“I doubt it,” Jonah lied. “I just moved here.”
She shook her head in disagreement. “From Hilton Head, then?” she asked. “Or… It’s Julia. Julia Ben—”
Before she could finish, the group leader put his hand on her shoulder.
“Anonymous, Julia,” he said. “It’s in the name.”
She gave him a quick, hard look. Then her manners caught up with her and she flushed, a delicate pink tint that crawled up to the tips of her ears.
“Oh!” she said. “I’m sorry. I just… he looks so familiar. I know I’ve met himsomewhere.I… Sorry. You’re right. This isn’t the time.”
She gave Jonah one last puzzled look as she tried to place him. Then she left. Her heels tick-tacked on the wooden floor as she walked away.
“Sorry about that,” the group leader said. He tucked his pen into the pocket of his shirt and pulled a rueful face. “Sometimes people don’t appreciate that not everyone wants to be seen. Glad you made it to a meeting, Hank.”
Test or a mistake? It was hard to say.
“Frank.”
“Sorry.” The smile lit up the man’s face and made his eyes bright. It made Jonah uncomfortable, like he should check behind him to see who was about to stab him in the back. “I’m Luke. See you at the next meeting?”
Probably not. Jonah just found himself unexpectedly reluctant to say that out loud. Or, more accurately, to Luke's open, agreeable face. What would be worse? Disappointment or indifference?
Oh…That’swhat it was.
The realization put Jonah on the back foot for a second. It wasn’t like it was a sexual awakening or anything, but it was so… normal. Ordinary. Just like Luke, with his unruly curls and smile that wasn’t going to cost Jonah anything.
“One day at a time,” he said. “That’s how I get through it.”
That grin again, the one that didn’t look like it hid anything at all. “Fair enough,” Luke said. He reached out and gave Jonah’s shoulder a companionable slap. “Then I hope to see you there. Right now, I need to go and sign some forms.”
He walked away. His jeans weren’t designed to let you see exactly what you shouldn’t want to touch. Jonah thought he might be charmed by that.
Speaking of charms, it could still be a trap.
That, weirdly, set his mind at ease. He knew how to function in the sweaty crush between suspicion and attraction. Slide in a knife-edge of genuine fear of death and it would be every relationship he’d ever had.
Yeah… normal was weird.
Jonah drained his coffee, tossed the cup, and headed out. It was dark out and warm enough to make him break a sweat just from stepping onto the pavement. The smell of maple trees hung sickly sweet on the breeze, like cherry jam.
His pickup was parked across the street under a streetlight. It had been an impulse buy. The paint job was a patchwork of primer red and rusted-up blue, the windscreen had a crack in it, and it drove like a hobbled tank. One day he’d convince himself that a vehicle he didn’t care about was a refreshing change.
He fished his key ring out of his pocket and fumbled through it as he loped across the road. The hex sign hung from the rearview mirror—he’d not made it, so it didn’t count—caught the light on reflective copper rosettes.
“I know you.”
Jonah flinched. The skin across his shoulders hadn’t relaxed since last time, and now his hackles were up. Just because she was right didn’t mean she wasn’t rude. Jonah didn’t want to see the people he did care about, let alone some old schoolmate he’d not even known was still alive.
He turned around with a snarl.
“I told you—” It wasn’t Julia—whose father might, or might not, have been killed by Jonah’s granny—behind him. The blond woman who might be a lawyer stood in the middle of the road in boots that might cost more than Jonah’s pickup—not that that said much. Not what he’d expected, but it just meant his lie was actually the truth. That made it taste weird on his tongue. “We haven’t met before.”
He pulled the driver’s side door open and scrambled up into the cab. Six months since he’d bought the title from someone two towns over, and the seats still smelled of chili and BO.
“I didn’t say we had,” Deborah said, her voice clear and pitched to carry. The down-home drawl had dropped off the edge of her words and left them precise and measured. “I still know what you are. Your name’s not Frank. You’re from Babylon.”
Jonah stopped, keys just slid into the ignition.Optionsslid through his mind on smoky, subtle feet, but… 300 days.
