“What has you spoiling for a fight, Pixie? Did another squirrel get stuck in the book return?”
“You’re hilarious. So funny. I’m so glad we had this time together. Why don’t I open this second-story window and assist you out of it?” I offered, rubbing the wrist that had connected with my water bottle.
“Interesting reading material,” he said, tilting his head at the book on my desk.
“It’s for a teenage boy with dyslexia. I figured he’d like all the fight scenes, but I wanted to read it first before I recommended it to him.” I didn’t know why I was explaining myself to him. It wasn’t like he actually cared what I read, and I certainly didn’t put any stock in his opinion of me or my reading habits.
“Nearly every memory I have of you involves books.”
It came out of him sounding like a confession. We stared at each other for a long, silent thirty seconds.
I shook my head. “You know, sometimes I think I imagined it all.”
He put down the framed photo of me and my parents at the ribbon cutting for the library and fixed those assessing gray eyes on me.
“Imagined what?”
“You. Me. The cherry tree. I thought we were friends.”
“We were. Once.”
He layered blame on top of that one syllable until it was all I heard.
“I don’t get you. I didn’t get you as a high school senior, and I don’t get you as a business mogul. And I sure as hell don’t get what happened yesterday.”
His eyes changed. It was an almost imperceptible shift, but I’d spent a lifetime studying him and didn’t miss the glint of silver.
“Let’s add yesterday to the long list of mistakes better left in the past,” he suggested.
“I’ve already forgotten it,” I boasted.
“Which is why you were the one to bring it up five seconds ago,” he pointed out.
I’d forgotten how deftly he played his enemies. He and my father had spent countless hours with a chessboard between them.
“I may have brought it up, but we both know it’s no coincidence that yesterday happened and now here you are, paying me a visit in a place you’ve never once set foot in.”
The air in the room was electric. I could practically see the sparks flying between us. But they weren’t the romantic, will-they-won’t-they sparks. These were the kind that burned things to the ground. The kind that destroyed everything in their wake.
Through my window, the late afternoon sun bathed his face in golden glow and shadows.
“How’s your mother?” he asked before turning back to the next piece of me that caught his eye.
“She’s fine.”
His expression shifted to irritated patience.
“She’s okay,” I amended. “I helped her go through some of Dad’s things yesterday after dress shopping and it was…” What? Excruciating? Heartbreaking? Even though we each set aside favorite pieces, boxing up his clothes added another layer of pain to our goodbye. “Difficult,” I decided.
“I was thinking the other day about Simon’s gardening T-shirt,” Lucian said. “From the one and only 5K he ever completed.”
I was relieved he was looking away from me because I had to bring my fingers to my mouth to keep the unexpected sob inside.
“Knockemout Runs for Breast Cancer,” I said when I’d regained my composure.
It was a hot-pink, double extra-large freebie T-shirt with cartoon breasts emblazoned across the chest. My father’s medium frame swam in it. But he’d been so proud of his accomplishment and the money he’d raised that he turned it into his gardening shirt, knotting it on his hip like he was a teenage girl. I’d spent years in agonized humiliation because of that shirt. It was the only item of his clothing I’d kept.
“The first time I saw him in it, he was attacking that bush in your backyard—the one with the red berries—with electric hedge trimmers and telling your mother that he was Simon Scissorhands.”
My laugh, watery though it was, surprised us both.
His lips curved, and for a moment, it felt like there was no desk between us, no ugly history. He used to make me laugh, and I used to make him smile.
“I don’t know how to react when you’re nice to me,” I announced.
“If you didn’t make it so difficult, I’d be civil more often,” he said dryly.
“It’s probably better this way. You might sprain something pretending to be human.”
The ghost of a smile remained on his mouth.
“About yesterday,” I prompted.
What about yesterday? What the hell was I thinking bringing it up? Again.
“What about it?” There was a dare in his question.
“I met Holly,” I blurted out, going for the first topic that didn’t involve us touching each other. “She seemed very grateful for the job. Lina told us how you hired her. Maybe you’re not a complete asshole.”
“No one gives a compliment like you, Pixie.”
I rolled my eyes. “Oh, shut up. I’m trying to be nice.”
“The only nice thing you can say about me is that I hired someone to do a job?”
“Maybe I’d have more to say if you’d tell me why my mother is so grateful to you,” I reminded him.
“Leave it alone, Sloane,” he said wearily.
The awkward truce between us was cracking, crumbling. I didn’t know if I was relieved or disappointed.
Lucian turned his attention to the contents of the bookcase.
His gaze landed on the display case containing a bronzed softball. Those lips went flat again.
“What’s this?” he asked, eyeing the acrylic case.
“It’s the ball from my last game. Maeve had it bronzed as a joke.” It had been my first real, fall-on-the-floor, couldn’t-catch-my-breath laugh after my injury. After finding out that my plans for a softball scholarship were officially over.
I didn’t know if the twinge in my wrist was real or just the echo of a memory. And I didn’t realize I was massaging it until Lucian looked down.
His eyes went storm cloud gray. He opened his mouth, then closed it with a snap.
“What?” I asked, not bothering to keep the annoyance out of my tone.
“I don’t have time for this. For you.”
“Like I said, no one asked you to play delivery boy.”
“And I didn’t ask you to get involved and end your softball career,” he said.
“Clearly, we’re even then,” I joked.
“As always, you’re infuriating, irresponsible, and immature.” His tone was flippant, as if I were barely worth the effort to insult.
“And you’re a mercurial pain in my ass,” I pointed out, feeling the sting.
“Always so charming. It’s such a mystery why you’re still single.”
The man wielded sarcasm with the dexterity of a master manipulator. I had the urge to pat myself down and search for physical wounds.
“You’re late for your next ritual sacrifice, Lucifer. You’d better be going.”
He smirked. “Thank you for reminding me why our relationship is what it is. Every once in a while, I manage to forget what you really are.”
“Is that so? And just what do you think I am?” I asked.
“Dangerous.”
I flashed him a saccharine-sweet smile. “Do you think you can find your way out, or do you want me to help you down the stairs face-first?”
“I think I can manage. Keep your things out of my life.”
“Yeah? Well, keep your life out of my work,” I shot back, crossing the room and gesturing toward the open door.
“Hey, Uncle Lucian,” Waylay called from behind the community desk where she was working on a laptop. The two teenage boys leaning against the desk looked at Lucian with wide eyes.
“Hey, Way,” Lucian said, stalking toward the stairs.
“Do you need us to escort him out, Ms. Walton?” Lonnie Potter offered, hooking his thumb in the direction of Lucian’s retreating back.
His friend’s eyeballs doubled in size behind his glasses.
I would have laughed if I hadn’t been too busy breathing flames.
“No. But thank you, Lonnie. That’s very gentlemanly of you.”
I stomped back to my desk and pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes.
“What the hell does mercurial mean?” I heard Lonnie whisper to his friend.