“Hi, Ainsley. I didn’t know you knew Kaleb.” Ava’s voice was sweeter than I’d ever heard it.
“I didn’t know you knew Kaleb.” Ainsley’s voice was ice-cold.
Ava sensed something was up, either because I’d broken out in a sweat, or because Ainsley was looking at me like I was her lunch money and Ava was about to steal me.
“I do know Kaleb.” Ava wrapped her arm around mine and winked up at me. “We go way back.”
I looked from Ainsley to Ava, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Lily stood fifteen feet away, a bakery box in each hand, her head tilted to the side. And she was pissed.
“So is there something between you two?” Ainsley asked. “Do you date?”
I tried to make eye contact with Lily, give her some kind of sign that I wasn’t an active participant in what was going on.
“I think ‘something between us’ accurately describes it,” Ava answered.
Lily smiled briefly at the man as he took the bakery boxes and put them in his trunk.
“I guess that was a waste of Sharpie,” Ainsley said, gesturing toward my hand before wrinkling up her nose. “I can’t believe you’re with Ava. She’s like a walking skeleton.”
“Aw, thanks,” Ava answered. “We all have our strengths. At least I don’t misplace my panties on a regular basis like some people do. Keeping them on helps with that, by the way.”
Ainsley stalked into the studio on straight legs. I craned my neck, trying to catch another glimpse of Lily. She was gone.
“Kaleb Ballard. Please tell me you did not hook up with Ainsely.” Ava’s voice was full of disgust.
I had to explain things to Lily. A line extended all the way out the door of Murphy’s Law, and her emotions had been pretty clear, even from across the street. I could wait until the crowd thinned out.
“Did you?” Ava demanded.
I realized that she was talking to me, and I looked away from Murphy’s Law. “I don’t think so. I might have been in the process at one point.”
“That girl is crazy pants.”
I laughed. “Crazy pants?”
“Yes.” Ava waved the question away. “It’s a thing. Anyway, I’d take a swim in some turpentine before that number soaks into your skin. It might turn into a brand.”
“Thanks for coming to my rescue.” I fought against sneaking another glimpse at Murphy’s Law, hoping Lily would reappear. “Wait. Why did you? You don’t like me.”
“You had a panicked look on your face.”
“That should make you happy.”
“It’s true, not too long ago, I would’ve thrown you to the wolves. Maybe told her you couldn’t stop talking about her, that you drew her name inside hearts on all your notebooks, had her picture in your locker.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” I said. “And I don’t have a locker.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered. My hate knew no limits. But,” she said, removing her arm from around mine, “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about in the gatehouse. All the things that happened-that I did-last year.”
“What did you come up with?” I asked.
“Jack.” She stared at her feet. “I guess he figured out I’d be easier to use and abuse if I felt alienated from the rest of you.”
“Separate you from the pack.”
She nodded.
“Yeah. Predators always go for the weakest animal.”
Ava was so broken on the inside. I wished I could dissect it all, help her figure out the truths and the lies.
“You know, I don’t even really know what my ability is. I mean, it’s telekinesis, but not the garden variety. I think Jack knows, and I think he took away anything I knew. He’ll use it against me again. If he gets another chance.”
A couple of raindrops splattered against the sidewalk. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
“It won’t be easy. I was valuable to him. Valuable enough to seduce. I just don’t know why, or when he’ll come back for me.”
“Ava, I’m so sorry.”
“The worst part is… I don’t even know if I… did anything. With him.” She shuddered and closed her eyes. “But the fact that I thought about it is bad enough. He made sure to leave those memories intact.”
I understood her blackness a little bit better now.
Ava opened her eyes. “Sorry. That’s too much information, I know. I just don’t really have anyone to talk to about that kind of stuff.”
“If you don’t feel too awkward, you can talk to me whenever you want.” I frowned down at Ava in dismay, shocked I’d made the offer.
Her expression must have mirrored my own. “Let’s take twenty-four hours to think about that. Then we’ll reassess.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” she said. “But thank you. I need an ally. I feel like he’s three steps ahead of us in some crazy game, and he already knows who’s going to win.”
“We will,” I promised her. “We will.”
“I hope you’re right.” She shook her head. “Because if you aren’t, Hell’s going to come down on us like rain.”
Chapter 38
I went home.
A month ago, I would have taken off for downtown Nashville, found a bar, and drunk myself into oblivion. Now, instead of holding a beer, I had a measuring cup. And all the ingredients for peanut butter cookies. And chocolate chip.
I fumbled and lost them all when I saw what was on the kitchen island.
A box with the Crown Royal label sat in the exact, dead center. The beam from the pendant light above it shone on it like a spotlight. I dropped the cookie ingredients and picked up the box. Brand spanking new. When I ripped it open, I saw that the seal on the bottle was unbroken.
We had a stare-down, me and that bottle. It won, of course. Whisky doesn’t blink.
I twisted off the top with a snap.
Smelled it.
Got down a glass from the cabinet.
There were so many things to run from.
Things Jack wanted me to run from.
I realized then who had left the bottle.
I thought of my dad, and all the things he’d finally trusted me with. Michael, and the understanding we’d come to.
And then I heard Lily’s voice. “You’re worth more than what you’ll find at the bottom of a bottle.”
I put the glass back in the cabinet and upended the liquor into the sink.
“I question your sanity sometimes, Ballard, but I know you aren’t an idiot.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Shorty.”
I was on the couch in my living room, balancing a full plate of cookies on my chest. Emerson stood over me like some kind of military general, wearing her Murphy’s Law work clothes.
“You kissed a random girl on a street corner? In the middle of the afternoon?”
“It wasn’t what it looked like.”
“I’ve heard that before, maybe I’ve even said that before, and only because in that case, it actually wasn’t what it looked like. I’ll listen.” She picked up my legs by the bottom of my basketball pants, dropped onto the couch, and then lowered my feet to her lap. “What did you do?”
I didn’t even bother trying to argue that it wasn’t my fault. “This girl comes up to me out of nowhere, writes her number on my hand, and then lays one on me. Yes, on a street corner, and yes, in the middle of the afternoon.”
“And now we’re going to discuss why this is a problem.”
“Because it happened at the exact same time Lily walked out of Murphy’s Law.”
“And you care about this because?”
“You’re leading the witness.”
She crossed her arms.
I sighed. “I care because I like her.”
“In that way?” She sounded like we were in third grade, hiding under the slide on the playground at recess.
“Good grief, Em, yes, in that way.”