But she knew me better than that. She also knew there was no point in pushing me. That when I walled myself off, there was no breaching my brick-and-mortarshell.
Next week, my fate would besealed.
I thought about the wedding with a heavy heart. Remembered I still needed a dress. I tried to call Everest for help, but Lucy told me he’d gotten dire news about Becca and that he’d hit the road to clear hismind.
I didn’t want to hold his sorrow against him, but I was sad he’d left me behind. I didn’t wallow too long in my loneliness, though. After days of avoiding August’s calls and messages, I’d answered him that morning. Like a dying person, I was putting my life in order, and part of that order was thanking August for caring, even though I didn’t really understand why he cared about me in the first place. I was no longer the innocent little girl whose hair he’d ruffled and whom he’d taught to whittle wood into animalstatues.
As I wiped down wine glasses in the pantry, my heart squeezed so tight a sharp pain spread through my chest. I was wallowing again. God, I didn’t want to wallow. I drove my focus outward, on the chirpy conversation of the two servers who worked nights and weekends at the inn. They were discussing going clubbing at TheDen.
One of them, the one with a pixie cut and a gazillion silver hoops in her right ear—Emmy—must’ve noticed I was listening, because she asked, “Want to come with us,Ness?”
I almost dropped the glass I was drying. Emmy and the other server—Skylar—were at least a decade older than I was and had never spoken to me before. I’d assumed it was because I was so much younger than themandrelated to theirboss.
“I’m onlyseventeen.”
“You don’t look seventeen,” Emmy said. “Besides you’re too pretty to be turned away from the door. Plus, DJ Wolverine’s spinning. She’sawesome.”
DJ Wolverine…It took my mind a second to connect the dots. DJ Wolverine was Julian’s niece, Sarah. She could help me get in touch withJulian.
“Okay. I’min.”
* * *
I’d never gone clubbing,so I didn’t know how people dressed. Although sporting the black dress I’d worn when I’d visited Heath made my skin itch, it was the only nice thing I owned. Well, that and the red dress, but there was a small tear in the side seam—probably from when I’d ripped it off my shiftingbody.
The black sequins sewn over the material caught every flick of light, casting tinsels over the dashboard of Emmy’s little car that rumbled with clubbeats.
“You okay, hun?” Skylar asked. She’d swept her bleached hair into a high bun that sat atop her head like frosting on a cupcake. “You seem realdown.”
I bit the inside of my cheek. “I’mokay.”
Emmy turned down the music. “Is it yourmomma?”
“Mymom?”
Just two mornings ago, in that slim moment between sleep and wakefulness, I’d reached for my phone to call her for advice. Only when I couldn’t find her contact did I remember she was gone. I’d lain in my bed a long while, watching the dove-gray light of dawn turn palegold.
Emmy glanced toward Skylar. “We heard you lost her a couple months before coming outhere.”
Skylar spun around in her seat, her manga-sized blue eyes roving over my face. “I lost mine last year, and although I ain’t gonna say our pains are the same”—she didn’t sound like she was from around here—“if you ever need to talk, well, you can talk to me, hun. We can bitch and lament together. I’m real good at bitchin’ aboutlife.”
“It’s one of her manytalents.”
Emmy grinned, while Skylarchortled.
Intent on shifting the spotlight off the woman I missed so much, I asked, “How long have you two known eachother?”
“We met two years ago.” Skylar placed her hand over Emmy’s and brushed her knuckles. “We started working at the inn at the sametime.”
Emmy loosed a light sigh. “It was love at firstsight.”
My lids fluttered. “Oh…you two…you’retogether?”
“For a year and a half already! Time flies,” Emmy said. “What about you, Ness? Are you seeinganybody?”
I stared out my window at the moon that was growing fatter and fuller every day. “No.”
“No one’s caught youreye?”
