She gives a little shudder. “I fear you and Felix would get along frighteningly well. The one who came to pick us up, if you remember.”
“Only faintly,” I say. “But I bet I could win him over.”
“He’s easy to win over,” she says with a grudging nod. “But Cyrus would hate you.”
“I could win him over too,” I say as we pass out of the shop and back into the square.
“No,” she says, a genuine smile flitting briefly over her lips. “I don’t think you could.”
I shrug and glance around, searching for Bart and Mindy. “That’s fine,” I say. “If I needed I could just buy him off.”
When I get no response from Aurora, I turn to look at her, only to find a surprised expression on her face.
I shrug and rest my hands back in my pockets, the plastic bag still dangling from my arm. “What?” I say, tilting my head and taking a step closer. “Scandalized? Shocked? But it’s true.” My gaze darts over her face. “For the right cause, I’d be willing to buy someone off.” I’m only partly joking—and when I go on, I’m totally serious. “Most people have a price.”
Her brows jump, her eyes tinged with distaste. “That’s…an interesting viewpoint.”
“Is it?” I say. “A little cynical, maybe. But we live in a world of give and take. Nothing is guaranteed to be free. The key is knowing what things are worth buying and what things aren’t.” I nod at the question in her gaze. “If you have to pay with your dignity or your honor, it’s probably not worth it. But other things?” I shrug. “You can’t write them off.”
I hesitate briefly and then speak again, wondering even as my mouth opens whether I’m telling her something I shouldn’t. “My father started a matchmaking company—this matchmaking company. But he was never loyal to my mother. And to keep his image clean, to convince her to remain married, he paid not in money but in jewelry and handbags and empty promises. She died married to a man she barely knew and didn’t love. Was it worth it? Was their transaction worth it?”
Aurora continues to look at me, but the shock in her features is gone. I’m strangely relieved to notice no pity there, either.
“When Bart and Mindy began theirtête à tête,you weighed the upcoming transaction,” I say. I jerk my chin at Bart and Mindy, who have just come out of the ice cream shop with matching ice cream cones. “Were you willing to pay the cost of your pride and your feelings in order to keep a relationship that, by all appearances, profited you nothing?”
“He was a great kisser,” Aurora says now, holding up her nails and inspecting them casually.
I can’t stop my laugh at this. “Whatever you say.” My eyes drop to her lips. “But there are better kissers out there.”
She hums. “I think you’re too young to know anything about that,” she says in a stern voice as her hands drop back to her sides.
“You might be surprised,” I say without thinking.
A beat of silence that lasts only a second, and then she goes on, “We’re wasting time with your sentimental babbling.” She brushes past me and heads toward the shop next door, never looking back.
My smile doesn’t fade. Her words aren’t complimentary, but they’re exactly what the conversation needs: a clear, direct change of subject.
I didn’t particularly mean to hop on that soapbox—or mention kissing—and I might regret mentioning my father, but what’s done is done. So I just follow along in her wake, interested to see more of Aurora Marigold in her natural habitat.
AURORA
I haveto set up an entire account with this credit union just to put a payment plan in place for the remaining balance on this stupid business loan. I undergo this obnoxious process when I get home from work, along with going to the bank in person, something I only have time for because Roman told us to be done for the day once we finished in the town square.
All in all, it’s not what I want to do on a Friday afternoon.
My nerves have finally calmed down some, however, now that the shock has worn off and my reasonable side has caught up. This situation sucks, but at the end of the day, I have enough money to get started, and I have another job lined up. I’m safe, my family is safe. My living situation is up in the air, yes, but it was already up in the air.
So I have gone from anxious and angry to just plain old angry. And, if I’m being honest, slightly concerned. There are valid reasons to default on a loan, even if they’re few and far between—something Juliet pointed out, and something I had to grudgingly agree with.
“Like what if he’s in a coma or something?” she says reasonably while I fume over getting this payment plan together. She’s seated on my bed, lounging like it’s her own, while I work at my bedroom desk. “Or what if”—she glances around as though afraid of being overheard—“what if hedied?” She says this last word in a whisper.
“That would be very sad,” I agree, breaking the lead of my pencil when I press down too hard as I jot a few numbers on a sticky note, “but as it’s unlikely, let me be annoyed right now, please. If I find out he’s in a coma, I will behave penitently.” I toss the pencil to the side, frustrated, and then lean back in my chair.
“Have you tried to get in touch?” Jules says, twirling a few strands of her hair absently around her finger.
“Yes,” I say. “I called him twice in between calling the bank and calling the credit union and calling the collections agency. He didn’t answer.”
“Did you text?” Jules says.
