“So you mean the worst has happened”—she smiled up at him—“and all I get to do is listen to you perform with an incredible singer and watch you do something you love. Oh, the horror.”
He seemed momentarily nonplussed. “I can’t believe … you.”
“Good or bad.”
G.B. laughed tightly. “Good … very, very good. You’re just being really cool about this.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“No,” he said with an edge. “I can assure you it’s not. And I better get going. I’ll just walk you back to will-call—”
“It’s only down at the end here, right? Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself.”
G.B. paused again, his eyes roaming around her face. Then in a quick move, he dropped down and kissed her on the cheek.
“Thank you so much. The ticket’s under your name. Just give them your driver’s license.”
Man, he smelled good. “I’ll see you afterward?”
“Go to the lobby and wait—I’ll find you. After the event, they sometimes loosen things up and I might be able to sneak you back then. It depends on how cool her staff is.”
“I’ll be there, and take your time. I don’t mind people watching.”
“And then we’ll have drinks, yes?”
“You can bet on it.”
For a split second, she was convinced he was going to kiss her again—this time on the mouth: He focused on her lips and tilted toward her. But then at the last minute, he pulled away and blew out an exhale.
“I gotta go,” he said ruefully.
“Break a leg—or is that only for actors?”
“Coming from you, it works for me, and that’s all that matters.”
On an impulse, she reached out and squeezed his hands. “See you in a bit.”
As she turned away, he said, “Cait.”
She glanced back at him. “Yes?”
“That woman in there … she’s not you, all right? I don’t want to scare you off.”
“You haven’t.”
He smiled a little. And then he lifted his hand in a wave and strode away, rounding that corner with his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants and his head down like he had no intention of engaging with Jennifer again.
Making her own way, Cait went back to the lobby, his last words lingering with her. As she got out her driver’s license and stood in line in front of will-call, she thought … he wasn’t the type who was going to scare her off.
That other man was.
The two were opposite ends of the spectrum, for sure—and it was so much healthier to focus on the latter instead of the former…
When it was her turn up at the Plexiglas window, she put her ID in the sliding drawer and leaned into the microphone that was mounted in the glass.
“Cait Douglass,” she said. “I believe there’s a ticket for me?”
The man on the far side nodded, his voice tinny through the little speaker. “Sure thing, Miss Douglass.”
Cait glanced behind her, searching the faces of the late arrivals who were rushing to get to the ushers.
“What was the name again?”
She refocused. “Cait? With a C? The Douglass has two Ss?”
The guy went back to a box that held a lineup of envelopes, leafing through with deft fingers that had clearly gone through that motion a number of times. “Nope. Nothing by that name.”
She put her purse on the marble ledge. “G.B. was supposed to leave it for me?”
All she got was a shaking head. “I’m really sorry. There’s nothing in your name.”
“Are there any tickets I can buy?”
“The event’s sold out, I’m sorry.”
Cait opened her mouth. But what could she do? There were people who were waiting behind her, and it wasn’t like she could negotiate with No Vacancy.
As he pushed the sliding drawer back to her, she took her license and moved free of the line.
Stalling out, she thought … okay, not what she had planned.
Chapter Thirteen
“Take me to my parents. Please.”
At the sound of Sissy’s voice, Jim came awake like a rubber band, consciousness snapping his neurons alive, his body jerking out of its slump on the floor. From habit, he checked his watch. Ten o’clock.
Sissy was standing in the doorway of her bedroom, dressed in the jury-rigged outfit he’d laid out for her, nothing but a button-down shirt of his, and a rolled-up pair of his sweatpants to cover her up and keep her warm. Her hair was smoother than it had been, probably because she’d brushed it with her fingers. Her feet were in the pair of tennis shoes he’d found in the back of a closet downstairs.
Damn him, he thought for the hundredth time. What had he brought her back to?
And she’d asked him a question, hadn’t she…
“Yeah, I’ll run you over there.” Jumping to his feet, he was ready to go even though he’d been out like a light a moment ago. “Give me five.”
“I’ll meet you downstairs.”
As she walked by him, the calm that surrounded her was disturbing. Too expressionless. Too removed. Too opaque.
A zombie without the limp-and-snarl routine.
“Fuck,” he muttered as he went to his room, grabbed a change of clothes, and hit the shower out in the hall.
By his watch, he still had twenty-five seconds to go as he jogged down to the foyer. Sissy was by the front door as promised, her slender form bent over so she could pet Dog, that hair of hers falling down and veiling her face. As she straightened and looked Jim in the eye, her stare was that of an adult.
She might be going “home” to her parents’, but she was not a child.
“Do you want a coat?” he asked, wondering what he could give her if she said yes.
“I’m fine. I don’t feel anything.”
He could believe that—and he was the same way. “We’ll take my truck. It’s parked around back by the garage.”
That was the extent of the conversating as they left Dog behind to guard Adrian, Eddie and the house. Outside, the night was not all that old, but it was utterly dominant, no trace of the sun left, what little warmth there had been during the day having faded into another forty-degree chill.
Was spring never coming this year, he wondered.
Maybe it was waiting to see who won the war.
As they approached the F-150, he wanted to help her with her door, but she got there first and took care of herself, shutting things up, yanking her seat belt into place. Left with nothing to do for her, he went around to the driver’s side, got in, drove off.