Her lips curl like she wants to spit some more venom in my face but her glance falls to the floor. Without makeup, the heavy lines under her eyes are more prominent.
The blur of imperfection highlights how beautiful she is. Properly beautiful, not just pretty. In twenty years, her bone structure will still draw attention when every other girl being fought over at McKenzie High is so far past their prime, they might as well have expiration dates stamped on their foreheads.
“Twenty-six dollars forty,” Ben announces while Em’s still revving herself up for round two. I hand over the money and she pounces, grabbing it from Ben and shoving it back in my hand. “Don’t you dare.”
“Hey, I need to pay for my stuff, too.”
“It’s on me,” she shoots in Ben’s direction.
“Yeah,” I say with a laugh. “Put it on that invoice you forgot to give her.” I don’t know who’s more fun to wind up.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, I do. Em is far and away the most fun.
She’s practically humming with frantic energy. Much more and she’ll create her own vortex.
The bell over the door jingles and I turn to see who’s joined our party. Judging from Em’s expression, it’s her knight on horseback. A knight who turns her face pale apart from two dots of colour, high on her cheeks.
I recognise the face but can’t place him. With fun time over, I step away from the counter, more intent on Em’s reaction than the new arrival. Her body language is a tortured mess of signals. It’s like watching a psychotic break play out in real time. Believe me, I’ve seen enough of them to know.
“Hey,” the man says, walking straight to her, touching her lightly on the upper arm. “What’s happened?”
“I didn’t think you’d come,” she whispers, and I frown at the taut lines of her body. Instead of relaxing because help arrived, she seems tenser than ever. “I thought you’d just send someone.”
“And miss out on the chance to see you? Not likely.” He turns to the counter and hands a card across, not even bothering to check the total on the till. “I’ve told the office I’ll be working from home the rest of the weekend, so we have plenty of time to catch up.”
“Oh, I don’t… I’ve got my car.”
“Give me the keys. I’ll take care of it.”
Her eyes move to Ben, who pulls them out of a drawer and hands them to the man, along with the receipt.
“You took the keys off her?”
The frown from mystery man stabs Ben a lot harder than my earlier accusations. He turns bright red and stutters, going from zero to flustered in under a second. “J-just to take care of it while she… until she…”
But the man turns back to Em, dismissing Ben without another thought. “I’ll have you added to my account, then you can just use a card whenever you want. This never has to happen again.”
She nods, eyes briefly meeting his gaze before flicking down to the floor. His hand moves back to grip her upper arm before dropping to her waist, the change in position making her jump.
Her eyes flicker upwards to touch mine. All the flash and fire is gone, like his presence drained the beautiful colours out of her, turning her grey.
I step towards her, but she drops her head, subservient. They walk out together, the keys passed to the driver of his vehicle before he slips behind the wheel, Em in the passenger seat, staring sightlessly ahead.
It’s only as Ben throws the pack of gummy worms at me I make the connection. Wilbur Braxen. He’s at Stefan’s club often enough that I should have recognised him straight off, but it’s difficult when people appear out of context.
I’d researched him for a friend who wanted financing for a new tech project and thought a few dirty secrets might convert Wilbur’s passing interest into cold hard cash.
Tried to research, I should say, because there’s a difference between digging up information on your average Joe and attempting to unearth dirt on an elite who takes privacy even more seriously than most of his ilk.
I ran into roadblocks straight away. I’d asked Zach’s latest girlfriend to lift his wallet when I knew he’d be at the club on one of her shifts, but she backed out. My boss Stefan could probably have helped me there, but I wasn’t researching for him, so the less he knew the better.
When I’d returned empty-handed to the client, he’d dropped the pursuit and moved to easier, though less lucrative, targets.
Still, I know the man is so filthy rich he puts my dad’s wealth to shame. Calling him to cover twenty dollars’ worth of petrol is like buying Antarctica because you want ice to put in your drink.
I send a text to Zach, uncertain if he’ll respond. Our friendship’s been on shaky ground lately. A polite way of saying I set fire to it and stood back to watch it burn.
“How does Em know Wilbur Braxen?”
