Ris
Hey
Are you with Silva?
Ris squinted down at her phone, not understanding the question for a moment.Am I with Silva?She didn’t understand the question, nor why Ainsley would be asking in the first place.
Do you mean am I at work? Yes
Three bouncing dots that indicated Ainsley was typing a reply appeared almost immediately. Bouncing . . . bouncing. She rolled her eyes, expecting a novel. Instead, his query was short.
Is she there?
Ris frowned. Ainsley didn't even like Silva, and she couldn't imagine why he was inquiring into her whereabouts, unless . . She pulled a face at the implication, tapping on Ainsley's face immediately.Unless something bad happened to Tate.He answered immediately.
"Is everything all right?" Ris blurted. "Is – is someone hurt?"
Ainsley's voice on the other end of the line was tense, and terser than she'd ever heard. "No, no one’s hurt. I don't think so, at least. Is she there?"
Silva had begun taking advantage of the flexible work from home schedule months earlier. Ris knew that her younger coworker had been sleeping in Greenbridge Glen several nights a week, working from Tate's apartment. Either that, or she worked from her own.And he sometimes stays with her? I guess?It had been more than two weeks since the surprising night she and Ainsley had run into Silva and Tate at Gildersnood and Ives, and when she considered it, Ris was positive she'd not seen Silva since then.She certainly hasn't been showing up for wedding stuff.
Of course, she was hardly blameless where that was concerned.
She'd gone rushing into a little dress shop off Main Street just the previous week, breathing hard from her run from the parking lot.She's never going to forgive you.Half the party had already been present – a goblin Lurielle had known from her aerobics class since moving to Cambric Creek, an anxious-looking human, and two empty seats. One for her, and one for Silva.
"I amsosorry," she gasped upon her arrival, quickly taking one of the empty chairs, tucking her long legs out of the way from the sales associate, attempting to be as unobtrusive as possible in her shameful tardiness. "There's a big accident on the highway just before the winery —"
"It's fine," Lurielle had told her, but Ris had been able to hear the unusual clippedness of her tone, and knew it was anything but fine.
She had been a terrible friend. She’d been late responding to things, absent from others, and Lurielle had been too busy for them to catch up at lunch. In her own very weak defense,Ris told herself, it wasn’t entirely her fault. Since the afternoon they’d spent visiting his mother, Ainsley had become an octopus. Ris was neither sure what had happened to her laid-back, easy-going casual fuck buddy plus partner, nor what this clingy, somewhat demanding, attention-seeking facsimile had done with him.
He contrived for them to spend nearly every evening together. Begging her to come see his various bands play, buying them midweek performance tickets to the ballet, the symphony, to the theater company. If she managed to beg off an excursion for the night, then he was there, in her condo, cooking in her kitchen, wrapping her in his grasping arms at every chance, or else whining until she came to him. She had been late to work more in these past few weeks than she had been in her entire career. Ris knew she needed to put her foot down, but every time she attempted to do so, the look in Ainsley's eyes would be so wounded and hurt, she didn't have the heart to start an argument.
She had no idea what happened to the agreed-upon parameters of their relationship, no clue where they had gone wrong or what had precipitated it, and she knew that they needed to sit down and have a serious conversation.Because that’s what you do! You talk about things. Good communication, clearly stating your needs. Not this flipping the script, beating around the bush, bullshit. What happened?!But like everything else, she had been putting it off.
She hadn't meant to miss so many outings with Lurielle. Her friend had found her florist on her own, booked her venue, all of the things Ris had promised that she and Silva would help with.You've been a terrible friend, and if she doesn't forgive you for this, you can't even act surprised about it.It was a small consolation that Silva had also been absent in the dress shop that day, but notmuch.
"I really am sorry," she'd told Lurielle in a low voice, once they were both a bit isolated behind one of the sitting room curtains from the other girls in attendance. "I know I really dropped the ball with all this, and I don't know how I'll ever be able to make it up to you. If you hate me, I understand."
"I don't hate you," Lurielle had laughed, rolling her eyes. "I mean, yes, you have totally dropped the ball. You took the fucking ball and popped it. I'm just glad everything is done though, it's fine. I might wind up smothering Khash before we actually get to the wedding part, but it's fine."
Ris had laughed, flinging her arms around the shorter elf. "I know it's not fine. But thank you for saying that and trying to make me feel better. I know I absolutely don’t deserve it. Ainsley has just . . . I don't know, he's done a total 180 on me. I don't want to say that we're in trouble, but . . . I don't know. Things feel very strange with us right now. Where is —"
"I don't know." Lurielle had cut her off, her voice going curt, already intuiting that the question was about the missing member of the bridal party. "I don't know why I thought she would show up today, she hasn't returned my calls for anything else. I can even remember the last time I saw her in the office. That day she brought in the binder? Maybe once after?"
Ris had frowned, but the day had not been about her or Silva or their individual relationship woes. It was about Lurielle and finding their attendants' dresses, which they'd all managed to do. Each of them would wear a soft pastel, choosing styles that suited them in the same fabric. It was going to look ethereal and beautiful. Ris loved her soft, peach-colored dress, and had already been picking through the selections at jewelry consignment shops, looking for old Elvish accessories.
"Can you call her?" Ainsley asked in a strained voice. "I've called her twice and she's not picked up, but it's not exactly like I'm her favorite person."
Silva not being in the office that day wasn't unusual at all, but her absence, coupled with Ainsley's cryptic call made Ris shiver. Payroll verification and reconciliation was not her department . . . but that didn't mean she was unable to access their records. It only took a few minutes at her keyboard to ascertain that Silva had not been in the office since the week she and Ainsley had seen her in case at Gildersnood and Ives.And now she's not answering her phone?Her stomach flipped at the insinuation.
"I'm going to her place right now." It was a snap decision, but it wasn't as if there were any other good options, she thought, snapping her laptop shut and pulling her purse from the locked compartment at her desk. "Ainsley, what am I going over there to find? Don't make me walk into this apartment to find my friend missing her —"
"He's gone." Ainsley's voice was flat. "Tate's gone. I got a call from Thessa from the restaurant. She said they’d been expecting him back more than a week ago. No calls, no communication, no nothing. Elshona, she's the chef, remember? You met her at that little club? Anyway, she apparently had a key to the apartment. Thessa said Shona went up there this morning and didn't come back down for two hours. Had obviously been crying. Told them he's gone. They were closing for the rest of the week, but then they needed to get back to work. And that's all she's said to anyone since."
Ris slowed as she approached the elevator bank, squinting at Ainsley's words. "Okay, what doesgonemean in this context? Like, gone as in he and Silva fucked off into the sunset together? Or gone as inhishead is in the freezer?"
Ainsley laughed weakly, although there was no humor behind it. "Nanaya, I wish I knew. I’m going to convince one of my buddies to cover for me, and then I’m going over there.”
