I smile when I see Colin leaning inside my mother’s Suburban. I cross to him quietly, pinching his sides and scaring the shit out of him.
“Back for more?” I tease.
His eyes shade over with darkness, and he wraps his hand around my throat, walking me backward until my head hits the wall.
I smirk under the grip of his hand. That blowjob must have made himextrafeisty.
“There are witnesses,” he growls.
“Of what?” I squeak.
“Ofyou. At the crime scenes. In that vehicle.” He nods back toward my mother’s vehicle.
Was he looking for evidence of some sort in there? Knowing how thoroughly Stone works and how seriously he takes his role in our group, I highly doubt he’d find any.
“Impossible,” I whisper, holding his stare. “Why don’t you tell me why you really came by?”
I swallow when he curves his hand around the side of my throat, his thumb positioned under my chin to lift it higher.
“You can’t stay away from me, detective,” I taunt. “Why is that?”
He pushes his thumb harder against my chin, bending my neck and lifting my lips closer to his, his light eyes stormy with conflict.
“Do it.” The words leave my lips in a quiet, desperate demand. He flinches almost imperceptibly, and that fickle hatred flitters off into the background, his eyes crystal clear with everything he always tries to hide.Just fucking do it already.
Stone clears his throat awkwardly from the doorway, and Colin releases me, taking a large step back.Damn.
“My friends are here,” I say tightly.
He glares at my three friends hovering in the doorway. “I can see that.”
“Don’t stop on account of us,” Maeve quips. “That was just starting to get interesting.”
He turns his glare to me, hoisting a finger in my direction. “Don’t leave town,” he demands before storming out the way he came.
“You see,” I explain to Stella, moving back into the house and falling onto the couch dramatically. “Helovesme.”
“You are out of your mind,” she says. “But…I can kind of see what you mean. It kind of looked like he was about to kiss you.”
“I know. It’s crazy.”
Maeve drops onto the couch beside me, running her hand through my hair. “Well, he won’t have to worry about you leaving town tonight, because we’re going to a party.”
Stone urges Stella toward the front door, explaining that they have errands to run and they’ll come back to pick me up later.
“Do you want to paint your possum?” Maeve asks, already moving to gather the painting supplies from the cabinet near the front of the house. I stay lying with my eyes closed on the couch, imagining what it would have felt like to have finally had Colin’s lips on mine.
They wereso close.Wewere so close. What would have happened if we’d been alone? If that tight string between us had snapped, and we fell into each other? I think about it for so long, lost in the daydream, that I forget Maeve is here entirely. The music humming from the speakers goes quiet before the next song starts, this song’s guitar intro heavier than the last, making me feel antsy.
“Chlo?” She’s already settled in the foyer, a tiny canvas situated onto the large easel in front of her as she perches on a stool. Besides connecting over our sharedtraumas—and then our shared darkness—Maeve and I found connection in art.
While my style has leaned a bit more toward painterly, Maeve’s work has a flow of its very own. Spray paint is her preferred medium. Bright, bold colors. Wild lines. That’s how it starts, anyway—until she’s done and she takes a step back. Suddenly, there’s a mural stretching from ground to sky that on more than one occasion I’ve been convinced I could walk straight through, into another world where the grass is pink and the clouds are blue.
“Not the possum,” I breathe. “The deer at Hussey Ridge.”
I’d think that she was dulling her spirit, painting these tiny, realistic canvases for me. But she says this type of art grounds her, and she’s adamant about being a part of the process. They’d never come to life under my paintbrush like they do under hers.
“What time was it?”
