“Seven days,” I repeat, like saying it will make it less than a week.
“Give or take,” she says. “But yes. May I come in? I promise not to touch anything sacred or do anything weird.”
Pru’s face fully emerges from the blankets, eyes dangerous with curiosity. I close the door, take off the chain, open it again, and step back because I am not the saint of hospitality but I’m not rude, either. Aoife breezes in with the competence of someone who has never once tripped over a rug. She sets the coffee carrier on my desk, hums at the way our microwave tilts on one short leg, and looks around like she’s already taking measurements.
“Her man?” Pru says, climbing out of bed in a tank top and shorts, her own bright red hair making its own weather. They could almost be twins, except Pru’s eyes are shifting amber brown and Aoife’s are a bright blue. “Excuse me, who is her man, and why is he calling you at six in the morning about wedding stuff?”
“Cayce, of course,” Aoife says, and somehow his name doesn’t scrape when she says it. “I’m his youngest cousin.” She extends a hand to Pru. “You must be Prudence, and I’m assuming you’re the maid of honor.”
Pru shakes her hand, then points at the coffee carrier. “Is one of those mine?”
“One’s for Saint Caterina, one’s for you, two are for whatever is about to happen in the next two hours.” Aoife hands me a cup that smells like chocolate and salvation. “Drink, love. Then yell and get all the frustration out. We’re going to end up with the same result either way, just less headache if you do it my way.”
I wrap my hands around the paper warmth and look at her over the rim. “I didn’t agree,” I say. “To any of this.”
“You agreed to think about it last night,” Aoife says gently. “The rest is just paperwork in our world.”
“That’s not consent.”
“It isn’t,” she agrees quickly. “And I’m not your jailer. I’m the logistics person sent to make sure that anything you want with this shitty situation, you get. Jailers get terrible press, and we don’t invite them to fittings or weddings.”
A laugh surprises me—sharp, too fast—and then I hate that it happens. The massive lump in my throat hasn’t dissolved. It’s just shifted shape. “Why a week?”
“Because when the Shannons decide to move, they move,” she says. “And because Cayce is the head of our family. He’s claimed you, and now he thinks the devil has your address.” She shrugs, and her mouth crooks. “I don’t know what’s going on in his mind. I only know what he asked for, and honestly I know not to question him.”
“What did he ask for?” Pru says, arms folded like she might need to hold herself back from tackling a cousin in our dorm room.
“A marriage license appointment tomorrow at ten,” Aoife says, sing-song. “Dress decision by—” she checks her watch— “ninety minutes from now if we want the seamstress to hate me only a little.”
My palms sweat on the coffee cup. “You’re joking.”
“I’m Irish,” Aoife says. “If I was joking, there would be a fiddle. Do you want to call him, love? He said you have his number. He told me to give it to you if you didn’t save it after the other day.” She opens the folio, tears a small card from a stack, and hands it to me. Cayce’s name in simple black lettering with his phone number printed underneath it. Even with nothing else on it, it’s the kind of card that exudes power simply by existing.
Pru makes a strangled sound. “Oh we are calling him. We are absolutely calling him, speaker on. But we are also making contingency plans.” She turns to me, eyes hunting my face. “You don’t have to do this, Cat. We can?—”
“Run?” I say. The word tastes like stale air on a bus. “Where, Pru? To whom? Between my father and his family, there isn’t a city in this country that wouldn’t feel like purgatory while I wait to be found.”
“We could try anyway,” she says stubbornly. “I can make you a new passport. Your hair could be darker or shorter. Colored contact lenses are a thing, we could make them stylish again. We disappear and start over somewhere else.”
“You think the men who control my life wouldn’t figure it out?” I say softly. “You think we wouldn’t have two entire families of criminals calling in every favor ever owed to them to bring me home?” I look down at the card. At my friend. At the coffee cooling in my hands.
Aoife watches with cautious eyes—not opportunistic, not neutral. Not blind. “We can talk after you ring him,” she says. “I’ll step out into the hall and update a seamstress who swears at me in three different languages just because she can.” She points at the card. “Call him, love. He’ll answer.”
She leaves without taking any of the air with her. The door clicks shut. Pru moves closer until her shoulder knocks mine. I hold the card I don’t actually need because I did save his phone number when he sent me a text.
“Put it on speaker,” Pru says. “If he says anything you don’t like, I will find a way to mail him anthrax.”
“We don’t do anthrax,” I say. “We do sarcasm and petty crimes.”
“And arson in our hearts.”
“But only in our hearts,” I agree. I press the green button.
It rings once. Then his voice, the one that sits low and certain and seems surprised at nothing, including me. “Hello, Kitty Kat.”
The nickname turns my spine into a ladder of heat. Not good heat. Proprietary heat. The kind that makes you want to throw something expensive at a wall.
“Never call me that again,” I say, and my voice is calm enough that Pru looks at me like maybe I should be in charge of the weather.
