“I wasn’t.”
“Too bad. I’m not breaking the date, damn it. Your plan will work just as easily tomorrow as tonight.”
“Do you not get the importance of this?” he growled.
“I do. But it’s only one day difference. You’re making an issue out of something that doesn’t have to be.” She tossed aside the brush and planted her hands on her hips. “Or maybe this has nothing to do with the formula and everything to do with me going out with Thane.”
“I already told you I don’t like him.”
“Oh, now it’s that you don’t like him. I thought it was your lack of trust that instigated your problem with Thane.”
He gave a vicious nod. “Damn straight. I don’t trust him either.”
“I don’t really care if you do or don’t. You have no say in my relationship with him. Know why?” She waved a hand wildly between her chest and his. “Because we don’t have a relationship. You made it perfectly clear last night that fifteen years doesn’t amount to jack shit with you. Guess that makes me a free agent, eh?”
“Damn it, Avi. You misread everything I said.”
“Sometimes it’s not so much what you say as what you don’t. But that’s always been the case with us, hasn’t it? Me foolishly waiting for you to give me the words I long to hear, even knowing they’ve disappeared from your vocabulary. Well I’m done waiting. Done hoping. And I refuse to waste another second of my life on this impossible dream of you.”
Every centimeter of her shaking with repressed emotion, she turned and stomped down the stairs.
Halfway through her midday rush, she received her second unpleasant encounter of the day. Grimacing, she scanned for a possible avenue of escape as Leena stepped through the front entrance. Exactly what I don’t need.
Her frantic search for a duck-and-run route evaporated when she spotted the woman following close behind Leena. Avily blinked. “Mom?”
“Hello, dearest.”
The next instant Avi was folded in Tula Donahoe’s plump, cinnamon-scented embrace. It was so precisely what Avi needed at that moment that her eyes welled with tears. She shut out Leena’s presence, the fight with Jerrick, and every other matter that weighed on her shoulders and instead devolved into a ten-year-old girl who desperately required the unconditional love of her mama.
Tula petted Avily’s hair and cuddled her close. “There, there. I’ve missed you too, sweet girl. Now what is this nonsense about you streetwalking?”
Jerking her head away from her mother’s ample bosom, Avily glared at Leena. “Oh my gods! I can’t believe you told her that pile of horseshit.”
Tula made a tsking sound. “Dearest, remember our discussion about your cussing. Much as I adore you, you do have a tendency to resemble a dockworker at times.”
In speech and dress, apparently. “You’re right. I’m sorry. But I promise you I haven’t resorted to streetwalking. I’m not that desperate.” Yet.
Evident relief bloomed across Tula’s rosy, apple cheeks. “Thank goodness. I found it hard to believe, but when your sister showed up on my doorstep, despondent over how you’re ruining your life, I confess to being rightfully worried.”
How nice. Leena couldn’t be bothered to visit their mother for fifteen years, but the moment Avi did something wrong in her sister’s eyes, Leena went running to their mother. And upset her, no less.
The news adding extra fire to Avily’s resentment, she pinned another hard look on Leena. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I wish this ridiculousness would stop. Furthermore, those things you said to Jerrick were completely uncalled for. I’d like for you to apologize to him.” Furious as she was at him too, he still deserved the atonement from Leena.
“There is no way in hell I’m apologizing to that piece of shit, baby sis.”
An outraged gasp broke from Tula. “Leena!”
“Yes, Mother, I know. Watch my cursing.”
“Not only that, but to speak that way of Jerrick.”
Leena’s features grew ugly with scorn. “Why do you defend him? You know what he is.”
“Yes, and you did too. That didn’t stop you from being with him once upon a time.” Tula’s gaze drifted into the territory of remonstrative. “I love you, but I also don’t condone the pain you brought upon our house and his. I want you to know that before you continue casting aspersions.”
“I was with him when I was a foolish young girl, Mother. Before I knew the truth.”
“The truth of what?” Avily demanded, well beyond her patience with Leena.
“That his kind are a plague upon the human race.”
His kind? Was this not about Jerrick being a thief then, but fae? She stared at her sister. “Where is this coming from? You’ve never been prejudiced against the fairies.”
“And that was my first mistake. As it is yours and every other moron who continues to let them shit all over us and hold us down in their disgusting filth and tyranny.”
A distressed sound escaped their mother. “Leena, please don’t speak such vileness.”
“Vile?” Leena spat the word. “They’re the foul disease eating away at this planet, Mother. If there’s any vileness found in this equation, it’s them.”
Avily struggled to understand the source of her sister’s vehement hatred. Yes, there certainly had been some cruel injustices inflicted on humans at the hands of the fae, but Leena had never been on the receiving end of it. “They were here long before we showed up. In case you forgot, they once considered us the foul disease.”
“For which they enslaved and beat us.”
Again, nothing that Leena had personally endured. And the oppression of the old guard was a thing of the past, for the most part. Yes, the inequality was still there, and many of the royal faes continued to get away with too much. But the slave bans put in place many moons ago protected the human race from the chains and taskmaster whips of those long-ago dark days. “You’re speaking nonsense. What purpose does it serve holding a grudge for offenses not even affecting you?”
“You think any of them would hesitate at shackling us again?”
Avily tossed up her arms. “Good gods, Leena. Paranoid much?”
“You’re the worst kind of fool if you don’t see the possibility. Made all the more so by the fact you’re sleeping with the enemy.”
“That’s it.” Temper quaking, Avily swung her arm toward the door. “Get out. And don’t you dare come back here looking for merca.”
Leena stalked toward the exit. “I hope you come to your senses before it’s too late.”
“Same here,” Avily bit out.
The moment her sister disappeared in the crowd outside, Avily dragged her hands over her face. “My gods. What was that?”
Her mother shook her head. “You’re as clueless as me. I didn’t raise you girls to be closed-minded in any way. Leena’s prejudices disappoint me. And to speak that way of Jerrick.” Tula’s expression suddenly turned hawklike. “Is there something you would like to tell me?”
She didn’t need to read between the lines to know her mother was referring to Leena’s sleeping-with-the-enemy crack. “No. There’s about as much merit to the accusation of me being romantically involved with him as me streetwalking.”
Tula sucked in a deep breath and released it regretfully. “I have a confession to make. Deep in my heart, I always hoped he’d wake up and see what a treasure he has in you.”
Jeez, like mother like daughter. She nibbled her lip and cast her gaze to her strappy sandals. “I have a confession to make too. I coerced him into teaching me the trade. All those years you thought I was bringing home merca courtesy of an after-school job at the grocer? I wasn’t.”