“Inside joke,” I murmured.
“I’ll leave you to it, ladies.” His voice caught my attention as he backed away to the door. “But really, thank you…”
I smiled. “Cora.”
He nodded at me. “Arthur.” He waved. “Have a great night.”
“You too,” I called back, as he flashed a smile and sank away into the night. I turned to Rory the second the door shut. “Okay, you havegotto start remembering to lock this door. If he’d been anyone else, we might have ended up on the ten o’clock news. And not in the uplifting segment they have to add in. We’d be the headline.”
And I’d sure as shit had enough of being a headline.
Rory rounded the counter quicker than I’d ever seen her move. “God, I’m sorry. My brain is a mess with regional rehearsals.” After double checking the door was secure, she rested her back flat against it. “Aspen’s got me training nonstop, I’m here practically all the time to save for my new blades, and I’ve got to squeeze in friend time and Finn time.” She looked back at the door, then back to me. “I’m sorry.”
I tilted my head at her as I grabbed the till and began walking to the office, Rory’s footsteps following. “It’s fine.” I angled my head over my shoulder. “And FYI, your ‘friend time’ doesn’t count as friend time if all we do is just soundproof our rooms as best we can so we don’t hear your Finn time.”
Stains of scarlet appeared on her cheeks. “Shutup, we are not that loud.”
I pushed open the door to the office, stopping in the doorway to face her. My face morphed into my best ‘I’m having the greatest sex of my life’ look, my voice high. “Oh, Finn! Right there. Don’t stop. Go—God, I can’t take it—”
“Shut up!”
Our giggles didn’t stop until we were back at the counter, taping up the last of the pastries for Flo to drop off at the sheltersin the morning. The only thing we had left to do was wipe down the counters.
“Is Marcus taking us home tonight?” Rory asked, spraying the counters down.
My sigh said everything. “What do you think? If the man won’t let me wander ten feet from campus, he sure isn’t going to let us walk home through Manhattan at night.”
I’d never admit this to him, but that was one of the things I was grateful for. You know who used to do the same, but as we now know, his intentions were way beyond fucked up for me to look back at that gesture fondly. I suppose I had to be grateful that that wasn’t the case with Marcus.
And it had intrigued me why he was so hell-bent on protecting me. Every time we touched the subject, he’d say it was his job, and that was that. But I saw it even if he didn’t—the flicker of a memory I was sure he’d never share. But then again, I hadn’t expected him to be so open about his paintings, what they meant to him.
Rory wiped down the counters next to me. “I get it. But I think we’re all a little grateful for him.” She snickered. “And his looks.”
I rolled my eyes as I let a laugh slip, so hard my back arched and my stomach ached. “What is with you all?” My phone pinged, and I swapped the soggy cloth in my hand for the device, looking down at the screen as I kept talking. “He’s just tall and has dark hair. He’s the bare minimum. The bar is literally in hell.”
She laughed. “The bare minimum who can smoulder like… Cora?”
Rory’s sweet voice had become muffled in my ear, as though the bakery had filled with water and I was drowning. My chest was thumping, so loud I was sure that’s what Rory noticed first, and not the look on my face.
That thump got quicker and quicker the more I read over the words burning into my screen.
Unknown Number
Today at 20:12pm
No crying behind the counter tonight? Shame. You look just as pretty crying as you do when you smile.
I dropped it onto the counter and backed away, like it would blow up any second.
I recognised the number. It was the same one as before—the message I got when I was talking to Rainie.
“Cora, what’s going on?” Rory asked, her body now by my side, her hand over my back. “Talk to me.”
I shook my head, my lips barely opening. “Look,” I whispered, nodding to the phone.
Rory leaned over and tapped the screen, her eyes frantically moving from left to right.
I stepped back, my shaky hands finding the counter and gripping onto it as though the ground was about to cave in. Myknees were weak with adrenaline, buckling under the weight of my heaving breaths.
