“You can fuck him, if you’d like. But I don’t think he has the kind of money you’re after.”
I narrow my eyes. “I’m not after?—”
“Shut up, Sloane. I’ve seen the shit you wear. The makeup, the skincare, Little Miss Edinburgh and London for Two Weeks.” He mocks me, no smile on his face, in his eyes. “Dax maybe could’ve given you that. The waiter? Not a chance. But they have one thing in common.” His eyes spark now, light dancing in the blue.
I don’t ask what. I’m not sure I want to know.
“Neither one of them can fuck you with a bullet in their brain.”
In my head, I see the gun. The holster. I don’t know what he did with either this morning before we got in the car, but I glance at his chest, the bomber jacket he hasn’t taken off.
He huffs a laugh. “Are you scared, baby?”
I shoot my eyes to his. “Not at all.” It’s only half a lie.
“Good. Because I won’t hurtyou,will I?” The implication in the question is clear.
I shake my head, in agreement.
“Say it.”
“You won’t hurt me.”
“Good girl. Now come sit your fine ass in my lap, so when thehotwaiter comes back, he knows he doesn’t stand a fucking chance.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
LYDIA
“What if we got married and ran away?” Lele’s voice is full of hope and I just laugh, not uncomfortable, because of course he doesn’t mean it. His version of marriage is two adults who live together, and what he really wants is us to be far from Uncle Lynx.
I brush my long, black hair with the wooden brush at my vanity and smile at my brother’s reflection in the mirror. He’s sitting on my bed, his blond hair buzzed, skin tan from all of our hours outside at the pool. But I’m grateful summer is over.
I want Halloween.
Tonight I’m going to a carnival hosted by the school. We attend the same private school but only the upper grade can go to the fancy hotel with the punch someone is sure to spike and the tarot cards and pretend magic. Lynx is one grade beneath mine. I get room to breathe.
To see the pretend Halloween magic myself.
I know there, it won’t be real.
But here, it is.
It found me, in a pile of books my uncle left on my bed one day, when I turned thirteen. He said they had been Mom’s. I remember nothing of her books but the truth is, I remember nothing of her at all. The days we spent together are a blank. I should miss her more, I know, but there’s pain in her absence yet it’s not because of her presence. More of what she might have been, before.
And the day of her death…usually it’s empty. But sometimes it’s there too, sticky and warm beneath my hands and knees, and there is someone small at the end. An embrace. A little boy’s tears.
It’s Lele, of course.
But it doesn’t feel like Lele. The child is unfamiliar, in the memory touch.
I asked him about it once, and Lele said he remembers nothing of Mom either, and nothing the day of her death. But if I can barely grasp it, how could he? Surely the age difference, while small in months, meant something more then. How could he know the horror of it? And I should be grateful, and mostly I am. That neither of us remember.
Sometimes, though, the way Uncle looks at Lele…it feels dangerous. Like he doesn’t know him. Like he thinks Lele doesn’t belong.
“We could do it tonight,” Lele insists, his eyes big and wide, a stuffed bear in his arms. It’s mine, but it might as well be his, as often as he wraps his arms around it and hugs it tight.
