shit. Let’s call in a break, I wanna see this.” Lucas moves to press on his radio, but Knox shakes his head.
“Nah, Seth here is a big boy. Aren’t you?” Knox looks at me.
A lesser man would say hell no. But if I’m going to be the person Mr. Erickson would want his daughter to marry, I better man up. “I’m cool. Just stick around for, like, five minutes.”
Knox chuckles. “Sure thing.”
I nod, wishing I looked as intimidating as Knox does.
Knox and Lucas laugh while I round the back of their squad car and up the Ericksons’ walkway. Maybe no one is home and I’ll get to live to see another day. Sadly though, I hear people inside after I ring the doorbell.
“No, Eli!” a deep voice booms with authority.
I clench my hands to stop them from shaking. As my stomach grows more twisted and bile rises up my throat, the door creaks open little by little, feeling as though it happens in slow motion, until Vic Erickson’s large frame takes up the entire space. I gulp down the dry lump lodged in my throat.
“Who are you?” Eli asks, peeking around his dad.
“Hi, Eli,” I say.
“He knows my name,” he says to his dad, who has yet to actually say anything.
But Mr. Erickson’s eyes say a lot. Like “get off my fucking porch.”
“I know this is unexpected, Mr. Erickson,” I croak out. “May I come in?”
He widens his stance, crossing his arms. “What do you want?”
“I recognize him. Who is he?” Eli asks.
“I’d really like to come in and talk to you. It’s important and has to do with Evan.”
Mr. Erickson’s head tilts and he studies me for a moment. The only thing I have on my side is that Mr. and Mrs. Erickson have never been outright mean to me—and I imagine neither have my parents to their children—but what I’m about to do might be the end of that.
He steps aside and opens the door wider. “Eli, this is Seth. Seth Andrews.”
Eli’s only twelve, so he came along eight years after the epic feud. He might have no idea that the last name Andrews is most likely treated like a curse word in the house I’m now standing in.
It might sound weird, but the house smells the same as it did when I was young. The further I venture into the Ericksons’ house, the more the memories swarm me and pull me back to when I was young. When Mr. Erickson would ask me about my peewee football team and try to explain the game of football to me when all I wanted to do was go on a bike ride with Evan. He used to treat me like a son. It isn’t until this moment that I realize I miss it.
When I reach their living room and sit on the couch, I feel as if I’m nine years old and making polite conversation, waiting for Evan to barrel down the stairs with her eyes wide and tell me our adventure for the day. Usually something she read in a book or a magazine. Our summer days when we had the freedom to travel around town on our bikes and explore Cliffton Heights, discovering places that felt like our own secret hideouts.
“Sit,” Mr. Erickson says.
Eli sits next to me, looking at me as if he’s memorizing my face. “Your parents own Andrews Bagel?”
I nod.
“How do you know my name?”
I’m not sure how to answer, so I say simply, “Evan told me.”
His eyes widen. “Evan? You’re her friend?”
I nod again.
“Eli, go on upstairs. This will only take a moment.” Mr. Erickson sits across from me in one of the same chairs they owned twenty years ago.
As Eli whines and Mr. Erickson’s voice grows sterner with his son, I case the surroundings. Sure enough, other than new pictures of the family, everything here is almost identical as it was all those years ago. Even her grandmother’s urn still sits prominently on the mantel of the fireplace. Evan confided in me how horribly creepy it felt to her to sleep in the house the first night it was here.
At that point, I hadn’t lost my grandparents and I had no idea how to console her or comfort her.
Eli eventually heads upstairs, but I catch his feet stop just out of sight at the top of the stairs, eavesdropping on our conversation.
“What do you want, Seth?”
Just then, a squawking of police sirens goes off and Knox yells through the radio, “We’re out.