And here she stood in front of her closet, trying to decide what to wear, because the sun was slipping low over the trees and she’d agreed to spend the night with Mercy.
She was convinced it was all some sort of dream, at this point.
She fingered sleeves of blouses and the legs of slacks, the girlish hemlines of skirts. She frowned. None of this was right. None of this washer. Because the real her wrote like a madwoman, laughed at preppy boys, and wanted to look like herself for her man.
Ava shoved the hanging clothes aside, going deeper into the closet, to her old stuff, to the jeans and thick socks and boots and there, right where she’d left it, her leather jacket.
Welcome back, a small voice chimed inside her head.
She went for simple: jeans, her black Durangos, black tank, jacket, a fast toss to her hair so it fell in messy curtains on either side of her face.
Maggie glanced up from dinner preparations when her boot heels struck the kitchen tile. One corner of her mouth pulled up in a little enigmatic smile. “There she is.”
Ava didn’t smile back. “For the record, I haven’t accepted the whole Stephens getting me into college situation yet.”
Unperturbed, Maggie said, “I didn’t figure. You wouldn’t be my girl if you had.”
Ava rolled her eyes and gathered up her purse and keys, ensured her snub-nosed .38 was secure in the inside pocket of her bag. Littlejohn was packing no doubt, but she didn’t believe in leaving things up to someone else.
“Where are you off to?” Maggie asked, cheerfully.
“Ronnie’s. I’m spending the night.” She glanced up, to check for a reaction, shaking her overnight bag for emphasis.
Maggie nodded as she stirred her white cream sauce, taking it all in stride. “Take this.” She slid a brown paper lunch sack down the counter toward her with her elbow.
Ava picked it up and unfolded the top, saw the gauze, tape, syringes and ointment inside.
“You know,” Maggie said with another sideways grin. “In case Ronnie comes down with a bad case of gunshot wound.”
Ava felt her mouth tug at the corners, a reluctant smile.
“Tell him I said ‘hi.’ ”
“I’m leaving.”
Littlejohn was waiting for her in the driveway, having a smoke with Harry.
“Prospect,” she said, and Littlejohn flicked his cigarette away. “Remember the conversation we had yesterday?”
For a moment, it looked like he fought not to smile. “Yes, ma’am.”
“The gag order’s still in place. Let’s go.”
She went in the back door, chickening out at the last second, unable to walk brazenly through the common room. Too many looks, too many questions. And God help her if her brother was there; he’d throw himself in her path. The one issue he took seriously as a brother was the one she didn’t want him to notice.
She stood at the door, took a deep breath of evening air that smelled like exhaust fumes and heat fading off the pavement, watched the sun say its last farewell to the day. She saw Littlejohn, waiting on her to go in, so he could leave. She’d told him to take the night off, go lay low somewhere, lest Ghost notice he was off-duty and start asking why.
Then she turned the knob and went in.
The hall was warm and smelled faintly of Lysol; her dad mandated a clean house, the prospects and hangarounds always jumping for mops and brooms and polishing rags when his eyes fell across them. That smell helped: it made her feel safe, protected, at-home. All the dorm room doors stood open a sliver, all but the last one, her favorite, and she figured that was where Mercy was living for the time being. She didn’t knock, but tested the knob, and let herself in without a sound.
She could hear the shower running behind the closed bathroom door, and that gave her a minute. She set her bag down, wiped her suddenly-clammy palms down the thighs of her jeans. She was nervous; this wasn’t happenstance, not a crazy rush she couldn’t control, like yesterday in the office. This was premeditated delinquency. This was purposeful sin. There was a thin coil of fear in her belly because of that. There was a prickling up the back of her neck, and a little tremor in her breathing.
The bed was made, and she sat on the foot of it, on top of the old worn, but clean blankets, the mattress dipping. The room smelled like him: his quiet cologne, his cigarettes, his leather, his skin. Ava crossed her legs, braced her hands on the mattress and bobbed her foot in time to her pulse; that was the picture she presented when Mercy stepped out of the bathroom.
The steam rolled out ahead of him, theatrical enough she would have smiled if she hadn’t been choking on nervous butterflies. He wore a towel knotted around his hips. His hair was down, shiny and wet, slicked down the back of his neck. He’d taken his bandage off himself beforehand, and the bullet wound was red and angry-looking; her throat tightened at the sight of it.
And then there was the rest of the picture: that lean, muscled-up stretch of him, his muscles solid, but unrefined. He didn’t spend hours sculpting himself in front of a gym mirror; his was a natural, powerful, incomprehensible strength, unselfconscious, not-braggadocios. It just was. He had long legs, wide feet, such pretty arms, if anyone besides her thought that kind of musculature “pretty.” The black hair on his arms and legs was coarse; such a contrast from Ronnie’s smooth, almost hairless limbs. She liked the rough; liked the masculinity of it, the way it made her feel small and feminine.
