Page 25 of Redline Communion

Chapter seven

Thick as Thieves

Ash

I’m looking for Talia, not trouble, which is how most of the worst nights of my life have started.

The house is loud downstairs. Some circuit-sponsor thing Alistair is hosting, suits and church money mixing in a room designed to make both look like the same currency. I lasted forty minutes before I decided I’d rather do almost anything than watch my father work a room like it owes him something.

I text Talia. No answer. I try the east wing, the library, the little sitting room she uses when she wants five minutes away from being watched.

I find her in the private bathroom that belongs to the guest suite off the hall. The door is half open, and I almost knock before I see who’s in there with her.

Lorelei sits on the counter with her head tipped back against the mirror, eyes half-closed. Talia stands between her knees, one thumb at the corner of Lorelei’s mouth, wiping away something pale I can’t identify from the doorway.

I stop. Neither of them has noticed me yet.

“Am I interrupting something?”

Talia doesn’t jump. She never does, one of the first things I noticed about her. I used to find it soothing. Lately, it makes the back of my neck itch.

“Depends what you think you’re seeing,” she says without turning around.

“Looks like you were making out with my girl.”

I mean it as a joke. Mostly.

Talia turns. “Which one?”

Lorelei laughs, loose and warm, and pushes herself upright on the counter.

“Don’t start,” I say.

“You started it.” Talia comes toward me, unhurried. She moves differently tonight, looser than usual, and I assume she’s already had something and leave it there. “Jealous?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

She stops close enough for the front of her dress to brush my shirt. Something floral clings to her skin, and underneath it is the faint bitter smell I know from nights when this house gets too loud and she decides we both need help not caring, the chalky bite of coke.

“You can make it fair,” she says.

“How?”

“Kiss her too.”

I look past her. Lorelei is still on the counter, watching us with a smile that makes something low in my stomach pull tight. She doesn’t look embarrassed. She doesn’t look away.

There are rules here. Old ones. Most of them written by men downstairs who would choke on their drinks if they could see us now.

I cross the room anyway.

Lorelei watches me move closer. I put one hand on the counter beside her, close enough to feel the heat coming off her, not close enough to touch anywhere she hasn’t asked me to.

“Still think this is funny?” I ask.

“A little.”