I rub the back of my neck.
“Then be honest with her.”
“No.” The word comes out fast. “If she finds out, she’ll go to Boston and try to help him. And if any of this is true, that’s the last place she should be. She’d be walking right into their hands.”
“Okay, at least quit sending her down to the Lye, then.”
“Yeah,” he says. “Listen, if you see that guy again…”
“I’ll handle it.”
He nods, some of the tension bleeding from his shoulders. “I’m trying to figure this out, Lance. I swear. I just need time.”
Time. That’s what he always says.
“Go. Figure out your shit.” I pat him on the back. “I’ve got your girl.”
“Thank you,” he says. “I don’t deserve you, you know that?”
My chest twists. “We’ve established that.”
“You need a ride?”
“Nah, I’m good.”
He nods and disappears down the alley, leaving me alone with the cold.
I should go home.
But my feet carry me the other direction.
Toward HillPoint.
Toward her.
Chapter 13
Lance
“You’re lurking again.” Genevieve slides a water glass to me. “It’s creepy.”
“I’m not lurking. I’m observing.”
“Tomato, tomahto.” She wipes down the bar top, her copper hair escaping from its messy bun. “You’ve been staring at the corner booth for ten minutes. Either go say hi to your sister or stop being weird about it.”
She says it like we’re friends. Like this easy back-and-forth is something we should be comfortable with.
I take the water because I don’t know what to do with the rest of what she’s giving me, and I barely breathe until she walks away to serve someone else.
Art appears from out of the back hallway, his eyes scanning the room until they land on me. He looks tired. But before he makes his way over, Juliette’s out of her booth and in my ear.
“You’ve been avoiding me.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Bullshit.” She slides onto the stool next to me, her darkhair swinging behind her. “You’ve been ignoring our group chat again,andRoman thinks you’re back to hating him.”
“I don’t hate him.”
