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“Luke?” She squeezed my hand and let go, her eyes full open, still on mine.
“I owed money to an old friend from my hometown,” I said. The guilt grew but I couldn’t bring myself to force the right words—the real words—out. To see her eyes shutter, feel her hand pull away. “I... I lost something of his that was incredibly valuable. And I couldn’t pay him back for a long time, and so he started to charge interest. And it really added up.”
It wasn’t a full lie, at least. Cassie nodded, thinking. “What did you lose of his?”
“I was working for him, selling... medical supplies.” I looked away. Cassie wasn’t dumb. The honesty had felt so good, and now it was ebbing away. “And it was really embarrassing to have lost it, like, so dumb. So, so dumb how much money I owed. So I don’t like talking about it.”
“I get it,” she said, and put a hand briefly on my knee. “No further questions, Your Honor.”
“But it’s paid back now,” I said, not ready for her to move on, to get up and forget that we were getting somewhere.
She kept moving, slow, a smile almost hidden, and stood. Maybe someday when we were further away from all this, when the blood from Johnno’s nose wasn’t fresh in the drain, and when Cassie didn’t have a million other things to think about, like her mother’s safety, like the show at the Sahara she’d been rehearsing for for months and the stupid pseudoboyfriend who was tagging along, I would tell her everything, start to finish. If there was a “we.”
“Cassie,” I said, and resisted the urge to ask her to sit down again, her thigh close to mine, and we wouldn’t have to kiss, just sit, and I would run my hand down her back.
She turned, taking her hair out of its ponytail, and I was overcome. “What?”
“Your show’s going to be great tomorrow.”
A smile grew as my gaze traveled her face. But I had trouble smiling back. Cassie deserved the truth, and sooner or later I’d have to find a way to come clean. Even if it meant losing her.
