Evie wound her scarf around her neck and pulled the matching sky-blue bobble hat over her blonde hair. ‘Dinner was lovely, Nicole. I’ll be full until next week. I’ll enjoy the walk home tonight.’
Evie pulled open the door to the apartment and picked up a stray envelope on the mat right outside. ‘Oh, someone’s left you this.’
Nicole’s outstretched hand hovered mid-air, but Evie didn’t seem to want to hand over the envelope all of a sudden. Jack peered closer, but he couldn’t tell what it was. The envelope looked normal enough to him.
‘You know what,’ said Evie. ‘It’s just junk mail. They were dropping these by our building earlier today.’ She shoved it into her pocket. ‘I’ll bin it.’
Nicole laughed and held out her hand again. ‘My bin’s closer, give it to me and I’ll get rid of it.’
But Evie was already on her way to the elevator. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow at the shelter.’
‘I’ll see you soon,’ said Jack to Nicole, and then almost ran to dive into the same elevator before Evie shot down to the ground floor and escaped into the night.
They stood side by side as the elevator moved slowly down. ‘So, what’s in the envelope?’ he asked, eyes ahead, watching the numbers of the floors change.
‘I told you. It’s junk mail.’
‘Let me see it then.’ The elevator reached the ground floor and the doors slid open.
‘Goodnight, Jackson.’
His full name on her lips made him grin. She was doing it to wind him up and it was fun to know he was getting to her. As much as he hadn’t liked her at first, and still suspected she had ulterior motives when it came to Nicole, they’d had fun tonight. And she was a pretty woman. He couldn’t help the flirt and the enjoyment of it all.
‘Hold on a minute.’ When they reached the bottom of the steps outside the apartment building, he grabbed her arm before she shot off into the night. ‘What’s the rush?’
‘It’s late. I need to get home.’
‘I’ll walk you.’
Her blue eyes looked up at him, and he was reminded again of the night she was out on the back patio at his father’s townhouse, terrified and unprepared for what life had to throw at her next. She still hadn’t taken her hands out of her pockets and he knew the envelope was inside.
Jack held out his hand and Evie stared at it. ‘Don’t worry, I don’t want to hold your hand. It’s just there’s a trash can, right over there. I’ll drop the junk mail into it.’
Hands defiantly in her pockets she said, ‘Just leave it, would you?’ She tried to go on her way again.
‘Oh no, you don’t.’ He held her arm tighter this time.
Evie spoke through gritted teeth. ‘If you don’t let go of me right now, I’ll scream and have you arrested for sexual harassment.’
He let go and held up both hands and let her go on her way. But after she’d turned around at the end of the block to make sure he wasn’t following her into the night, he went the same way as her, hanging back enough and ducking into shop doorways whenever he thought she might turn around. She didn’t live all that far from Nicole, and by his reckoning he only had another few minutes before she dumped the envelope and he wouldn’t be able to find out what it contained.
She came to a stop next to a trash can and Jack noticed she’d opened the envelope and was going through its contents right now, ready to toss away whatever it was that had changed her friendly demeanour tonight. He took a step closer, and another still, but froze. He could hear her, softly, against the sounds of the New York streets, the gaggle from a group of girls across the street, cars swishing across the blackened slush in the gutters, and she was crying.
When her hand moved to toss away whatever it was that had upset her, he stepped forwards. ‘Evie.’
She froze on the spot, but before she could do anything else, like throw the evidence into the depths of the trash, the wind whipped up around them and a selection of photographs launched into the air and then fell to the ground.
And when Jack bent down to retrieve them at the same time as Evie, his mouth fell open.
