“I’m sorry,” Eva husked.
“No. You did nothing wrong.” I drew back. “He was way out of line. You know that, right?”
She hiccupped.
“Eva,” I said carefully, “has Lenny ever done that before?”
Her eyes shimmered as they stared into mine, and for a long, trembling moment, I thought she wouldn’t answer. At last, she nodded slightly. “Once.”
My heart dropped into my stomach.
“Last day of school. He… he cornered me by the lockers.” Eva choked out the words.
The door to the Honey Shoppe rattled. Eva jerked in my arms, but it was only Izzy, who called through the door. “Let me in, lovebirds! We have a wedding emergency.”
A panicked look overtook Eva’s features. “You can’t tell her!”
“What?” I shook my head. “Ev, we have to.”
“No!”
I stared, stunned. Eva Moreau was the most fearless person I’d ever met, and the anxiety painting her face now was wrong, all wrong. Hatred burst under my skin for the boy who’d made her cry like this, who’dtouchedher without permission.
My eyes fixed on her swollen lip. “We need to tell someone.”
If I’d thought she looked panicked before, it was nothing on the terror that seized her now. “Not Izzy.”
“Helloooooo,” her sister called, wiggling the doorknob. “Is someone in here? Market’s still going.”
Eva turned desperate eyes on me. “Please, Arthur.” Her voice was fainter than before. “I just want to forget it, okay?”
I hesitated. This… this didn’t feel right.
Eva took my hand and pressed her lips to my knuckles. It wasn’t a kiss, not really, but it was warm and pleading. “I don’t want to be another thing my neighbors talk about,” she croaked. “Please.”
She was looking at me with so much fear. So much hope. No one looked at me like that.
I didn’t want to disappoint her.
“Okay.”
Relief melted over her face. “Promise me.”
I nodded. “I promise.”
The moment the words slipped past my lips, I knew they were a mistake.
Chapter 20
Isobel
Dawson’s Bar was the last place Isobel should be right now. Of course that’s where Lenny went.
Outside the door, Isobel hesitated. The flickering rainbow lights shining through the glass cast her pale skin in every color of ruin and play. It beckoned her to shuck off her worries, to enter.
To stay.
She steadied herself with a long breath. She’d gone almost a year without drinking, and it felt good. She didn’t want to go inside, but Lenny was in there, and Lenny was looking for the people she loved most.
