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Or maybe he’s telling you he likes the memory, the voice in my head whispers.
When I get outside, Delia asks, “Do you know Danny still has your purse?”
Shauna laughs. It’s deep and hearty—the unselfconscious laugh of a person who enjoys laughing. “I’m more concerned about why it was wiggling.”
“It’s a long story,” I tell them with a wave of my hand. “But wedidcapture a prisoner. It remains to be seen whether or not Pumpkin will fall in love with us. I’m guessing no, and also that Danny will return him for a very reasonable ransom.”
“I understood very little of that,” Shauna says, though her lips are still tipped upward. That’s one of the things I like best about Shauna—she has this air of being perpetually amused by the world, and if possible, one should always be amused.
The three of us pile into the car—me in the backseat so I can prop my leg up. Several minutes later, Shauna turns into the parking lot of a strip mall that looks like it would have been solidly mediocre ten years ago. It’s old and dilapidated now, the kind of place no one would break into, because people don’t like stealing black mold.
“We’re here,” she announces as she parks.
I look at the store in front of us doubtfully. The handwritten sign taped to the top half of the door looks like one of the storefront signs I used to make with construction paper and crayons when I was seven or eight. Back then, I wanted to open a clothing store, not a bar. The name was the same, though.Glitterati.I’d decided on that by the time I was five.
Plenty of people tried to manage my expectations—school counselors, older relatives, and my mother most of all. They probably thought they were doing me a service because I wasn’t a dedicated student, but that never crushed my spirit. I knew what I wanted, and I spent years fighting to get it.
“This woman has a business license?” I ask, whistling through my teeth. “I’ve been tryingwaytoo hard.”
“You’re assuming she’s successful,” Shauna says. She turns in her seat to smile at me before exiting through her door.
“Well, she did drag all three of us non-believers here,” I mutter as I untangle myself from my belt.
“Speak for yourself,” my sister says. She’s all grace as she exits the front seat and, because she’s Delia, comes around to help me. It’ll make her feel better, so I allow it—not because I need it. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
“You believe this woman’s really psychic?” I ask, lifting my eyebrows. Then, remembering what Danny said earlier, I ask, “Does Danny know her? He made some weird comment when I told him what I was doing.”
Shauna and Delia exchange a look that fires up my curiosity. “What do you know that I don’t? Tell me quickly so I don’t pop a blood vessel in my eye.”
Shauna laughs. “Well, she ran into him a month or so back. She told him he’d already met his soulmate but didn’t make a good impression on her, so Danny…”
“Oh,” I say, trying to sound like I don’t give a shit. There’s a sick, sinking feeling in my stomach. “Huh. So he thinks it’s Daphne, I suppose. Have you met her?”
“No,” Shauna says, “but Leonard doesn’t like her much.”
“I get the sense Lucas feels the same way,” Delia adds. She’s the only one who calls her fiancé Lucas instead of Burke—but I guess it does it for both of them, because she doesn’t seem in any hurry to change her mind.
“Yeah, I don’t like her either.” The words slip out before I can get the sense to shut the fuck up.
“But you’ve never met her,” Shauna says.
I wave a hand. “She looks very serious and severe in her photos. Danny may seem like a wet blanket, but he’s actually pretty cool.”
“You looked up photos of her?” Delia asks, studying me with the intensity of a little sister who knows too much.
Shit. Mayday, mayday.
“I thought you wanted to give him a makeover so he’d have a better chance of winning her back?” Shauna adds.
“I did say that.”
Before I moved in with him. I’d said it after hearing a bare-bones account of the story from her and Delia. All I knew was that my soon-to-be roommate was going to be working with the ex-girlfriend who’d rejected him.
Shauna has a raptor instinct my sister lacks, so I know I’m in trouble.
I push open the door to the shop to avoid more thoroughly addressing their questions.
There’s a desk in front of us, and behind it, a dark-haired woman in dark glasses and a man with curly hair are aggressively making out, their tongues visible, their hands sliding under each other’s clothes. They’re so close, I could probably reach out and touch them. The air inside the shop reeks of pot and something spicy. Patchouli, maybe. Or sandalwood.
