“I can help,” I interrupt again, without meaning to. “I can help with that.”
“No,” Prue says sternly at the same time Tom’s eyes light up at the offer.
“I know art.” I speak to her directly. “I especially know how to stretch out supplies when you’re balling on a budget.” I want to see Mrs. Welch’s studioalmostas much as I want to win an argument with her daughter. “You’ll waste a whole lot more without my help.”
“Prue,darling,” Tom says softly before clearing his throat, “somehelpmay be good, right?” He overly enunciates the wordhelp,as if to jog her memory. “And Milo here was special to Mom. She’d invite him back there if…well; if she could.”
I smile proudly, standing straighter.Special.I raise a brow at her in challenge, cocky and unafraid to gloat. Argue with that reasoning,darling.
Prue dead-eyes me before lifting her face up to the exposed, whitewashed wood-beamed ceiling. “Fine.”
“I can give you an hour or two.” I check my watch before dropping my hand onto the counter. “My brother’s expecting me next door at some point.” He’sexpectingme now. But, hey,hewas the one who said to come over here and apologize. That can take time.
Prue’s expression of stubborn pride falls away entirely when her dad says, “Brilliant. I’ll put these aside for you, then,” and moves my basket of groceries to the shelf under the counter.
Prue practically stomps toward the front of the store, and stops abruptly before reaching the shop’s entrance. She fires another withering glance my way, but softens when she sees her dadwatching intently from my side. “This way…please.” She mumbles thepleaseas if she’s being held at gunpoint.
I jog around the counter, grab the bucket she’d already managed to forget, and move to fall into step behind her, saluting as I do. “Lead the way, Killer.”
Seven
Prue
My mother usedto say my favorite word waswhy?According to my parents, I’d drag every answer they’d grant me further into my endless rabbit hole of thought until they reached the point of existential dread or snapped.
The sky is blue….Why?
Because of the way blue light travels….Why?
Blue light travels in smaller, shorter waves….Why?
Well…I don’t know….Why?
Because I never learned it in school….Why?
I mean, maybe I did, but I don’t remember….Why?
Because humans cannot remember everything….Why?
Well, our heads would get so big they’d explode….
Sorry, that was just a joke, darling. Don’t cry….Why?
Now, I have some more pressing questions. Like, for example:
Why does he have to look like that?
Why does he have to smell like that?
Why does he have to speak Russian with my father?
Why does he have to have a certain fondness for my mother?
Why can I not stop staring at him?
AndWhy, oh my god why, does he keep looking at me like that?
“Are you looking for something?” Milo says, tugging the sleeveof his button-down past his elbow. It is a truly obscene sight, the way he pulls the fabric to reveal more of himself. The only thing I can compare it to is a woman slipping stockings slowly down her thigh. The sight is more graphic and erotic than any porn I’ve found in the late hours of the night, lonely and needy.
