“How’s your mom?” Nash interrupts.
I clear my throat, not going there. “Fine.”
“I always liked her,” he says with an annoying slant of his mouth.
“Like I was saying?—”
“You still in Fontain?”
I grind my teeth.
“Not at the moment.” I pin him with a look. “But normally, yes.” And because I’ve become a crazy bitch: “Same place I was when you left eight years ago.”
“You mean the same place you were when you told me to leave and never come back?” His brows lift, almost amused. “I remember it well.”
We hold each other’s stare and I’m annoyed by how accurate both versions of the story are. But he’s leaving out one important detail: I told him to leave because he’d already told me it’s what he wanted to do.
I don’t say that though. Rehashing the history between us isn’t why I’m here. I’ll play nice as long as it takes for him to give me the divorce and information I need.
I force a tight smile. “Glad to see your memory’s intact, Nash.”
He props his elbows on the table and leans into them, his arms flexing slightly as he does. “Memory’s right as rain, Rue.”
I hate the way my name sounds on his lips almost as much as I hate the way my eyes linger on the inked lines of the two lanterns on his arm—the signal that the British were traveling by sea, triggering Paul Revere’s famous ride. It’s one of Nash’s favorite stories of the American Revolution.
“As I was saying. I?—”
“I think about you,” he says. “Is that crazy? All this time, and I still think about you. That summer.” I make the mistake of looking at him and it physically hurts. His brown eyes on mine generate an actual pain in my chest. “You know what I mean?”
The waitress becomes my new favorite person because she delivers our Bloody Marys at that very moment. I don’t have to answer him because I’m too busy tossing the olive-shrimp-pepper-pickle garnish stack on the table and draining half the drink.
I’m broke and my mother needs her brain sliced into—divorcing the man I thought I was already divorced from is supposed to be the fastest, easiest of my problems to solve. Yet here he is, dragging me down memory lane and forcing me to dump liquor down my throat so I can handle this and him.
Cap chuckles. “You thirsty there, kiddo?”
My mouth fills with the vodka-spiked tomato juice to the point my cheeks nearly pop before swallowing. I feel Nash’s eyes all over me. There isn’t enough alcohol in this swamp-aired city to take the edge off.
“Fine.” I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. I might not have a choice in being here with Nash, but I refuse to let him play his game of smooth words and easy smiles. It confused me once, but it won’t again. “And I don’t know what you mean. We were a long time ago.”
The way we look at each other makes me think we’re part of two different conversations. I’m thoroughly pissed he exists and tilt my chin to convey that, while his lips lift as if I’ve said something funny.
“Rue here wants the Anson Burns gold,” Cap explains. “All wound up over it.” When I glare at him: “And you should see her when she screams.”
“Oh trust me,” Nash says, borderline wicked, “I’ve seen her scream.”
Cap, that sicko, chuckles.
I take one calming breath. Then another. “I’m about to scream now if you two don’t shut the hell up.”
Nash snorts. “You’re a treasure hunter now?”
I mirror his position, propping my forearms on the table.
“Agoldfinder,” I correct. “AndDadhere said we need help with some of the ... clues”—the word is idiotic—“and that someone in your profession might be able to give us information we seem to be missing.”
I pass him the article about Cap’s arrest, and his eyes flick between Cap and me before he slips a pair of wire-framed glasses out of his pocket and onto his face.
The glasses are new, and it’s an effort for me not to stare or care that this change happened without my knowledge. I force my gaze to a seafood-themed mural on the wall with a cartoon crab who has the audacity to look happy.
