Hallie left the office and headed home, her steps lighter. No sooner had she left the office than the dark clouds overhead opened and rain poured on her head, making her wish she’d brought a hat with her. She was going to get soaked again. Two days in a row. But not even the cold rain trailing under her jacket collar could dampen her mood. Excitement curled through her, warming her. A new job. The promise of travel. She practically danced the next few strides, the bags from the café bumping against her legs.
Wanting a distraction from the rain, and, more than that, wanting to hear his voice, Hallie pulled out her phone and dialled Girard’s number.
“Hallie,” he answered on the third ring, almost as if he had been waiting for her call. “How are you?” There was more than a simple question in his voice.
“Peredur offered me a job,” Hallie said, hearing her voice too high and too fast, but unable to help it. “He said you knew about it.”
“I did, yes. I’m glad he told you. What did you say?” Even through the phone connection, Hallie could tell that her answer mattered a great deal to Girard.
“Yes, of course,” Hallie said, with a laugh.
“I’m so glad,” Girard said, and she could hear a smile in his voice now.
“I haven’t quite got used to the idea yet,” Hallie confessed. She wouldn’t have said that to just anybody. But this was Girard, and they were more than friends. “But I am looking forward to it. I’m getting soaked by the rain again and I don’t care.”
“I’m sorry about the rain, but when can you start?” Girard asked.
“Tomorrow, if needed,” Hallie said. “I don’t have any outstanding work for Aunt Gin, and she’s happy for me to leave immediately.”
“That’s good of her,” Girard said. “You’ve been a valuable asset for her business.”
Hallie laughed again. “That’s true.” She could say that without vanity. She’d been sent after some of the more lucrative fugitives over the past decade, and if Hallie had made good money from the work, Gin’s share had been far larger.
“We should celebrate,” Girard said, as Hallie turned the corner that brought her in sight of her home. “How about dinner? I’mon late in the office tonight, but perhaps tomorrow, assuming nothing else comes up?”
“That would be lovely,” Hallie agreed easily, almost skipping through another couple of steps and managing to avoid a large puddle. They’d managed to have a few meetings and lunch after getting back from Cotovatre’s house, but it had not felt like enough and Hallie found herself looking forward to some time alone with Girard. Perhaps he’d tell her some more funny stories from his childhood, or tell her about the places they might visit for work, or they’d talk about something completely different. She didn’t really mind. It would be time together, warm and dry and with good food.
Even after Girard had ended the call, his attention needed by someone else in his office, Hallie found herself smiling as she rounded the last corner before home. This time, there was no Rosalia standing outside, huddled against the rain, and Hallie let herself into the house, hoping her roommate was there so she could share the remarkable news of her new job, and the contents of the bakery boxes she was carrying.
Rosalia was home. She was dressed in soft, warm clothes and chopping up what looked like a month’s supply of vegetables while several pots sat on the cooker, lazy trails of steam rising from them. Hallie thought she recognised the dark, spicy notes of a bean stew that was a particular favourite of hers along with a fresher, brighter note of tomatoes. Her stomach growled. Even if she hadn’t been hungry, her stomach would still have growled as an appropriate and natural response to Rosalia’s cooking.
“That smells amazing,” Hallie said. She’d shed her jacket and boots and now carried the bags of bakery boxes across to the kitchen area.
Rosalia looked up with a smile, then her eyes landed on the bags. Her brows lifted, eyes sparkling with curiosity. “Is that the logo of the Sunrise Café?”
“It is indeed. I was there earlier and just had to bring some of their cakes home. I thought you’d like them.” Hallie took the boxes out of the bags, relieved to see that they hadn’t been soaked by the rain, and set them on the only vacant space she could find on the kitchen counter.
“Let me see.” Rosalia left her knife and vegetables, lifting the lids and making a low sound of appreciation. “Amazing. They smell really good. I wonder what they use for that glaze?”
Hallie hid a smile, putting the empty bags away while Rosalia made a thorough visual inspection of the contents of the boxes, muttering more questions to herself. As well as glaze, Hallie heard speculation about lemon and salt and some other cooking phrase that she didn’t understand.
“You didn’t go all the way into midtown just to pick up some cakes, though, did you?” Rosalia asked, dragging her attention away from the boxes. Hallie had to smile. Baking and cooking and food of all kinds were Rosalia’s first loves.
“No. I got offered a job,” Hallie said, bouncing on her toes. “The Conclave Investigators want me to work for them.”
“That’s amazing news,” Rosalia said, and came around the counter to give Hallie a rare hug. They were neither of them demonstrative people, however good friends they were, but it felt right in that moment. Hallie returned the embrace and found to her shock that her eyes were stinging. Until that moment, in her own space with her roommate, she hadn’t realised how much her life was about to change. Good changes, changes that she was excited about, but changes nonetheless.She scrubbed her hands across her face and realised she was still wet from the rain.
“Let me get some dry clothes on and I’ll tell you all about it,” Hallie said.
“The food will be ready when you are,” Rosalia answered, still smiling.
When Hallie came out of her room, dressed in ancient, faded trousers and a sweatshirt that had seen better days, Rosalia was setting out what looked like an amazing amount of food on the low table that sat in front of the sofa and armchair.
Hallie looked around the space. It had been her refuge for a long, long time. A place that was truly hers. She’d bought it outright - the only space she’d been able to afford. No one else had wanted to live in a space under a railway line. Hallie hadn’t cared about the trains rumbling overhead as much as she’d cared, and deeply cared, that the space wasn’t in her family vine’s territory or connected with the vine in any way. For most of the time she had lived there it had been a place to rest between jobs, nothing more, and once the soundproofing had been added to almost completely cut out the noise of trains overhead, Hallie hadn’t made much of an effort to improve it.
Rosalia had made the space far more home-like. Her roommate had painted the walls and brought in the occasional bit of decoration and colour so that the space was no longer bare. Even so, it didn’t fit right, Hallie realised, abruptly overwhelmed once more with the sensation of being in the wrong set of clothes. And it wasn’t just the lingering after-effect of her mother’s unwanted presence the night before. The space had held her safe, given her independence, and she’d outgrown it. There. That was it. It reflected a person and a life she almost didn’t recognise.
“What’s up?” Rosalia asked.
