Earlier, Gabby had said, He was kind of a dick to Lisa, and yet she saw nothing wrong with this guy keeping an eye on Lisa?
Nothing about Abram, or spending the next week in the same house as him, sounded treat-like to me. Another almost-stranger my parents trusted with one of their daughters. Granted, this guy was Leo’s good friend, and Leo did seem to have better judgment about people than either me or Lisa.
Am I really going to do this?
Yes. Yes, I was. We were about two blocks away now, I wasn’t a snitch, my sister needed help, and I’d promised. There was only one logical path forward.
But mostly, I refused to be another person in Lisa’s life who let her down. Gripping my bag’s strap tighter, I imagined the moment I’d have to hand it over to Gabby. Just the thought of trusting her with my backpack for any length of time was making my hands sweat.
“What?” She bumped me with her shoulder.
I shrugged, irritated I couldn’t wipe my hands on my pants. Wiping sweaty hands on leather just made for visibly wet leather and still sweaty hands, and wet leather was never a good idea. Never.
“What is that face you’re making?” She pointed to my face with her index finger, moving it in a circle.
“I don’t know, I can’t see myself.” There was just something about Gabby that grated, brought my emotions closer to the surface. Or perhaps it was this entire situation. Whatever it was, I couldn’t wait for this week to be over and return to the world I understood.
“Here, I’ll make the face you’re making.” Gabby caught my arm and I immediately maneuvered out of her grip. My reflexive reaction didn’t seem to bother her, or she didn’t notice. Regardless, she cleared her features of all expression except her eyes. She’d narrowed them subtly, and seemed to peer at the world with a hypercritical coolness. “This is the face,” she said robotically.
Trying to stuff my fingers into my pockets and failing—because the pockets were sewn shut—I scratched the elbow she’d grabbed and started walking again. “It’s just my face.”
“Well don’t make that face around Abram. Lisa doesn’t make that face.”
“Okay.” How the hell am I going to do this for a week? I pasted on a big, fake smile. “Is this better?”
“God, no. Don’t do that either.” She looked horrified. “What the hell was that? Was that a smile? Was that you smiling?”
I neither confirmed nor denied her speculation, keeping my attention forward as I twisted my lips to the side, trying not to smile for real. Gabby was a nebulous assemblage of unscrupulousness and exasperating nonsense, and we’d likely never be friends again, but she was undoubtedly charming when she wanted to be. There’d always been something about her timing, her delivery, that veered into the territory of funny.
“Okay, hand it over.” She touched my arm again, stopping me, and this time I had the wherewithal to not yank out of her grip. Instead, I removed my backpack with extreme reluctance, which elicited an eye roll from Gabby. “Oh, give it a break, Mona. Just hurry up. I have other things to do today.”
With continued extreme reluctance, I eventually handed her the backpack. She carried it the rest of the way to our brownstone while I continued to carry the makeup bag. Every so often, she’d pretend like she was going to toss my backpack in the road, snickering when I tensed.
“Relax, Lisa. I wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the happiness and well-being of my BFF.”
Gabby batted her eyelashes as I punched in the gate code, all nerves and thumbs. Our brownstone had a tall cast-iron fence facing the sidewalk. I wasn’t surprised by the lack of paparazzi. Everyone assumed the DaVinci family members people cared to gossip about—my parents and my brother mostly, me sometimes, Lisa only when she did something crazy—were elsewhere.
After three attempts, I finally got the code right and opened the gate for her. She preceded me up the stairs while I glared at the back of her head. When we reached the door, I reached for my backpack. She twisted away.
“What are you doing?” she hissed.
“I need my keys to open the door.”
“No. Your keys aren’t in my ugly backpack, Lisa.” Gabby sent yet another meaningful look to the house.
Oh. That’s right.
Giving my backpack one more longing look, I stepped away from Gabby and rang the doorbell.
“Good.” She moved closer to me as we waited for this Abram person to open the door. “That face you’re making is very Lisa. Pouty. I approve.”
Before I could respond, the door swung open, revealing . . . well, revealing an extremely handsome guy. Upon my initial cursory inspection, I noted that he was tall, had brown hair and eyes, was both startlingly attractive and visibly displeased. One might go so far as to call him irked.
The guy—dressed in a faded black T-shirt and worn blue jeans—pushed a hand into a fall of shiny hair, lifting the long strands away from his forehead. Most men look sloppy in faded T’s and worn jeans. But he did not. He looked hot.
Oooohhhh. Okay, I get it.
Yep. I understood at once what Gabby had meant. Abram had won the genetics lottery. Or Powerball. Or whatever. The point was, this guy probably received congratulations cards for his face. Noted.
“Lisa,” he said to me. A muscle at his defined jaw jumped, visible even beneath the few days of stubble covering the lower half of his face.
“You’re Abram,” I said, because who else could he be? This statement was made to his distracting chin. His chin—like the rest of him—was pleasingly formed, but his stubble was remarkable. A shade lighter than the hair on his head, it was just as thick. If he ignored it, he’d likely have a hell of a wizard beard in a matter of months. The only thing I truly envied men was their ability to grow wizard beards.
Lifting my hand for a shake, Gabby intercepted it before I could bring my fingers parallel to the ground. “As always, a real pleasure to look at you, Abram. What do you have to eat? Lisa left all her stuff behind—including her wallet—so we’re starving.” Using my mistakenly offered hand, she pulled me inside the house, brushing past Abram.
Oh, right. Why would Lisa shake his hand? I sent Gabby a glance of gratitude and wondered again how in the helium I was going to fake being not-me for a week.
“There’s leftover Chinese food and pizza in the fridge.” His tone blatantly hostile, providing additional proof that he wasn’t happy to see us.
Gabby steered me into the kitchen and sat me on a stool, giving me a hard look before turning for the fridge and pulling out a box of pizza. I placed the Sephora bag on the counter and waited, unsure what to do. If I’d been me—Mona, not Lisa—I’d have made myself mint tea. But I had no idea if drinking mint tea was in character for Lisa. Maybe I should pour myself a glass of whiskey?
While I was stuck debating my beverage choice, Abram appeared in the doorway. He opted to hover by the entrance to the kitchen, leaning his back against the doorframe and shifting his irked glare from me to Gabby. Even scowling and visibly inimical, he was hot.
“Where’s your phone?” he asked, his attention coming back to me, lifting his chin as his eyelids drooped.
“Like I said, gorgeous—” Gabby walked into his line of sight, blocking me from view “—she left all her shit behind, even her phone.”
“How’d she board a plane if she left everything behind?”
I was used to people talking about me in the third person, like I was a calculator. These numbers make no sense, how did she arrive at these values? Did she do this part in her head?
It didn’t bother me.
“Well, if you’d let me finish, I would tell you. She left it all at security. She was almost late for the plane and had to run to the gate,” Gabby lied smoothly, making me envious. “We’d already arranged to have me pick her up from O’Hare. Don’t fret, though. My mother’s secretary called the airport and they’re sending her phone and stuff. It should get here tomorrow or the day after.”
Gabby’s lies were so persuasive, spoken with such artlessness, I almost believed her.