Forthefirsttimein longer than I can remember, I didn’t go to Buns ‘n’ Roses before work. I didn’t put it past Donovan to wait there for me, even if it made him late to work. Eventually, we would have to talk, but right now I couldn’t handle it. His words ran in circles in my head, taunting me while I walked to work, purposely taking the long way to avoid walking past the coffee shop and the police station. It meant going several blocks out of my way, but it gave me time to think. Too much time, probably.
I’d started all of this by breaking my promise to him, true. I could admit that I’d fucked up, and I could also admit that, despite the tension, it’d been amazing to have someone else there with me while I helped Jaime move on. What would I have done if I’d had to deal with Levi Smalls alone? Just because I’d once been a traumatized child, that didn’t mean I knew how to comfort one. Case in point: I was still a mess almost twenty years later.
Arguing with Donovan about how to approach the situation may not have been ideal, but we could have worked past that eventually. He’d only been looking out for my safety and in his place, I probably would have freaked out, too. We would have talked it out afterward and gone to bed for a nap, curled up in each other’s arms.
Instead, I was walking to work alone in the frigid cold of a Colorado spring morning, trying to keep the cracks in my heart from shattering completely.
They’d kill to have a tool like that in the arsenal.
As if this cursed ability I had was the same as keeping a bloodhound on the roster. Oh no, someone died. Time to wind up the psychic and send him toddling out to get answers.
Hearing that from anyone else would have just pissed me off. But for Donovan to say it… to hear myself reduced down to just a tool by the man I loved…
That hurt. The words were thorns, digging into my heart and piercing every protective layer I had left. I’d let Donovan through my walls, let him get close, and now I’d been brought low, attacked from within by one of the few people I trusted. Odysseus himself couldn’t have done it better.
Walking into A Likely Story always felt like being wrapped up in a hug from Aunt Lizzie, and today was no exception. The soft stillness of her shop welcomed me when I let myself in and I took a moment to just breathe. I let myself pretend for a moment that she was there and I’d find her in her office, relaxed in the comfortable leather chair I’d never replaced. She’d hold me close while I poured my heart out, then comfort me and somehow come up with the perfect solution, because Aunt Lizzie always seemed to have all the answers.
Except Lizzie was gone, had been for almost seven years, and when I stepped into the office, the chair was empty and I was alone.
The quiet haunted my every move as I went through the motions of paperwork, ordering, and getting the bookstore ready for the day. It wrapped around me, dulling the sharp edges of my emotions, leaving me in a fog of apathy. This was easier. One step at a time. Open the store, work, close the store, go home. Get through the day and then I could go home and lose my shit in private.
It worked, too.
It worked for exactly one hour and eleven minutes.
Then the front door of A Likely Story flew open and Raina walked in, her dark curls tangled from the wind and a flush to her cheeks. She held a cup in one hand, a bag in the other, but the look on her face told me I wouldn’t be getting either until we’d had words. I should have expected it, really, but I’d been so focused on Donovan that I forgot how persistent my best friend was.
“Good morning,” I said, trying and failing to muster a fake smile. Probably for the best. She would have seen right through it, anyway.
“Good morning. I love you. We’re sorting this out.” She dropped the bag on the counter without pausing, coming around and grabbing what I’d come to think of asherstool. She pointed to my chair. “Sit. Talk.”
“Woof,” I muttered, earning me a glare until I did as she’d ordered. “What do you want, Raina?” It came out more snide than I’d meant it, some of my frustration leaking out.
“First of all, I want you to lose the attitude.” Her eyebrow arched at my tone.
“You’re the one who came in here barking orders, so maybe you need to loseyourattitude,” I reminded her sharply. I don’t know why I was trying to pick a fight with my best friend, but I couldn’t seem to stop myself.
Raina pressed her lips together and took a slow breath, visibly trying to calm herself before she lost her temper. It was the smart thing to do, but exactly the opposite of what I apparently wanted right now.
“If you’re here to yell at me, you can leave,” I went on when she didn’t speak right away. “I’m really not in the mood to deal with anymore bullshit this morning, especially from you.”
“Alex… don’t,” she warned, locking eyes with me. “I am your best friend and I love you. I’m sorry I came in and started bossing you around. Let’s start over.”
“Wow, did that physically hurt you to apologize like that?”Stop it, stop it, Alex, she’s your best friend, stop lashing out at her!“Maybe I don’t feel like talking to anyone. You should leave.”Leave like I made Donovan leave. Like everyone always leaves.
“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
It was hard to keep up my anger in the face of her calm tone, but I did my best.
“I’m serious, Raina. I don’t want to talk to you or to anyone right now, okay? Just leave.”
“Look, I’m not going to force you to talk.” She slid the bag and the cup of coffee over to me, a peace offering if ever I saw one. “But I’m not leaving.”
“It’s going to be awkward to sit here and eat while you’re watching me,” I grumbled, but the smell of bacon was too alluring to resist, my stomach reminding me quite forcefully that I hadn’t eaten today. Opening the bag, I found two of Camille’s mini quiches inside, one bacon, one that looked like chorizo and peppers. “I thought Camille took these off the menu until summer?”
“She did. She made a small batch so you could have them today.”
Great. Now I was officially the biggest jerk on the planet. The lingering remnants of my anger, already weakened in the face of Raina’s apology, now flickered and died, leaving me lost in that sea of apathy.
