“Excuse me?”
“Gray with a dark heart,” she says as she closes the cash register. “You’ll understand when the time comes.” She smirks. “You’ll believe me then.”
I blink, watching her for a couple of seconds as my mind spins. When she notices, she gestures at me to leave, and almost automatically, I close the door.
“Everything okay?”
Did she say… gray with a dark heart? Like—likeRafaelGray?
“Freckles?”
“Huh?”
Rafael walks closer, chin tilted down as he tries to look into my eyes. Shit, I’m basically panting.
“Uh, sorry. I…”
It’s just a coincidence, Scarlett.That’s how psychics—fancy word for imposters—make their living. By taking one generic detail, like the striking color of Rafael’s eyes, and making it into a sinister warning.
“She said ‘Gray with a dark heart.’?”
“Son of a bitch, I thought she liked me.” He looks back at the shop and then, with a chuckle, he continues, almost to himself, “Though I can’t imagine she’ll be the only person to warn you against me.”
I blink, looking away for a moment. I know exactly what he means. Paige’s parents never wanted her to be around him. No-good Rafael, reckless Rafael, who always gets in trouble.
“I’m sure she meantred,” I say teasingly, trying to lighten the mood.
“Like our clothes?”
“More like from that big flag you’re waving.”
“Ah-ha,” he fake-laughs. “I have half a mind to take my shoes back.”
“Maybe after our next stop.”
“Which is?”
“The ice cream shop around the corner.” I take a step, then look back, where he stands still, watching me with a pleased expression. “You coming, Gray?”
A slow nod. “You bet, Freckles.”
“Iknewyou were a mint chip girl,” he says as he swirls his tongue around his cone. Truth be told, my ice cream order changes depending on my mood, so I’m not excluding the possibility that I’ve been conned into this flavor.
“Coffee and vanilla,” I say as I glance at his cone. “What does that say about you?”
“I don’t know. That I have excellent taste, while you’re eating toothpaste?”
A laugh escapes as he shifts forward, leaning his elbows on thetable. His eyes linger, warm and intent, as if he’s cataloging the sound and the way it lights up my face. The intensity of it sends a flutter through my chest, and I quickly glance down at my cone, pretending to focus on a drip.
Over the years, my mystery-loving brain has contemplated several theories about Rafael Gray’s sudden disappearance, ranging from the absurd to the unsettling. Like how he might have joined a secret society—one of those underground cults you read about in true-crime stories. Or how he was maybe recruited for some elite spy program, gone on to save the world.
Then there’s the one theory I never liked to dwell on, but it’s the one that feels most plausible. The night he disappeared, his father was attacked. Maybehedid it.
It had been a scandal. John Gray whisked away in an ambulance in the dead of the night, my dad responding to the scene, telling us that the assailant had left and Rafael was nowhere to be found, and then he never returned.
John Gray eventually gave a description of the culprit, who he said wasn’t Rafael. But I always thought…Maybe he lied. Maybe he was protecting his son.
I push the thought away, wishing I could offer him my condolences, but I’d have to admit I know him, and it’d open the floor to a lot of questions I’m not ready for. Like who am I, have we met before, am I still the pathetic little girl who crushed hard on him? No, thank you.
