He filed it away and watched the stage.
Then Willa moved toward the refreshments area.
Ace watched her go. Harvey stayed with Margo, laughing at something Rad had just said. Ace waited a reasonable intervaland excused himself from Sienna’s group with a gesture toward the bar.
The refreshments area was set back from the main floor behind a low partition, and Willa was standing at the end of the bar waiting for her order when Ace arrived beside her.
She looked at him.
“Hello, Ace,” Willa greeted him with a tight smile. “I guess this is no coincidence running into you at the bar?”
“Hello, Willa,” Ace greeted her back. “Actually, I was going to point out that I’m surprised to see you here at the concert I asked you to go to, and you turned me down.”
Willa turned to look at him properly.
“No, I said I couldn’t go to the opening concert last week,” Willa corrected him. “But this week Harvey got tickets and asked me to go, so here I am. You know this is one of my favorite Florida bands.”
“You’re here with Harvey,” Ace said.
“Harvey, Margo, and Rad,” Willa corrected and glanced back to the seats where he’d come from. “I see you’re with a crowd too.”
Ace looked at her, and everything he wanted to say boiled up inside of him, but then he remembered why he was here with Sienna and the promise he’d made to Holt and June, plus the uncomfortable wire stuck to him beneath his shirt.
“Oh, there comes the bartender,” Willa pointed out and turned her back to him, indicating that the conversation was over.
“Enjoy the show,” Ace said through gritted teeth and left her there. His fists curled into balls at his sides.
Ace breathed a few relaxing breaths as he went back to his seat. His eye caught Willa as she returned to the group and handed out the drinks. Something in his stomach knotted when he watched Harvey’s arm come up around Willa’s shoulders, and the way Willa didn’t step away, she leaned slightly into the embrace.
Ace looked away as Sienna leaned over and asked, “Where are the drinks?”
“The bar was way too crowded,” Ace lied. “I’ll go back later.”
“Good idea,” Sienna said as she and her friends stood for the next song so they could dance to the beat.
Ace’s head kept swiveling back to Willa’s group, who appeared to be having a considerably better evening than the one he was currently having.
His irritation was specific. Ace was entirely aware of its source, and he had no right to it whatsoever, which made it worse, not better.
He pulled his attention back to the group he was with as the other two people in their group went to the bar.
Sienna watched them go.
Ace turned toward her, knowing now would be a good time to get some of the rehearsed questions out.
“Are you enjoying the concert?” Ace asked.
Sienna looked up at him with a flirty expression. “I’d be enjoying it considerably more if you paid me attention the same way my friend’s boyfriend does to her.” She gave him a sultry smile and shifted closer.
Ace smiled without committing to anything and let the comment go. “How are you holding up with everything going on with your mother?” he pushed on with his questions.
Sienna’s expression changed.
It was less than a second. The kind of involuntary shift that happened before conscious management could intercept it. What moved across her face in that fraction of time was not the grief or worry or complicated distress of a daughter in a genuinely difficult situation.
It was something considerably colder.
“To be completely honest,” Sienna said, her voice dropping, “I don’t particularly care what happens to that woman.” She held his eyes for a moment. “Good riddance, as far as I’m concerned.” Her expression returned to its usual composed surface. “I just want everything in that safe back.”
