“I’ll be honest,” he says. “I don’t understand what’s happening here.”
“Tell me about it.” Mellie’s voice is suddenly cold, so unlike the way it was in high school. “Last I saw her, Riley Kelly was walking away from our class at the airport after our NYC trip, and the next thing I know, she’s dead.” Her head cocks to the side, eyes hard. “Care to explain?”
“You recognize her even with the pink hair?”
My fist lashes out, catching Aiden in the abs, and he lets out a low chuckle. “I’m just saying, you didn’t really do that much to change.”
“Maybe not in person. But on paper?” Mellie frowns, adjusting her purse. “Totally legit. Then again, I guess when your family’s involved with the Mafia, you can manage arrangements like that.”
Unease gnaws at my intestines, and I wrap my arms around my stomach. I feel Aiden’s eyes on me, hot where they try to penetrate my defenses as soon as they start shackling back in place. Taking a deep breath, I try to figure out how to explain things without explaining things.
“She doesn’t owe you an explanation,” Aiden interjects, stepping so he’s positioned slightly in front of me.
Mellie’s eyes go wide. “No? I was her friend.”
“A friend would realize that people don’t usually fake their deaths without good reason.”
She looks past him, glaring at me. “You literally fooled an entire town into grieving for you. Friends, teachers. Everyone thinks you’re dead, Riley. Not hiding, not starting over somewhere new. Dead. Come to find out you’ve just been gallivanting in some mountain town all this time?”
Guilt tries to force its way into my heart, but I clear my throat, shoving it down where it can’t be seen.
“What friends? The ones who ditched me on our senior class trip at some weird auction, knowing I didn’t want to go out in the first place?”
Aiden’s jaw clenches. The memory of that night resurfaces like a sudden slap to the face, and I wonder if it does for him too.
A warning bell sounds somewhere in the back of my mind, telling me to get out of here while I can. Before any more damage is done, or undone, and Mellie brings more of the past with her.
Clearing my throat, I straighten my spine and give her a thin smile. “Look, I understand this comes as a shock to you. If you want, I’d be willing to meet for coffee one day and catch up. Try to explain some of the absurdity away. How long are you in town?”
“Why are you in town?” Aiden grumbles.
“I—”
At that moment, Caleb strolls in through the front door, carrying a coffee tray with two cardboard travel mugs in it. “Gingerbread mocha for the lady, and white chocolate for—”
The smile slips from his face when he sees us all standing in the lobby, and I cringe at how disheveled I must look as he glances at my dress, then back up.
“What’s going on?”
Our group seems to collectively gulp, and Mellie reaches for one of the coffees, slicing through the tension with an easy smile. So different from the expression that was just on her face.
“Caleb, darling, if you advertised more that a rock star uses your venue to hook up with homeless people, you could truly do wonders for business.”
“Homeless people?” he repeats, looking at me again. “Angel’s not homeless.”
“Angel?” She snorts, taking a sip of her drink. “Good lord. Well, in any case, just the fact that the Aiden James is standing in your gallery right now is enough to send people in droves. Shall I take a pic, post it to my blog?”
“No.” Aiden reaches down, intertwining his fingers with mine. “I have no interest in being photographed, nor in letting the world know where I am.”
“Oh, dear.” Dangling her phone from her thumb and index finger, she winces. “Guess I shouldn’t have just tweeted it, then.”
For a moment, I stare at her, trying to reconcile this woman with the girl who was nice to me back home—the only girl who was nice to me then. Is it possible my sudden disappearance really fucked with her head that badly?
We really weren’t friends, so I can’t imagine how it would. And yet, there’s no denying that there’s a certain edge to this woman, in her white linen pantsuit with her neatly combed bob, watching me like the cat that caught the canary.
When she looks at Aiden, something sinister seems to gleam in her dark, almond-shaped eyes. It has me shifting closer to him, pulling him into my side—an innate need to protect him from whatever hell she’s about to unleash.
There’s also a strange feeling unfurling in my chest the longer I look at Mellie. If she announced Aiden’s presence in Lunar Cove, how long do I have before she announces mine?
And then… what? How will I face an entire town?
And what if the people I’ve been hiding from all this time finally come for me?
Caleb wears a perplexed expression on his face and scrubs a hand over his dark beard. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Angel, this is Mellie Simmons. She’s the collector I was telling you about, the one that travels across the country finding indigenous artifacts to curate in different museums?”
I nod, smiling tightly. “How interesting.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear, beaming up at Aiden. “The stories we could probably trade, rock star.”
“No thanks.” Mouth pressed in a firm line, he pushes past her, yanking me along behind him. As he shoves open the front door, he tosses a “get your bathroom door fixed,” over his shoulder, and then we’re winding past Dahlia’s Diner, and I’m having to jog to keep up.
It reminds me so much of our night in the city, except with an added layer of danger as I try to avoid patches of solid ice. Aiden doesn’t stop until we’re at his car, and even then, he only does so long enough to stuff me in the passenger seat.
When he climbs in, he lets out a low breath and locks the Volvo doors.