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“Hey.”
The sound of the female voice—somehow familiar, even though I’ve only heard it once—jars me back to the waiting room. This is my first visit to a police station. I’m not sure if they’re always this empty on a Friday night, or just the ones located in small Connecticut towns.
I roll my head a little to the left, trying to be surreptitious about the motion. The waiting room’s only other occupant is listening to what whoever called her is saying, tapping her partially painted fingers against the plastic arm of the chair.
“I can’t tonight, Darcy,” she says.
A pause follows, as Darcy responds.
“No. I’m at Madeline’s. Right, yeah. No, I’ll be there tonight. Okay, bye.”
She hangs up with a sigh and looks over, catching me staring—again. A blonde brow arches in a silent challenge. And I, for some unknown reason, meet it, saying the first thing that pops into my head.
“Someone named Madeline lives here?”
Gray-blue eyes collide with mine. They’re haunting, almost. The only part of her appearance that isn’t bright and shiny and enhanced. Her lips part to speak…right as her phone rings again.
Her posture changes as soon as she looks at the screen. She stands, pacing a few strides away as she answers. “Finally checked your messages?” There’s a pause. A scoff. “Yeah, yeah. Great.Yes, that’s sarcasm.” The toe of her wedge sandal rubs a rapid rhythm against the ugly fibers of the carpet. If it were a flimsier surface, I’m confident there would be a big hole there now. “Whatever.”
She hangs up and walks out of the waiting room without so much as a final glance my way.
Disappointing because she was the only entertainment in here.
After sitting in Fayetteville’s police station for the past hour, I’m already not in the best of moods as Matt pulls his truck up alongside the curb outside my house.
Spotting the fancy car parked in the driveway sours the day further. Matt shifts into park, eyeing it too.
“I thought Maeve doesn’t get back until Sunday?”
“She doesn’t.”
“What the hell ishedoing here, then?”
Heavy irritation coats each syllable Matt utters. If there’s anyone in Glenmont who hates Weston Cole more than I do, it’s Matt. For him, just like me, it extends beyond football. Maeve bruised his ego in high school, then turned around and started dating a guy Matt already loathed. Matt needs to get over it, but I can’t say that to him without sounding like a total hypocrite.
Although he isn’t the one who has to see the guy on a regular basis.
I do.
“He’s come over a few times this week,” I admit. Something I haven’t mentioned to Matt precisely because of the annoyed expression I’m looking at now.
“What? Why?” Matt asks.
I shrug, looking at the driveway again. “His parents are getting divorced. Guess he wants to get out of the house.”
“He has friends, doesn’t he?”
I don’t answer the rhetorical question.
“Don’t your parents mind?”
My eyes leave the shiny car sitting in the driveway to give him an incredulous look. “You’re joking, right?”
Both of my parents drank the Weston Cole Kool-Aid the very first time they met him. He brought my mom flowers and talked books, then proceeded to tackle the one topic my father can’t resist discussing—football. No matter what jersey you wear, my father respects any player with talent and drive. Unfortunately, Weston has plenty of both.
“They love him,” I add.
Because in addition to being awinningquarterback who apparently actuallyreadShakespeare, not just skimmed SparkNotes, Weston seems to be just as crazy about Maeve as she is about him.
