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Would he…
“Eyes on me,” I heard him say.
But what he said was accompanied by him placing his hand on my jaw, his fingers wrapping around one side while his thumb went to another.
I swallowed hard, my gaze once again turning to face his.
“No,” I answered his earlier question. “She’s with Val. Simi sent her out of the room.”
Just as those words left my lips, I heard a throat clear.
“Everything okay here?” Keene’s dark, velvety smooth voice said.
I couldn’t look away from Kobe, and I could tell that he was happy that his hand was on my face because I most definitely would’ve used the interruption to look away.
Eyes twinkling, he said, “Tell him that you’re okay, so he’ll leave.”
I felt more than saw Keene stiffen at Kobe’s words.
“I’m okay,” I promised Keene. “I swear.”
“What’s the code word?” he asked.
When I’d found myself sitting across the table from the seven siblings, explaining everything and telling them I needed a place to lie low for a time while I planned my next step, I’d realized that I was entering into a family unit. One that protected what they felt was their own.
That included every single person in the circus.
Me after a time.
JP after no time.
“Jumping belly beans,” I answered.
Keene sighed. “Holler if you need anything, Fol.”
“Fol” was something they’d all taken to calling me when I’d first started hanging out at the circus. I had a feeling it was due to Keene’s insight into the “she’s running away from something” first impression.
Keene was military through and through.
According to the sisters, he left when he was eighteen and only came back when he was in his midthirties when his father had taken a sudden turn for the worse.
When their father died, Keene had gotten out of the military and signed on full time with the circus, for them, he’d said.
Now, calling me Fol meant that he could hide me better. By not using my full first name, it meant that he could plausibly deny anything about “Folsom.”
“I’m not leaving,” he said. “I’m gonna sit right here and read this case file you think I need to read. But I’m not leaving.”
I felt tiny little sparks of hope reignite in my belly.
Sadly, they weren’t meant to be.
He needed to have an outlet for the feelings he was about to be feeling. And being here wasn’t a place that he could show those.
Proving my thoughts on the matter, Caristonia finished up on stage with her cats, causing the small crowd to clap and hoot and holler.
“Thank you,” I heard her call, bowing slightly. “Now for the real entertainment, my sister, Zip!”
Zip really was the “entertainment.”
