I could use a little gab when Lucky takes me home from Sunday dinner and—after I text Evie and find out that Mom is out of the apartment on another one of her “night drives” around the harbor—drops me off in front of the bookshop. I just don’t know what to say to him, not when he’s all clammed up and pushing me away.
He’s back to being intimidating and distant, and as I hand him back the sparkly tri-corn horse helmet, I’m weighing whether I should try to be gabby, like Mom, or serious, and tell him about all the things I realized in his garage.
But before I can speak up, a bright blue sports car with an obnoxious, thundering racing engine screeches its brakes in front of the shop. Hypnotic music thumps from the interior, and three pale, male faces look out at us. I don’t know the two in the front, but the boy with his arm hanging out the back window is more than recognizable.
“What do we have here?” Adrian Summers drunkenly says. His face is still bandaged from the wreck with Evie, and he’s got terrible bruises under both eyes. Two crutches are propped on the seat next to him. “It’s the littlest Saint-Martin and Beauty’s only one-man motorcycle gang. I smell collusion.”
“And I smell vodka,” Lucky says with feigned cheerfulness. “Do you have a liquor license for your bar-on-wheels? Gonna have to report you to town hall if you don’t.”
Adrian makes a sloppy shooing gesture to Lucky and points a water bottle at me, the contents of which aren’tquiteclear. “You. Is Wild Winona home?”
All my muscles tense. “Go away, Adrian.”
“I need you to do me a favor. Go upstairs and tell Evelyn to come down here. She’s not answering my texts, and I need to see her.”
No way in hell am I doing that. The two guys in the front seat are staring out at us, chuckling, and they look as inebriated as Adrian. Not sure if they’re Goldens or some of his Harvard buds, home for the summer.
“She’s probably in class,” I say.
“On Sunday?” Adrian says.
“She has a test,” I tell him. Ugh, Lucky’s right. I’m a terrible liar. She’s only taking one class this summer, and Adrian probably knows it.
“It’ll only take a minute. Tell her to come down now,” he says, slapping the car door with his open palm twice. “Chop-chop.”
“No one’s telling Evie anything,” Lucky says.
“Stay out of this,” Adrian warns. “Not your fight.”
“Not anyone’s fight,” I say. “I’ll tell her you came by.”
“But I’m here right now, and I came all this way. Come on,” he says, “Go fetch Evie.”
“I’m asking you nicely to please leave.”
“What if I say no?”
Lucky swings off his bike. “Get the hell out of here, Summers.”
“Or what? You’ll punch me? Call the cops and get thrown in jail again? And why are the two of you always together? Methinks you got a little something going on.”
“Not your business, is it?” Lucky says.
Adrian grins. “I mean, sure, she looks nice with her clothes off, but we’ve all seen it. Not worth it, man.”
Adrian’s buddies in the car laugh along with him.
Lucky swears profusely and starts to lunge for the car, but I grab his arm.
“Keep talking like that,” I tell Adrian, hoping I sound braver than I feel, “and I’ll make sure to remind Evie what kind of an asshole you are, and how she made the absolute right decision to stay away from you.”
Adrian glares at me for a moment and then lazily points his water bottle at Lucky. “Haven’t forgotten about you. Gonna get you back for that window, grease monkey. Eye for an eye …”
Signaling his buddies in the front seat, Adrian gives up on us, and the car peels away from the curb—causing a lone SUV on the otherwise empty road to slam on its brakes and honk when they cut in front of it without looking. Then they speed down the block and disappear into the night.
“Goldens … entitled pricks,” Lucky grumbles. “You okay?”
I nod, feeling mildly creeped out. It was probably just boozy talk, nothing more. He won’t remember it tomorrow. Still. It weirds me out that we’re here alone. Maybe it shows on my face, because Lucky asks, “Hey. Do you want me to stick around, or … ?”
