“It’s a big milestone. We should celebrate. If you have time next week, we could go for ice-cream at theCreamery.”
His suggestion had me wincing. I loved that parlor and I loved the idea of going with him, but it was a place he’d bring me to when I was a kid, and that made me feel so young, like I’d blown out thirteen candles instead ofeighteen.
“Sure,” I said, just as the van turned the corner. I started heading toward it, but paused. “You didn’t answermyquestion.”
“I’m leaving tomorrowmorning.”
I clenched the pouch that held my little palm tree. “For howlong?”
“Twonights.”
I swallowed and eased my grip before I could break the creation like I’d broken us. “Huh,” I ended up saying. Not very eloquent, but it beat the wounded sound forming at the back of mythroat.
As I staggered the few feet that separated me from the van, I attempted not to topple from the weight of the war raging within me. I paused by the car door, the desire to admit my lie burning on my tongue. I glanced over my shoulder. August was reading something on his phone’sscreen.
Something that made himsmile.
Had the River Alpha’s daughter sent him a textmessage?
“Ness?” My uncle’s voice made me jump. “I’m holding up traffic,sweetie.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled, getting into thecar.
I didn’t look at August as we drove away, afraid he was still smiling at hisphone.
37
“Last coatof paint goes on tomorrow,” Jeb said before heading into his bedroom. “If we start early, we could be done with everything by nightfall and move in onSunday.”
“Only if you take the biggerroom.”
“Ness—”
“Please, Jeb. I can’t live in their room.” Already moving into my old home, however different it would look with fresh paint and new furniture, was going to bedifficult.
“You’resure?”
“Two hundredpercent.”
He looked at me a long time before saying, “Okay,” then drummed his fingers against the doorframe. “Have a good night, sweetie. And again, happybirthday.”
Once his door clicked shut, I reached for my zipper and started easing it down, but then the memory of August smiling at his phone had me tugging it back up and grabbing mykeys.
Maybe it hadn’t been the River Alpha’s daughter on the other end of hispleasantconversation, but either way, I wasn’t letting him leave without understanding my reasons for shutting himout.
I wrote Jeb a note that I was going over to a friend’s house and left the paper on the dining table. Ten minutes later, I was standing in front of August’s front door. I lifted my finger to the ringer, but before I could press it, the dooropened.
August stood on the threshold, shirt flapping open, as though I’d caught him in the middle ofundressing.
“How—how did you know I was here?” My voice tripped in time with mypulse.
He tapped his bare midriff. “I have this nifty, built-in mate-detector. I believe you possess the sameone.”
My stomach was tied in too many knots to sense much over my heightened nerves. “Can I . . . can I comein?”
He drew the doorwider.
My heels clicked on the gray floorboards, echoing through the dimly lit loft. A slowly moving image of our planet seen from space ebbed on his TV screen, splashing one end of the apartment in a rich-blue glow. The only other source of light came from the glass fixture suspended over the kitchen island, dimmed to its lowestsetting.
