and it looked as if she’d been hiking through mud puddles.

  “Did you go into the forest?”

  “No.” She was a horrible liar. Her facial expression always gave her away.

  “You’re not supposed to go into the forest by yourself.”

  She tucked her feet under the table so I couldn’t see them. “I’m a grown-up, Derian. I can do whatever I want.”

  “I know, but it’s not safe to go in the forest by yourself.”

  She picked up the mug and sipped the hot chocolate in a delay tactic. “I didn’t.”

  “Really? How did your feet get so dirty?”

  She leaned forward and rested her elbows on the table. “Don’t tell Trevor. He’ll be mad.”

  “He won’t be mad. He just doesn’t want you to get lost. Your dad and Trevor were really scared that time you got lost in the forest.”

  “I won’t get lost again. I promise.”

  “Okay. Good.” A man I didn’t recognize entered the Inn, and Granddad was showing Paula and Alan something in the basement, so I got up and rushed over to scoot behind the front desk and help the man. He had reddish-blond hair that was thin on top. His small eyes flicked around, searching for something. His gaze never rested on me even when I asked, “May I help you?”

  “I need a room until next Wednesday.”

  “Okay. We only have one small one left and it’s on the highway side.”

  “That’s fine.” He nodded. “I’ll take whatever you have. Everything in Squamish is full.”

  “Oh yeah, there is a big baseball tournament going on. They’re usually booked a year in advance for that. I’m going to need a credit card and a piece of picture ID,” I said.

  He frowned and sighed in a tense, irritated way. “I don’t have a credit card. I’ll pay cash up front.”

  “There’s a damage deposit of two hundred dollars. You’ll get it back when you check out if the room is in the same condition you found it in.”

  “Fine,” he said and opened his wallet. A credit card was perfectly visible in the first slot. When he realized I had noticed it, he tipped his wallet until I couldn’t see the card.

  I told him how much he owed and he counted out the entire amount in one-hundred-dollar bills. While I was getting the key, I caught him staring at Kailyn through the archway to the dining room. He was already creeping me out, but when he focused on Kailyn like that I felt extremely uncomfortable. “I’m going to need a copy of your driver’s licence in case you leave anything behind in the room.” I totally lied, but I wanted to have a record of him just in case.

  “It’s in my suitcase,” he said, even though he didn’t have a suitcase with him. “I’ll bring it down later this evening.”

  He was a quick liar, which made me more wary. “Your room is up the stairs and on the right. A buffet breakfast is available in the dining room between six and nine,” I said as he walked away. He didn’t say thanks.

  Kailyn had kept playing while I was gone, so I had almost no checkers left. “Did you see that man?” I whispered.

  “Yes. Is he a bad man?”

  “I don’t know for sure. It would be better if you didn’t talk to him or go anywhere with him just in case. Okay?”

  “Okay.” She cleared the board and set it up to play again. “Do you think I’ll ever meet Riley Rivers?”

  “Sure,” I said, but I was distracted because Murphy’s light-green GMC pulled into the parking lot with Trevor in the passenger seat. He looked as if he was still in one piece. It was a relief, but it meant something bad was still going to happen to someone at some point. Trevor transferred his climbing gear back into his own truck. Murphy waved one of his massive arms out the window, then drove away. Kailyn noticed me staring, so she followed my gaze.

  “Trevor’s home.” She got up, grabbed her half of the cinnamon bun to take with her, and walked out without saying goodbye to me.

  I cleaned up the game and returned it to the library, then loitered around the lobby, waiting to see if Trevor was going to come by and tell me about his trip. He didn’t call or come over, so I decided to focus on getting ready for my date with Mason instead.

  Sophie’s instructions were extremely helpful, and although I didn’t come close to resembling the girls who used to hang out with Mason in high school, I looked pretty good for me. Sophie’s heels made my legs look even longer, which I liked, because my legs were my best feature. And thanks to the conditioner I had brought back from Italy, my hair turned out extra shiny and smooth. A cardigan would have been my first choice, since it was still raining torrentially, but Sophie was right, it made the whole outfit look dumpy. For the sake of fashion I committed to braving the weather with bare arms.

  When I was finally as presentable as possible without professional help, I headed to the lobby. Trevor was leaning his elbows on the front desk and laughing with my granddad. He had on a white dress shirt, dark jeans, and motorcycle boots. He smelled really good. They both saw me at the same time. My granddad whistled, which made me feel suddenly very self-conscious. Trevor stood up straight and stared at me without saying anything. His expression was weird. I looked down at myself to see if I had screwed something up. The clothes seemed to look okay, so I smoothed my hair with my hands to check if it had gone awry. It seemed okay too. I stared back at Trevor and tried to figure out why he wasn’t smiling.

  Granddad excused himself, smiling and mumbling something I couldn’t quite hear as he disappeared through the archway into the dining room.

  “Welcome home.” Trevor finally said as he stepped closer to give me a quick, friendly hug. “You look really pretty, Deri.”

  “Thanks.” I tucked my hair behind my ears and glanced down at the floor. “I did the best I could without Sophie’s help. You look nice, too. Are you going on a date?”

  “Uh, no. I’m just meeting up with Murphy and the guys later. Do you want me to give you a ride somewhere?”

  “Oh, no thanks. Mason is picking me up.”

  “Mason,” Trevor said and frowned as he glanced out the window.

  “Do you remember him?”

  “Yeah.” He looked at me briefly and then focused somewhere off in the distance, thinking. “I thought he moved away.”

  “Sort of. Not really. He was just travelling abroad for work.”

  “Oh.”

  An unusually sleek silver sports car pulled up in front of the Inn. Mason got out of the car and Granddad came back into the lobby as if he’d been waiting around the corner, listening. Mason opened the front door and said hello to me, then shook hands with Granddad as he introduced himself. He made eye contact with Trevor, who was standing beside me. He lifted his chin in a guy nod, and said, “Maverty.”

  “Cartwright.” Trevor did the guy nod back.

  There was a bit of an awkward silence before Granddad told us to have a good time and excused himself. It was pouring out, so I moved next to the door and waited for Mason.

  “Keep that McLaren close to the speed limit,” Trevor told Mason. “She gets uncomfortable driving on the highway.”

  Mason nodded, then ran out into the rain to open the passenger door for me. Trevor didn’t look impressed that Mason was my date, but he really had no right to have an opinion. “I don’t need you to tell him how to drive. You’re not my dad.”

  “Be safe.” His voice was genuine, and it made me feel guilty for snapping at him.

  I pushed my palm against the front door, then hesitated. “The muffin I saved for you is in the Tupperware container on the counter in the kitchen.” I swung the door open and ran out into the storm.

  Mason’s car wasn�
��t like any car I’d ever seen before. The vertical air vents on the side looked like shark gills and the door opened upwards instead of to the side. I slid down into the leather seats. It felt like I was getting into the cockpit of a fighter jet or the Batmobile. Mason ran around the back, opened his door, and slid in behind the steering wheel. He turned the heat up and the music down. “You look beautiful,” he said.

  “Thanks, you do, too. I mean not beautiful—handsome, or good. You look nice,” I finally spat out. He had on a long-sleeved, charcoal-coloured, V-neck shirt and dark dress pants. He did look nice, classy, like the guys in Europe. I glanced back at the window to the lobby. Trevor was gone. He must have left through the kitchen. “What’s a McLaren?” I asked.

  Mason smiled and said, “It’s just a fast car. Trevor ruined all the fun, though. I’ll have to show you what it can do someday when the weather’s better, which is okay with me because it guarantees a second date.”

  I did suddenly feel nervous, but it had nothing to do with driving too fast. We hadn’t even left the parking lot.

  CHAPTER 4

  Mason drove a little faster than the speed limit, but it didn’t bother me because his car handled smoothly and clung to the curves of the highway. He kept looking at me, probably to make sure I wasn’t going to have a meltdown on him.

  Eventually, he cleared his throat and said, “Uh, I heard you weren’t dating anyone right now, but if that’s not the case I—”

  “I’m single.”

  “So, there’s nothing going on between you and Trevor?”

  “No.”

  He glanced at me briefly before focusing back on the road. “I don’t want to get in the middle of anything.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re not.”

  He nodded but didn’t seem entirely convinced. “He said you’re uncomfortable driving on the highway. Does that have something to do with how your dad died?”

  I took in a deep breath and stared out the side window at the rock face passing by, trying to decide how much I wanted to share with him. I took another breath and said, “Yeah. The car accident happened about a kilometre away from the Inn.”

  Mason’s eyebrows angled with concern. Although it had gotten a little easier over the years to tell people about my dad, it was still painful to go into details about the accident, so I mastered avoidance techniques.

  “Anyway, I just get a little weird about driving fast on the highway. Sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s understandable.” He eased the pressure off the accelerator and we slowed to the speed limit.

  Neither of us spoke, and it made me hyper-aware of everything—the tremble in my hands, how loud I was breathing, how little I actually knew about him. To distract myself from the anxious thinking that was inevitably going to snowball, I racked my brain for something to talk about. Anything. “So, where have you been travelling for the last year?”

  “Pretty much everywhere—Milan, Amsterdam, Istanbul, Tokyo, Berlin, London, Paris, and New York. My dad threw me into the deep end to see if I would sink or swim.”

  “And?”

  He laughed. “I’m doing more of a dog paddle, but he hasn’t fired me yet.”

  “What do you do, exactly?”

  “Basically, I find out what other people are willing to pay a lot of money for and get it for them.”

  “Sounds interesting.”

  “Not really. I’m either on an airplane, in meetings, or on the phone in a hotel room most of the time.”

  I turned in the seat to face him. “You’ve been living out of hotels for a year?”

  “You make it sound horrible.” He pointed at me to tease. “You technically live in a hotel.”

  “Right.” I chuckled and shrugged to concede the point. “I guess it’s not so bad. Will you always have to travel that much?”

  “For a while, but once I learn about every part of the business, I’ll probably just go on a couple of big trips a year. That’s what my dad does now.” He down-shifted through the curves in the road and the engine rumbled. I really wasn’t into fancy things, but it was undeniably an impressive car.

  “Did your dad travel a lot when you were growing up?”

  “Yeah. He was gone most of the time. One time, when I was about four, he tried to hug me after he’d been away for two months and I cried because I thought he was a stranger.” He chuckled, but there was something else in the tone of his voice that made it seem like it was a painful memory. “My mom likes to tell everyone that story. It’s her way of complaining that he wasn’t around.”

  “Are you closer to your dad now that you work together?”

  “It’s getting better.” He nodded pensively. “I think I’ve figured out how to impress him.”

  “Has he figured out how to impress you?”

  Mason licked his bottom lip and seemed uncomfortable with the question. He finally said, “I don’t know,” and accelerated to pass a row of slow-moving cars. The engine revved as we sped effortlessly along the twists of the highway. Once we had left the other traffic behind, the engine quieted and we slowed down. “Sorry,” he said.

  At first I wondered why he apologized but then I realized I’d had my eyes clenched shut and my fingers clamping my knees. “Oh. No. I’m fine.” I relaxed and exhaled. “Actually, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked such personal questions about your dad. We hardly know each other.”

  “Personal is good. You can ask me whatever you want. Seriously, I’m so tired of shallow conversations and superficial people. Tell me more about your dad. You must miss him.”

  I nodded and sighed. “I do. Desperately. We were very close and I would do anything to have just one more day with him. You’re lucky you and your dad still have the opportunity to grow even closer.”

  He concentrated on the winding road, gripping the steering wheel tightly. Even though he said he was okay with the deeper, personal conversation, he really didn’t seem to be. Eventually he asked, “What was it like to grow up in Britannia Beach?”

  “Life in a tiny roadside village is not fascinating enough to be considered a conversation topic I don’t think.”

  “Try me. Tell me something you used to do as a kid.”

  “Um, let’s see.” I skipped over most of my good memories because they all included Trevor. I definitely didn’t want to go on about him to Mason. It took a while, but I eventually came up with one. “On hot summer days I used to set up a lemonade stand in the parking lot in front of the Inn. I made so much money from tourists going by on the highway that my dad opened up a bank account for me. I still have all the money. It’s part of my university fund.”

  “How entrepreneurial of you.”

  I gestured to showcase the features of his car. “Well, I didn’t make quite enough to afford a luxury McLaren.”

  He laughed. “Neither did I. My dad gave me the car.” His eyes shifted sideways and met my gaze. “I think I would like to spend more time in Britannia Beach.”

  “I’m pretty sure you’ll be begging for an airplane and a hotel room in a foreign country after a couple of hours.”

  “Not if you’re here.”

  I shoved his shoulder playfully. “Well, although that is obviously your attempt to be funny, I’m only going to be here for the rest of the summer.”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”

  I rolled my eyes, but when his expression remained serious I realized he wasn’t joking. Not sure what to think of that, I tucked my hair behind my ears and focused on the scenery. We had already arrived in Squamish. A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of a two-storey house made of glass and cedar posts arranged in sharp, clean angles. It was an homage to a Fred Hollingsworth design that I had driven past to admire before. Mason pulled into the roundabout driveway and stopped in front of the house. He got out of the car and rushed around to flip my door up for me. Then he offered his hand to help me step out. “You can wait in the house out of the rain while I park the car. I’ll
only be a minute.”

  I ran to stand under the overhang by the front door and wrapped my bare arms around my body. I didn’t want to go inside because I didn’t even know whose house it was. Three girls who went to my school in Mason’s graduating class filed out of a cab and stumbled up the stone pathway towards the house. I smiled uncomfortably, hoping they would just walk by and ignore me. One of the girls, named Paige, smiled back, but the other two glared at me. The one named Corrine Andrews curled her lip up as if I was dirty or disgusting in some way. They went into the house without knocking and slammed the door shut behind them. They must have been drunk because they were way too loud and I could hear them through the door. “Who is that?”

  “Isn’t she Trevor Maverty’s sister?”

  “I thought his sister has Down syndrome?”

  “Not that one. The sister who works at the Britannia Beach Inn.”

  “Trevor only has one sister. The girl who works at the Inn is Derian Lafleur. Remember her? She hangs out with that vampire chick in your cousin’s band.”

  “Oh yeah, I remember. That girl outside wasn’t Derian. Derian isn’t that pretty.”

  Mason jogged towards me. He was soaking wet, but smiling. Obviously, my face was still locked in the same expression it had been while I was eavesdropping on the girls through the door because his smile faded. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I forced myself to be animated and sound convincing. “I think I’m just a little nervous to meet your friends.”

  “They’re not so bad. I’ll protect you,” he joked as he squeezed his arm across my shoulders and led me into the house.

  My palms got sweaty.

  CHAPTER 5

  The three girls were still in the foyer, fixing their hair and makeup in the mirror. They turned to see Mason with me and all of their mouths dropped open. Any sliver of confidence I did have, drained out of me when I took a closer look at how they were dressed. Pedicures, strappy high heels, shiny tanned skin, silky dresses that most people would have considered more of a blouse, and diamonds decorating their fingers, wrists, necks, and ears. They almost reeked of money. I reeked of a one-hundred-year-old Inn off the highway. A pair of jeans from London weren’t quite enough to catapult me into their league.