“Long enough for it to hurt.”
I sensed she’d done the breaking up, but I didn’t pry. I got up and rubbed my hands on my jeans. “I need to go work.”
“You’re not planning on visiting Aidan, are you now?”
“No.” I snorted softy. “I’m vindictive but not suicidal.”
“Then I don’t have to trail your ass through the inn?”
“You can try, but I know the place better than you, so good luck with that.” I shot him a smile. “If you’re bored, though, I can fetch you a feather duster.”
“Hard pass. I was going to hit the gym.”
“Don’t you have a job?”
“You are my job.”
I jerked my head up so fast the pen I’d stabbed through my makeshift bun poked my skull. “You can’t be serious.”
“As a heart attack. Until Everest is ki-caught.”
“Killed?” I croaked.
“Caught.”
My heart held as still as the fly perched on the painted stream. “But you were going to say killed… ”
“Does it matter?”
“It does.”
“Don’t you want him to die?”
“I want Aidan Michaels to die.”
“Not Everest?”
“I don’t know how I feel about my traitorous cousin right now. I don’t understand his motivations for any of this. I thought it was Becca, but he got with this other girl while Becca was in a coma, so I don’t know… oed the corner of the plush beige rug. “Speaking of the other girl: is a college directory open to the public?”
“No, but Cole can probably hack it. Why?”
“Because I wanted to see if that other girl Everest was with came from Denver.”
“What’s her name?”
“Megan.”
“Megan what?”
“I don’t know.”
“How do you spell Megan?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Are you fucking kidding me, Ness?”
I stuck my hands on my hips. “Don’t hiss at me.”
“I’m not a fucking cat.”
“Fine.” I huffed out a little breath. “Don’t bark at me. Better?”
He snorted. “Do you know which college she goes to at least?”
“She’s a freshman at UCB.”
He typed something in his phone. “So she’ll be a sophomore in the fall?”
Right… This was summer.
He growl-grumbled. “You don’t know, do you? UCB has 24, 000 undergrads.” I hadn’t known it was that big. “She’s not Everest’s Snapchat buddy by any chance? Would make things a hell of a lot easier… ”
“I wouldn’t know. I don’t do social media.”
Shaking his head, he brought his phone up to his ear. “Yo, Cole. I need deets on a chick called Megan, who’s a freshman or sophomore at UCB… No, this isn’t for a hookup, you tool.”
I smirked.
Lucas peeled lint off the arm of the flannel armchair. His nails were ragged, chipped and roughened by stone and earth. Mine had been the same after my full-moon run with the pack. I’d filed them down to the quick after, but three days later, white crescents had already grown back.
“What color hair? Skin? Eyes?” Lucas volleyed at me.
“Fair-skinned. Blonde, shoulder-length hair. I never saw her eye color.”
Lucas related the info. “Cole asks if she was fat? Thin? Any distinctive markings?”
“I saw her from afar at the music festival-she was sitting on a bench-and then again at Tracy’s-sitting again. She was pretty. Does that help?”
“Girls’ versions of pretty aren’t usually a dude’s version,” Lucas muttered.
“She had a heart-shaped face.”
Lucas cocked the eyebrow that was slashed with a white scar-a remnant of the car accident that snuffed out the lives of both his parents. “What does that even mean?”
I drew an air-heart with my two index fingers.
“According to Ness, she’s got a massive forehead and a pointy-ass chin.” While he switched his phone to the other ear, he muttered, “And you said she was pretty.”