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I look to see Snake walking toward me with his laptop in his hand. He sits beside me on the long couch, his eyes dancing with the delight of accomplishment. “I think I found that info Seer asked about. I know a little about where your Mom was thirteen years ago.”
My heart skips a beat. “Really? Where?”
“It’s a little delicate,” Snake begins carefully. “She was in a correctional institution in Pohang, South Korea. They convicted her on charges of drug trafficking and use and served two years in jail.”
My head suddenly goes blank. I blink rapidly at Snake with a stupefied expression. “What?” I breathe in disbelief.
“See,” Snakes says, turning his computer screen towards me. “That’s your mom right there, isn’t it?”
I gape at the image of the scraggly woman with thinning blonde hair in oversized orange overalls on the screen and back up at a proudly beaming Snake with a frown of confusion. “That’s not my ma.”
“She’s not?” Snake turns the screen to himself and does a double-take.
“What?” My voice came out in a panicked squeak, but I couldn’t even care less what I sounded like. How could he compare me to the woman on the screen? “I look nothing like that woman.”
Snake nods in agreement and smiles up at me. “No, you don’t. I was going to be polite if she was your momma, but she is ugly as fuck.”
I don’t know if I should give in to my amusement or hold on to the irritation that’s still pulsing in my heart. I decide to let out a breath of relief and let it go. I don’t think I can get used to these crude jokes that the men at the clubhouse sometimes throw around, but maybe I should learn to expect them sometimes. It would save me a lot of unnecessary embarrassment.
Snake types, his fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard. After a few seconds, he raises his face to look at me with a slight frown. “Did you say your mother’s name was Rosalinda Holly Cromwell?”
“No,” I reply, slightly bopping my head from side to side. “She was Rosalinda Hailey Cromwell.”
“My bad,” Snake says, then goes back to typing rapidly on his computer. “This is crazy,” he mutters to himself after a couple of seconds, shaking his head slowly. “I have at least a thousand people with the same name in the database. Do you have a picture?”
“Of course. I have loads of pictures on my phone.” I take out my cell phone and pull up the first photo of Mama in my gallery. “Here,” I say, holding out the phone to Snake.
He takes the phone from me and stares at the screen for a few seconds before handing it back to me. “That’s better. Now that I have a face to the name, it will make the search faster. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”
“Thank you so much for doing this, Snake.”
Snake nods wordlessly and stands up to leave as quickly as he’d come in.
As if compelled by forces beyond me, I turn to look toward the bar. My heart skips dangerously as my gaze meets Seer’s vivid blue eyes. I’d felt his eyes on me the whole time I was talking to Snake. And even now, his eyes bore meaningfully into mine. The surrounding noise seemed to fade into the background, and it felt like we were the only two in the room —in the entire world.
I wish I could make sense of the unsaid words that are floating between us. But I can’t seem to think through the loud thudding sound of my heart in my chest. If only I could summon the courage to close the short distance separating the sitting area and the bar, maybe things would stop being weird between us.
Bones says something, and he turns around to listen. And just like that, the moment is gone.
I hate the feeling of heaviness that instantly settled in my heart.
At what point exactly did I fall for Seer?
* * *
Evanesce is grinning from ear to ear, and Knix only has eyes for her as he struggles to keep up with the congratulatory slaps on the back from the guys.
“Isn’t this gorgeous?” Evanesce croons for the umpteenth time, holding her hand out to Abigail, who also doesn’t look like she’ll be tired of gushing anytime soon.
I’m happy for the couple, but I can’t seem to take my mind away from Victoria. She’s snuggled in the large window side couch in the main room, her head buried in a book. It’s odd to see someone so quietly focused on an activity amidst the noise and bustle caused by the arrival of Evanesce and Knix and the news of their engagement. Victoria has barely looked up.
She’s the peace in the chaos.
And I can’t seem to take my eyes off her–or my mind. These days, it seems every one of my thoughts comes back to her. Although, after our argument yesterday, she’s mainly kept to herself.
I wondered why I’d snapped so badly. Is it because she’d struck a raw nerve?
She had easily and matter-of-factly called my bullshit, and I’d suddenly become angry.And ashamed.
