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“Why can’t you believe it? You’re good at this. You deserve this.”
“Thanks.” Her gaze lights on me with tender gratitude. But there is a question in her eyes too. “What about you, Ave?”
“What about me?”
She hesitates for a moment, studying me as we stand near the long bar where she and I so often worked together. “Everything okay with you?”
“Yeah. Everything’s great.”
My reply is automatic, honed by years of practice in pretending I’m fine despite the turmoil inside me. Maybe Tasha has experience doing the same, because she tilts her head, her eyes searching mine. It’s all I can do to resist the urge to shutter myself from her scrutiny.
Not that it would work with her anyway. In the relatively short time we’ve been friends, she always seems to see right through me.
“How’s your mom doing?”
Even though I confided in Tasha a couple of weeks ago, after Nick and I came back from the prison in Pennsylvania, it still jars me to hear someone ask about my mother. Her incarceration for murdering her abusive husband had been a secret I’d kept for a decade—one of many I wanted to leave behind me when I moved to New York. I’m certain I’d still be keeping her a secret, but then she took a bad fall and I had no choice but to rush to the
prison to be with her.
Nick followed me there, even though it was the last place I wanted him to be. I didn’t want anyone to see that part of my life, least of all him. But he stayed with me for as long as I needed. And then, when I was ready, he brought me back home.
“She’s okay, all things considered,” I tell Tasha. “Her broken ribs and pierced lung are on the mend, but her leg is healing slower than they hoped. They tell me she’ll be in the infirmary for a while yet, possibly a month.”
Tasha nods. “She’s lucky. A fall down a flight of stairs like that could be deadly at her age.”
“I know.” And even as I say it, my thoughts turn to the threatening text I received this morning. The man who sent it had also called me soon after my mother’s accident.
At the time I hadn’t questioned how he knew about her fall so quickly. I was too shaken by the sound of his voice—and by the fact that he had found me—after so many years. Now, I have to wonder if he’d had something to do with harming my mom. Could her fall have been something other than accidental? The very possibility makes the chill in my blood turn even colder.
I can’t suppress my shudder, and I only hope Tasha doesn’t spot my discomfort before one of the new bar staff comes over to speak with her. As they go over the day’s specials on a tablet, I breathe a sigh of relief for the moment’s distraction. I need it, if only to get a grip on my suddenly racing heartbeat and the clamminess that’s gathering at the back of my neck.
“On second thought, I’d prefer a less obvious wine pairing with the roasted duck,” Tasha says. “The Chardonnay is good, but can we try something more interesting?”
“We could do a red,” the other woman suggests. “Cabernet or Pinot noir would both work equally well.”
Tasha shakes her head. “Again, too expected.”
“What about a Carménère?” When both women look at me, I shrug. “We tasted a nice Chilean one last spring, if I recall. Do we still stock it?”
“We do,” Tasha says, a grin spreading over her face. “And you’re right. It’s perfect. Go with that one,” she instructs the other employee before sending her off to change the menu. “God, I miss working with you, Avery. You ever want to come back, just say the word.”
I slant her a look. “And work at the restaurant my boyfriend now owns? I don’t think so. But I do need to find work soon. I’m going to go crazy if I don’t have something productive to do during the day when Nick is working. Besides, I can’t stand the idea of depending on him for room and board while I’m not contributing anything.”
Tasha smirks. “I doubt he’d say you’re not earning your keep. Besides, what about your art? Haven’t you been painting?”
“Not for a while.”
“How long?”
“I don’t know. A couple of weeks, maybe.”
I try to sound nonchalant, but she catches on. “You mean, not since you moved in with him.”
“Yeah. I guess so.” At her contemplative, vaguely disapproving look, I rush to explain. “When Nick and I are together, there’s no time for anything else. In case you haven’t gathered, the man is . . . intense.”
“I’ve gathered,” she says, a droll look in her eyes. “What about when you two aren’t tearing each other’s clothes off? You said yourself you need something to do while he’s busy being king of the corporate world.”
“I want to paint,” I admit. “But I can’t exactly set up in the penthouse and do it.”
