He stopped walking, and she turned to look at him standing on the sidewalk, his college wrestling t-shirt still fit him perfectly. She thought he looked handsome with his half smile and the way he looked at her. It was confusing.
"Yeah, um," but before she could answer, there was a commotion across the street.
They both turned to watch as a tall woman wearing a perfectly tailored suit and stiletto heels yelled something into the phone pressed against her ear.
Their dark visitor. She hadn't given the trio much thought the past few days.Upheavalandchangeflitted through her mind again.
The way she held herself signaled to the world that she was important. And then Chief Landry walked out of the front door, held out a brown file to which she took silently, and they communicated something with their eyes before she nodded once and walked away.
She watched him put his hands on his narrow hips, his shoulders wide and his stance strong but maybe a little weathered.
"Tilly?"
"Huh?" She turned from the distraction and almost flinched when Ronnie took her hand in his and pulled her closer. She feltstiff and held herself back, her feet shuffling forward a step, but the rest of her body staying put in a kind of lean.
"Dinner. With me. Yeah? It can be that place you like. I'll meet you there at eight?"
She thought of her conversation with Jen and she thought about the way that he was looking at her like he had in the beginning of whatever they had.
"Fine. Tonight at eight." She said it quickly, to get it over with. Something he brought with him made her feel like she didn't want to be caught near it for too long. She didn't feel drawn to him how she remembered before.
"Yeah," he said with a grin, nodding. "Knew you'd come around. Alright, I'll see you tonight."
She watched him walk away. And had the thought that the last time she'd seen him walk away, she hadn't known it would be the last.
A sigh was caught in her chest when she looked over to seehimwatching her from where he stood, his hands still on his hips, his face unreadable.
An unidentified frisson pulsed between them over the distance of the street. It was heady, and it made something inside of her shift.
It made her feel like she was being held dangling over some edge.
And then he turned and walked back into the station. Not a change in look, a nod, a word.
The crow cawed directly above her, and she looked up at the lamp post where the bird stared down at her.
"You could have intervened. Gone for his hair, or something."
Fifteen minutes later, she was walking into The Lost Souls House, where she found Ursula typing on her laptop in the living room and then found Taylor, Eloise, Kelsea, and Bess in the kitchen making dinner.
"Hey! You joining for dinner?"
"When are you moving in?" Bess asked, licking blackberry jam off the side of her hand.
"No to dinner. I accidentally made plans. And I have ten days left at the apartment, so probably then, if that's okay."
"Tell us the day, and Jenson and I will move most of it for you," Taylor offered as he slid a plate with a sandwich over to Eloise. "Yeah? That'd be great. I hate moving. And I don't have a lot to move. Oh hey," she said, snapping her fingers. "That omen about a visitor? Know who it is."
"You mean, other than the three creepy triplets who crashed our dinner party?" Kelsea asked with a raised eyebrow. She was sitting at the island, red pen in hand, as she marked up a paper. She often did her story editing here. The house cleared her mind so that she could focus on the words and flow of her writing.
"Well, yeah," Tilly conceded. She thought of the folder exchange and shoved the thought to the back of her mind. "But my sister has darkened my doorway."
"Wait, your sister is in town?" Eloise asked, pausing what she was doing. Everyone knew she had a strained relationship with her entire family, but everyone also knew that went a few degrees colder where her sister was concerned.
"Man, evil sisters, evil witches on high councils. This is going to be one hell of a year," Bess smirked, taking a bite of her food.
Tilly frowned. "How worried do we think we should be about the triplets?"
Eloise and Kelsea both shrugged.
