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He rolled his eyes. “Aha. Okay. Quickly adaptable, I see. Sure. We’ll go. Where shall I take you, Addalee?”
Mary bumped him in the side. “Not acknowledging it doesn’t make the demon go away.”
“You think I don’t know that?” He sighed but went to the fridge and came back with a yogurt, which he handed me with a plastic spoon. “Eat that.”
It was almost lunchtime. “I meet Ryker today for lunch at a bar near his house, assuming they’re open. Could you drop me off there? We do it twice a week. She likes it because there are lots of people to watch and mess with, and I like it because…”
Something flashed across his face. “Because he feeds you and doesn’t seem to pay attention to the fact that you are otherwise suffering. Yeah, I get it. Come on, you can leave the yogurt if you’re eating lunch.”
“She doesn’t need your permission to eat.” The demon again.
So this is what today is going to be like.
Chapter
Five
Cruise listened to more jazz in the car, and we didn’t say much. My demon had a way of making rooms silent. She was great about that. Mary insisted I take her coat with me when I left.
“I can’t take your coat,” I tried to explain.
She shook her head. “It was Jamie’s. She would want you to have it. She was always giving her stuff to other people. I can hear her now—why would you leave a perfectly good coat in my closet when Addalee could use it?”
I held it for a second. “Sometimes it’s nice to hang on to things from people who aren’t in our lives anymore.”
I actually kept one of Ryker’s baseball cards in my bag. It wasn’t worth any money, but he gave it to me to hold one day, and I never gave it back. He was still in my life, but maybe it was anticipatory separation or something that had me keeping it. I knew someday he’d be gone.
“I have lots of things from her. Take this. Please.” She hugged me then. “Tell your demon I said to go fuck herself.”
With that, she turned and left. Willow waved from the kitchen. She wanted to tell me something, but I really had noidea what. Their lives weren’t my business, though, even if I wished things were different.
The cold air hit me, but it had already warmed up enough that the snow melted from the trees onto the ground around us as Cruise drove down the highway. The mountains clawed up at the too-blue sky like angry gray teeth. Seeing them always surprised me. We lived so close to them, but I couldn’t see them most of the time, not from where I lived or how I spent my days.
“Thank you for last night.”
He turned his head to look at me. “You’re welcome. We liked having you over. I’m glad I invited you. Come anytime you want. Open invitation.”
“Is Mary different now than before she was possessed?” I didn’t know why I asked. I was always going to be this way, so what difference did it make?
He nodded. “For sure, yes. I’m different, too, and I wasn’t possessed. We lost James—that played a huge role in it, I’m sure. But she’s harder. Mary was fun. It was just the three of us and paid help to watch us through the trust. Technically, our uncle was our guardian, but he was never around. He died when Mary and James were eighteen, and they hadn’t seen him in five years. Four for me, because I went out to see him to get some papers signed.”
I noticed Mary always called their late sister Jamie, but Cruise stuck to James. I wondered if the difference in names lingered from when she’d been alive.
He continued. “But it was just the three of us. She’s not as easily joyful now. Ten years ago, she would’ve danced barefoot in the snow until I screamed at her to get inside before she got frostbite.”
I smiled, amused by the mental picture he painted. “Maybe it’s more like she’s an adult now?”
“Thrown into it early, more like, thanks to her demon. Yes, that’s what it’s like. Adulting. I had two people and the demons tried to take them from me. They got one.” He pulled up to the bar, shooting me a quick glance out of the side of his eye before popping the car in park. Ryker leaned against a wall outside, tucked into gloves, scarf and a hat, besides his work coat. His jeans were slightly stained, which told me he’d likely spent the night plowing snow and didn’t want to get a nicer pair ripped.
Cruise took my hand, squeezing my fingertips to capture my attention. “Text me later? Just to tell me you’re safe. It’s supposed to warm up tonight, but if I can ever help you…please come to me, okay?”
“I don’t know if I can ever be as brave as your sisters.” It wasn’t easy to accept, but it was honest. I accepted being a coward.
“That’s the demon talking, whether you know it or not. See you later, Addalee. Tell Ryker I said hello.”
I stepped out of the car, and Cruise sped off. Ryker was by my side fast. “Was that your boss?”
“Yes. He says hello.”
