Falling for My Ex's Uncle novel · Chapter 21 of 32

Chapter 21: The Match

Nobody in that hallway said anything for a long time.

Lorrie had gone white to the lips.

The skillet hung from her hand.

"You closed it," I said.

"I closed it." Brice wiped his face with his sleeve. "I went in to get another beer out of the cooler. The firebox door was swinging, so I latched it. I burned my thumb. I went out. That's all."

"Who else was in there?"

"Nobody. Everybody was on the patio." He swallowed. "Then everybody went home. And at two in the morning it was on fire."

"And your dad told you..."

"He said Uncle Wick was taking it so Mom wouldn't find out." He laughed, a terrible sound. "I thanked him. I was twenty-one, and I thanked my dad for saving me."

Lorrie made a small noise.

I looked at her.

She shook her head once, hard, and looked at the floor.

Not yet, that look said.

Not tonight.

"Why are you telling me?" I said to Brice.

"Because I can't let him do it twice." His chin wobbled. "Tell him not to say it. Please. I can't tell him. He won't pick up for me."

He turned and went down the porch steps before I could answer.

He didn't look back.

I was in my truck by one-thirty.

Second Fire was dark except for the yard light.

Wick was where I'd left him.

He was sitting on an overturned bucket by Mabel's cold firebox with the dog asleep across his boots.

He looked up when the gate creaked.

He didn't stand.

I think he didn't trust himself to.

"Brice came to Lorrie's," I said.

I told him everything.

The beer cooler.

The latch.

The burned thumb.

"He closed it," I said. "Wick. He closed it, and everybody went home, and at two in the morning it was on fire."

Wick didn't move.

I watched him go back eleven years, sitting right there on the bucket.

"Hal came back," he said slowly. "That night. I'd stayed to close up, and I was asleep on the office couch. His car pulled in at one. He said he'd left his reading glasses."

"He set it."

"He told me it was the boy." His voice was barely there. "He came to the hospital and told me it was the boy, and he cried."

He took his phone out of his pocket.

He looked at it for a long moment.

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