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Chapter 2
There were few places in the world more superstitious than the Greenbelt City Bingo Hall. It was a place where Friday the thirteenth and knocking on wood meant next to nothing. Instead, something as small as a chihuahua bobblehead or an old string of Mardi Gras beads was thought powerful enough to turn the tides of a game when called upon.
Aja hadn’t known how seriously people took bingo until she’d first attended and was nearly coldcocked by a little old lady for daring to sit in the seat she had claimed three years before Aja had even been born. That first warning had been the only one she’d ever needed. After that, she picked a seat in the middle row on the right side of the room, right near a thick pole that kept one side of her closed off. The pole was there to keep the building’s structural integrity sound, but for her it meant she didn’t have to spend bingo being stressed out about sitting between two strangers.
Every Wednesday evening, she spent twenty dollars on a pack of bingo sheets, blue and yellow daubers, and a large order of crinkle-cut fries. And for three full hours she felt good. Calm. Involved. All the things that seemed so far out of reach when she stepped outside of those walls.
The inside of the hall reminded her of the poorly lit church basement she’d spent so much of her childhood in. Even with their often-snappish behavior, Aja had built an easy camaraderie with her fellow players. She kept mostly to herself, but they provided plenty of entertainment from her place on the sidelines. They were so uninterested in pretense that she was confident no one was paying nearly as much attention to her as she tended to think people were.
Her favorite was Ms. May Abbott—who’d made sure to put an emphasis on the “miz” when introducing herself. A white woman in her mid-sixties, with dyed red hair, thin lips, and wrinkles around her mouth, she spoke entirely in a conspiratorial un-whisper-like whisper. Her normal seat was right next to Aja’s, and she spent the majority of her Wednesday nights giving her a running commentary of other people’s bingo faux pas. They didn’t know each other outside of the hall, but inside, they were damn near best friends. After they had formed a kinship over the house-made chicken wings and their mutual love of Tina Turner, Aja looked forward to their visits.
The older woman hadn’t shown up in three weeks though, and Aja regretted every time she’d been too nervous to exchange numbers with her. Four days after the Piggly Wiggly Incident, she planned to walk into bingo and finally work up the courage to ask one of the gossipy little church ladies in the front row if they’d heard anything. But before she could bring herself to, Ms. May came strolling in through the double doors, hair slightly askew, leopard-print leggings tight as ever, and both of her arms in bright-pink casts. The first thing Aja felt was relief that she wouldn’t have to melt under the scrutinous eyes of the church ladies. The second was pure shock.
It must have shown, because when Ms. May locked eyes with her from across the room, her lips curled into a rueful smile, and she shook her head.
“Oh my God…” Aja breathed when the other woman was finally in front of her.
Ms. May waved a dismissive hand as best she could with her arm obstructed. “It’s nothin’.”
“Nothing?” Her voice was damn-near hysterical. She knew she must have been overreacting, but she suddenly couldn’t get the distressing images of Ms. May out of her head. Bloody, bruised, battered, and worse. She’d been hurt, and that reminded Aja that the people she cared about could be hurt—something she spent an inordinate amount of time trying, and failing, to keep her mind off of.
“I fell down those damned steps of mine.” Ms. May rolled her eyes. “You should have heard me callin’ out the screen door for my no-good neighbors to come help. It would have been hilarious if I hadn’t wound up like this.”
Aja wasn’t sure how she could find any humor in that. She could have been there for hours without anyone noticing, she could have been hurt even worse. Aja inhaled shakily and pressed a hand against her sternum underneath the V-neck of her shirt. She needed to calm the hell down. Ms. May was fine. She was standing right there, heart beating and pink in her cheeks. It was hard to remember that, but very important. Every bad thing tended to feel like a tragedy in Aja’s mind, and it was never easy to convince herself it wasn’t.
“Well, do you need anything?” She pulled out Ms. May’s chair and motioned for her to sit. “You need me to get your bingo packs and daubers?”
Ms. May twisted so her back was to Aja, her head looking towards the entrance. Aja had no idea what she was searching for.
“No, honey, Wally’s bringin’ them. He’s here takin’ care of me for a little while so he’s goin’ to play my packs for me until I get these things off.”
Aja was glad Ms. May was facing away so the surprised look on her face went unnoticed. Wally was her grandson, the one who made her expression turn slightly crestfallen on the odd times she brought him up. Aja didn’t know much about Wally. Only that he lived in Charleston, wrote for a newspaper, loved baseball, and never, ever visited. She had never met a “Wally” her age before, and she had a hard time picturing him because of it. Had his name been Chase or Tyler or Jaden, she would have had a clear image. Even if that image was completely wrong. In her head, Wally was the spitting image of his grandmother. Even down to the dyed red hair. Just younger, and maybe a little taller.
“Oh!” Ms. May turned and gasped like she was surprised to see him even though she knew he was there. “That’s him comin’ over now.”
Wally was the exact opposite of the blurry outline of a man she’d pictured in her head. Instead of red hair, his was dirty blond and a little wavy, falling somewhere below his ears but above his jawline. He was tall and broad shouldered and had a plump bottom lip that was close to making his clean-shaven face appear pouty. For a few seconds, the only thing that ran through her head was how unexpectedly fine Wally was.
Then she noticed his neck. The collar of his long-sleeved raglan shirt left the expanse of it exposed and there, right against his peachy skin, was a large, red birthmark. Had she never seen him before, it would have been barely a blip on her radar. Now, it was nothing less than a glaring reminder. Physical proof she hadn’t imagined the person who’d seen her in a dark, panicked state at the Piggly Wiggly. Verification that she’d been so out of it she hadn’t even managed to move the image of his face into her long-term memory.
He seemed to float over to them like something straight out of a movie. There was nothing on his face that looked remotely like recognition when his eyes grazed over Aja, but she wished she could disappear into thin air anyway. As a general rule, she preferred to know someone a little longer before she had a panic attack in front of them. That way there was already an established repartee when it inevitably came time for her to downplay the moment and pretend it was no big deal.
“You want these right here, Gram?” His voice was the same—deep and measured—as he gestured to the table in front of Ms. May’s seat with an eight-pack of bingo sheets and a pink dauber in hand.
Ms. May nodded. “I’ll show you how I want the sheets set up in a minute. But first”—she made a show of turning her entire body in her seat until she was facing Aja with a giant, wolfish grin—“Wally, this is Aja. She’s my bingo buddy. Aja, this is Wally, my grandbaby who never comes to see me.”
Aja looked up to see Wally redden and grit his teeth before he schooled his features into a kind, if insincere, smile. “It’s Walker, actually. Walker Abbott.”
She mulled the name over in her head.
Walker.
Walker Abbott.
It was a nice name. It fit him. And the way he said it—so succinctly and with a sharpness that acted in direct contrast to the slow stickiness of his drawl—piqued her interest. There was something almost defiant in the words, like he was daring her to say something slick.
He thrust his hand out and she resisted the urge to grimace. She hated handshakes. It wasn’t the touching that bothered her so much as the fear that her grip wasn’t sure enough. That a seconds-long clasping of hands would be so inadequate that the other person would sense how weak she was.
“I’m Aja.” She cleared her throat, trying to make her voice sound less broken. “Owens.”
