“Hey,” said Liam, his back to her, his own basket safely retrieved, “I wanted to thank you for letting Hudson crash. I know the two of you are kind of weird about each other, but I would’ve felt shitty about him being home alone after his brother blew him off again.”
Ellory straightened, the birds forgotten. “Hudson’swhat?”
“His brother. He never told you about Cairo?”
Ellory lifted her eyebrows.
“Right, stupid question.” Liam laughed. “Cairo is Hudson’s older brother. Six years older. They used to be close when we were growing up, but then…” He made a vague gesture that meant nothing to Ellory. “Anyway, these days Cairo’s pretty unreliable, but anytime he shoots an email, Hudson shows up.”
Ellory did not want to feel bad for that walking hangover, but her delicate heart squeezed anyway. She knew the sting of missed calls and broken promises, the justifications and excuses that preserved the illusion that someone who couldn’t even manage to be present still loved you in their own way. Her parents had sent her away because they wanted more for her. Intellectually, she knew that. Emotionally, she had been taking care of herself and Aunt Carol since she’d first set foot in America, and sometimes that didn’t feel like love at all.
She couldn’t pinpoint exactly when her independence had become the result of an innate knowledge that the only one that she could rely on was herself, but she knew she had felt like an adult long before the law recognized her as one. Disappointment was baked into her existence.
It was uncomfortable to have something like that in common with Hudson Graves.
“Oh,” Liam said, followed by muffled laughter. “You’re not getting those back.”
He had noticed the crows. They’d multiplied since she’d last looked, covering her basket like flies swarming a rabbit carcass. Apple shards dotted the ground, torn apart by sharp beaks and sharper talons. Every crunch sounded like the breaking of a bone. Ellory’s unease returned with a vengeance, her mind on a crow tattoo and a midnight murder.
She grabbed Liam’s sleeve as he tried to walk past her. “It’s fine. Let them have it.”
“You sure?” Liam looked completely unbothered by the birds, but Ellory’s pulse was jagged and uneven. It was nearing winter. Shouldn’t most of them have flown to warmer locales?
One crow snapped up a chunk of apple and stared at her unblinkingly. Its twitching head seemed to say,You’re next.
Ellory’s fingers tightened around Liam’s sleeve. “Let’s keep moving.”
“All right,” Liam said easily, prying her hand from his sleeve so he could hold it. “I don’t mind sharing.”
They sank deeper into the trees, but no matter how far they walked, Ellory couldn’t shake the feeling of a thousand beady eyes hunting her through the orchard.
18
They walked the entire length of the orchard, until their basket was overflowing and Liam was wearing smudges of her lip gloss. Now Liam tapped out a message to someone on his phone, the sun overheard creating a halo of light in his dark honey hair, and Ellory lingered a pace behind him so she could observe him. She was unsurewhatshe was looking for, except that she wasn’t finding it in his relaxed gait and soft smiles. In a school year of sinister occurrences, Liam Blackwood was like a Disney prince, a happy ending waiting for her acceptance. But his perfection only made her feel more fragmentary.
Still, as far as dates went, this hadn’t been the worst. It almost was a shame to ruin it.
“You know,” Ellory said, drawing Liam’s attention away from his phone, “when I met you, I really didn’t think I was your type.”
His smile widened. “And what do you know about my type?”
“Hudson told me the two of you used to date.”
“How didthatcome up in an argument?” Liam tossed her a curious look, but all she did was shrug. “Well, he told you the truth.He and I dated for about half of freshman year.” He slid his phone back into the pocket of his jacket. “But isn’t it a little early to be talking about exes?”
“I’m not on a set schedule.” Ellory picked up her pace so they walked side by side again. She kept her tone light as she continued: “He also mentioned a woman—something Mayhew, I think?”
“Farrah.”
She let the silence unspool, thick and awkward, inviting clarification. But Liam apparently felt no need to continue. Leaves crunched beneath their boots. His smile was gone. Ellory could tell that if she pressed him for any information about Malcolm Mayhew, he would close faster than a clam’s shell. Just the family name had created such a marked shift in his demeanor that it was like looking at a stranger.
Ellory adjusted the apples in her basket, arranging them so that the stems were pointing upward. “Did you somehow have a worse breakup with Farrah Mayhew than with someone likeHudson Graves?”
Liam snorted, almost as if he couldn’t help it. “Hudson isn’t as bad as you think he is. He’s…intense, yeah, but he’s loyal. Giving. Funny. A great kisser.” He paused. “Not better than me.”
“I’d sooner kiss a skunk right in the anal glands,” she said pleasantly, “but go on.”
“Our families got along really well, so it was easy with him until it wasn’t. Farrah’s family…they were different. They were…” Liam’s mouth twisted into a peculiar kind of frown. It wasn’t pure sadness or anger, but there was an interred pain there. Before Ellory could follow this lead, he shoved his basket toward her. “I need to use the bathroom. Do you want to wait for me or—”
