AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Lillian clearly did not much appreciate the word “yeah,” but she nodded for him to continue.
“I was just thinking,” he said, “we don’t know each other all that well, do we? I mean, like—for people who are related to each other. I wondered, and this might seem strange, if you have any stories about when Ash was a kid.”
Aunt Lillian blinked. Jared figured that was Aunt Lillian’s equivalent of staggering back with a hand pressed to her heart. “Yes,” she said, her voice chillier than ever. “Yes, I do.” She rose and went to the glass-fronted bookcase at the other end of the room and took out a cloth-covered photo album with sepia roses on the front. She stood by the bookcase holding the album in her hands and regarding Jared.
Then she strode over to one of the sofas with scarlet canopies. She sat down, her back straight, like someone trained at the most genteel military academy in the world. “You can come sit by me,” she said graciously.
Jared came and sat on the couch, enough of a distance away so that Aunt Lillian had her space and close enough to see the photo album. It was possible he slumped a little more than usual.
“I am pleased you are taking an interest in the family, Jared,” Aunt Lillian said. “It matters a great deal to me.” She paused and added, “It is the only thing in the world that matters to me.”
Jared felt a stab of guilt. He felt okay using Aunt Lillian and having underhanded motives, but it got more complicated if she actually cared what he did. It also made him accept something he really had known before. Back in San Francisco, in the last of a long string of apartments, he’d woken up to hear Mom and Aunt Lillian arguing. Mom had never lost her accent, but it had been weird to realize that he couldn’t differentiate between their voices. It was like lying in the dark listening to his mother arguing with herself. Except that the two voices had very different things to say.
He’d wanted to believe it was Aunt Lillian who said “He won’t be any use” and his mother who said “Of course we’re taking the child. I do not care if you don’t want him: I do.”
But he’d known, really, that it wasn’t.
Which begged the question, why would Aunt Lillian want him, and what for?
Jared leaned farther backward into the cushions, even though the straight line of Aunt Lillian’s spine reproached him. “So,” he said. “Tell me about Ash.”
At the point when Jared relayed Ash’s habit of hiding his cuddly toys in the freezer, Kami started to laugh in the movie theater.
Ash glanced over at her.
“Sorry,” Kami murmured. “Just—the movie’s funny.”
Ash looked back at the movie, in which a small blond child was dying of leukemia.
“I have a very warped sense of humor,” Kami whispered.
What she had was the deep desire to beat Jared’s head in. She knew how this date should have gone. She would have sneaked looks over at Ash. A few times their gazes would have met and parted after an instant too long. She would have left her hand lying on the arm of the seat invitingly, and he would have taken it. But instead she’d been trying to maintain a poker face while being regaled with the story of when Ash was four and had stuffed a prawn up his own nose.
After the movie, Ash and Kami left the theater and meandered down to walk by the riverside. It was twilight, the moon turning the Sorrier River into a silver ribbon and turning Ash’s fair hair into silver threads.
“So, that movie was …,” Ash said. “Uh …”
“Very much so,” said Kami. “There’s only one cinema in Sorry-in-the-Vale, and we only play one movie a week, so they pretty much know that they’ve got a captive audience. Not that this is an excuse for how many times I’ve watched Casablanca.”
“Do they change it up?” Ash asked. “Like, one week, touching stories of love and loss and the human condition, and the next week—er—mutant killer werewolves? Not that I’m saying I personally would choose werewolves.”
“If we ever got a shot at werewolves,” Kami said, “I’d choose werewolves too. For the novelty value alone.” She slanted a look at Ash. “Regretting your parents’ rash decision to move back here, oh cosmopolitan traveler?”
“Nah,” said Ash. “Everything’s better here. The air is easier to breathe, and my mother’s much happier. My family’s—different.”
“I had not noticed that,” Kami told him. “At all.” She thought of the Lynburns running out to soak up a storm. It was bizarre, and seemed impossible now, with Ash walking beside her in the quiet night and holding her hand in his. She could touch him, and it was easy.
Ash shrugged, and his hand tightened on hers. “Families,” he said. “They can be hard. But you have to try your best for them, don’t you?”
He swung Kami’s hand, and they exchanged a smile going over the arch of the wooden bridge.
“So,” said Ash. “What were you and Jared fighting about? I heard—”
“I don’t want to talk about Jared!” Kami said, and decided to give another stab at being Mata Hari and extracting information from men with her wiles. “So … tell me about the difficulties in your family.” She wondered if Mata Hari had ever found it tricky to know how to put things.
“Well,” Ash said doubtfully, “you already said you didn’t want to talk about Jared.” He grinned at her again. “I don’t really want to talk about my family either.”
He used her hand to spin her into him a little, as if they were doing a subtle dance. He stood looking down at her, now close, and the moonlight trembled on his lashes. He leaned down while Kami leaned against the rail of the bridge and turned her face up to his. The first touch of his mouth was gentle, light, and sweet.
