“Gonna give me a heart attack back here.”
“It’s not like you’re trespassing.” Gassing up the hill, I glanced at her in my rearview. Still just a blob of cotton. “You’re allowed to be here.”
“Yeah, and if anyone sees my face, Rhiannon’s gonna know, and then we’re both screwed.”
“You’re not screwed.” I squinted at the glow of headlights in the distance. “I’ll be screwed, but you’ll be fine.”
“In case you haven’t noticed, bitch, I don’t want you to be screwed,” Simone said. “I want my face to heal, and then I want to forget this ever happened.”
“You and me both.” Those headlights were getting closer, meaning our paths would probably cross before we made it tothe cabin. “But, hey, worst-case scenario, if she does see you here, tell her you fell down the stairs or some shit.”
“In the average place, that would work,” Simone said. “But we all know the stupid lies we told everybody back then. Rhiannon will see right through, ‘I fell down the stairs.’”
That she would.
“It’s bullshit you’re in a position where you even have to think about that again,” I said under my breath.
“Makes it more real I guess. But I don’t know. I’ve never stopped thinking about it. Have you?”
Almost a year since I’d left. Not a day had passed when I didn’t think about it.
My phone dinged from my hoodie pocket in the back seat.
Some shuffling sounded. Simone said, “Sebastian says that he thinks you’d like this song.”
Through the speakers, the background music I’d had on changed. And I immediately recognized it.The Warmthby Paris Paloma.
There came that damn smile.
He listened to Paris Paloma? I guess it checked out for an artsy guy associated so closely with a radical feminist like Rhiannon. Still not what I’d expected.
“Tell him this is one of my favorite albums in modern music history,” I said.
A moment or two of silence passed. “Done. Is this what you guys talk about?”
“Mostly. And obscure painters we find online.” Those headlights were brighter now, closer. But they were stationary.
“Why don’t you tellmeabout obscure artists you find online?” Simone’s voice had a whiny, yet playful twinge to the edge.
“I send you music all the time.” Rounding the bend carefully, noting how icy it was, I watched those headlights like my life depended on it. “You just don’t send any back.”
“Touché.”
A big black Range Rover was parked in my driveway.
“Shit,” I said.
“What?” Simone asked.
“Stay down, and be quiet,” I said. “Axel’s outside my place.”
“Shit,” she said in the same tone. “Just lock your doors when you get out. I’ll wait a few minutes and leave after you.”
“If I lock the doors, it’ll set the alarm.”
“Lock the doors, set the alarm, get him out of here, and then unlock the car once he’s gone.”
Not the worst plan I’d ever heard. “Fine. But seriously. Shut up.”
