“So…” He took a deep breath. “I got a B on ourWuthering Heightsquiz yesterday.”
The quiz she would have been taking yesterday at one-thirty if not for Ainsley’s broken nose and Mercy’s hands all over her naked skin. “That’s great.” She tried to shoot some enthusiasm through her voice. “You should be proud of that.”
He grinned: straight white teeth, nice shape to his mouth, blend of humility and mischievous spark. Carter was your classic cutie, in all respects, and if he knew it, and if he used it, he did so with more grace than she would have thought possible – back before she’d gotten to know him better. “That brings my quiz average up to a seventy-seven.”
Ava returned a frail version of his smile. “That’s a C. That’s passing.”
“I bet I can raise it more, though, by the end of the semester. Don’t you think?”
“Probably, if you keep studying as hard as you have been.”
Carter allowed his smile to soften, lips closing, and pulled it inward, a warm inner sunbeam to radiate through from the inside out behind his eyes. “I wouldn’t be passing if it wasn’t for you.”
Ava waved off the praise, a prickle of discomfort itching across her skin. “All you had to do was apply yourself, and there’s at least four other people who could have helped you with that. You just happened to get stuck with me.”
His smile waned a little more, took on a wry twist. “You know what Mason said when I told him that I was going to fail English? He said, ‘Good. Poetry’s for pussies, dude. My father says only women should have to study pointless bullshit like
that.’ ”
“That’s your Mason, for ya.” She flicked the chip away and watched it skip across the top of the pile, dislodging others that shivered down in little rivulets of bark. “Always with the philosophical upper hand.”
“He’s a fucking prick,” Carter said, the words bursting out of him like a sneeze. He even looked surprised afterward. “Shit…yeah. Yeah, let’s go with that: a fucking prick.”
Ava offered a thin, false smile. “Glad it only took you most of your life to figure that out.”
“That’s not fair.”
“Why not?” she shot back.
A shadow passed across his face, something deeper and darker than the blonde quarterback persona hinted at. “Because when you come up from a family like mine, you think the best thing you could do for yourself is make friends with a family like Mason’s. What good happens to a guy like me without friends like that?”
Ava wanted to probe – but she wanted to maintain her righteousness more. It felt good. It felt damn good to be the one looking down her nose for once, the biker whore with the upper hand. “You get OSS for defending yourself, and you make friends like me.”
The silence dropped on them, suddenly. Boom, out of nowhere. The heaviness of what they’d said to each other registered a moment too late, and then they couldn’t pull it back, or try to shrug it off like nothing.
The sun glinted off the bright painted aluminum wheelbarrows, found bits of jet in the concrete birdbaths out in front, laughed and danced through the heaving birch leaves, their shapes crackled and brown and ready to fall.
Finally, Ava said, “So why’d you come by?”
Carter lifted his head and met her stare with a bold one of his own. If he was capable of duplicity, it didn’t show. “Because you’re my friend, and I care about you. And I know you aren’t the kind of person who deserves OSS, and I was worried about you.” His golden brows lifted. “Am I allowed to care?” Bit of a challenge, bit of a grin.
My friend.
Uncomplicated, just support and caring and helping one another – what would it feel like to have someone on her side besides Leah? She didn’t know. That had never happened before.
“Yeah.” She felt herself smiling back, genuine this time. “You are.”
The address Fisher had given them led to a tiny but nicely appointed cottage in Moshina Heights. Set down a dirt drive, shaded by tall oaks, the cottage was sided with cedar shingles and trimmed in red and white, with a small covered porch and a portico with room to park one small car beneath. They paced around it, finding no signs of rot, termites, broken glass. The lawn was mown and the branches close to the house trimmed down. There was an ADT alarm system sticker in one front window, and a satellite dish up on the roof.
It was empty, though. Through the half-covered windows, they spied stretches of pine floor, vacant built-ins, silent gleaming appliances. There was a room around the side that looked like a library: lots of shelves, stone fireplace, window seat.
There was a FOR RENT sign out front.
“Well,” Collier said, with one last peek into the back door window, “at least Fisher didn’t lie about this.”
Walsh stood under the portico, collar of his chambray shirt popped up against the breeze, hands in his cut pockets. His shrewd, light eyes scanned the property. “It’d be easy enough to rent the place for a couple months, do business outta it. We’re off the beaten path out here – no one to say they saw anyone coming or going. No witnesses. Small police presence.” He nodded like he approved of the thought process behind it all. “Smart.”
“And not in the city proper,” Mercy agreed, “so not on our radar.”
