I lay on my stomach, feeling the cool swipe of air from the ceiling fan above me moving air in the room. I could pull the blanket up over me, but I couldn’t bring myself to make the slightest adjustment at all.
The guys had each whispered things in my ears before leaving one by one. I wasn’t sure where they said they were going. My brain had officially shut off, and I was perfectly fine with that.
A click sounded, followed by the door on the other side of the suite opening and closing. One of them was back. The slight whoosh of the gait approaching told me it was Chance. Funny how I could tell things now that I hadn’t been able to before.
The bed dipped, and Chance rolled over to lie next to me. “Hey.”
“Hey.” I smiled at him, turning my head in his direction.
He put my phone between us. “I paid your bill. It’s back on. And I somehow managed to resist the urge to delete all the text messages I sent you that make me look really worked up because I was. But that was what I was and I sent them so yeah…” He kissed my cheek.
I managed to maneuver myself upward until I leaned on my elbow. “You didn’t have to do that, Chance.”
“I did, actually.” He nodded. “Because see, I like to reach you when I want to reach you, and I like you being able to communicate with the outside world.”
I rubbed at my eyes. “Chance, I don’t know how I’ll ever be able to pay you back.”
He shook his head. “You won’t. That’s not why I did it. I love you. I want you to have a phone so I can reach you and you can reach me anytime. I want to know that you can call for help if you’re not safe. I want you to have the phone because that’s what I want.”
I kissed his chin. “I’m in love with you, too, Chance, and I know that I hurt you. I was deeply upset but I can see it went both ways.”
He wrapped me up against him, pulling the blanket over both of us. “Do you want to know something a little screwy?”
“Sure. I like screwy.”
Chance grinned at me. “It’s nice to have someone I care about enough that they have the ability to hurt me. I’ve never had this before, not really.”
I’d never thought about that. As much as falling in love meant opening myself up to the idea that someday I could be crushed emotionally beyond recognition it also indicated that I had people who loved me in my life. This was real. Maybe it wouldn’t be forever. But what was?
I wrapped my arms around him. “Chance.”
I just felt like saying his name
He kissed the top of my hair. “Giovanna.”
The door opened and closed again. A few seconds later, Maven landed on top of both of us. Chance cursed, and I laughed.
“I bought you another dress, Giovanna. You need something to wear to our formal tonight.”
Now, that got my attention. “Tonight?”
“That’s right. Ours is tonight.” Maven rolled off us, lying down next to me on the other side. “And you’re going with all three of us. That’s just how these things are going to go.”
I’d made a huge deal over this. I couldn’t stand the thought of any of them bringing anyone else. They had to go. That meant I had to go with them unless I wanted them to go alone, which was, apparently, really not done.
I didn’t understand or particularly like their fraternity, but it had brought me to them. They’d been there that day over Christmas because of it. I wasn’t going to be ridiculous about this.
“Where’s the dress, Maven? And you can’t hate the gold one. My boss gave it to me. I love it.”
He scowled. “Come see. I left it in the closet in the hallway.”
“I’m not sure I can move. I’m kind of sore everywhere?”
He fake gasped in an exaggerated way. “Chance, did we break Giovanna?”
“I think we can fix her. With some protein. Some hot water. Maybe some coffee.”
The door slammed, and we all jumped. Banyan came in the room, his phone to his ear. “Yes. Thanks.” He was talking to someone on the other end of the phone. “No, she was with us all night. All three of us, and if they want the play by play they can have it. I don’t give two shits. Thanks. Yes, well, say hello to my father.” He met my gaze and there was pain on his face.
My soreness didn’t matter. I pushed away the blanket to sit all the way up. “Banyan?”
He walked to the end of the bed and took my hand in his.
“Banyan?” Chance didn’t want to patiently wait, either. “What the fuck?”
“The police want to speak to Giovanna again. There was another fire last night.”
My body went cold. I’d been in such denial about the details of this. Having the guys back had eclipsed everything. Maybe I’d been rolling around in not thinking about the hard stuff but there it was.
“Anyone hurt?” Maven kissed my shoulder.
Banyan shook his head. “No.”
“Then why talk to me. I was with you. I have no new information. Unless they need me to prove that? I don’t understand. I’m not helping her.”
He grimaced. “Because it was your job that burned down. Molly torched your dress shop.”
“Fuck.” Chance got off the bed. “Why can’t they find this girl?”
That was a good question, but I didn’t care about that right then. Not at all. Connie. Kay. “My bosses, this was their whole world.”
I ran to the closet. I only had my gold dress, so I’d put that back on. They might need help. “They lost their husband. Yes, singular. They were married to the same man.” I was shouting. “This was what they had. And now it’s gone because of me.”
“Hey. Hey.” Banyan tugged me to him to stop me from grabbing the dress. “This is not on you.”
Then why did it feel like it was?
Chapter 13
I stood next to Chance in the rain, staring at the shell of a building where I’d worked for so many months. It wasn’t just my store that had burned but all of the ones around it that suffered damage. No one had been killed. Goosebumps broke out on my skin.
Chance squeezed my fingers. “She’s not well, obviously. That’s the kindest thing I can say.”
“She said we were supposed to be sisters. I’m not sure how to take any of this. I…”
“Giovanna,” Kay’s voice from behind me got my attention, and I dropped Chance’s hand to whirl around.
“Kay.”
I wasn’t a hugger by nature, but I threw my arms around her. “I am so sorry this happened. It’s all my fault.”
She made a tut-tut noise in her throat. “Don’t say things like that. There are insurance people around. They might decide to believe you. This is that girl’s fault. Not yours. We can’t help who gets obsessed with us. Trust me. Over a drink sometime when you’re actually twenty-one, I will tell you.” She pulled back and shot me a long look. “Listen to me, we are fine. We’d been thinking about closing up anyway. Our husband left us some land in Oregon and there is a developer interested. The other shops will all be fine too. I can see it.”
I gave her back the same look she’d given me. “Do you just say those things so people will believe you?”
Her smile broadened into an outright laugh. “About fifty percent of the time.”
“And the other?”
She batted some of the rain off her cheeks. “My husband used to swear my brain just sometimes became hyper aware. I saw things before they happened. He didn’t go for any idea of being psychic. I’m just glad I got you that dress before it burned. I knew it had to be given to you just then. Oh, that reminds me.” She tugged back as Connie walked up.
“If you knew this was going to burn I wish you had told me.”
Kay rolled her eyes. “I didn’t know that it was going to burn, per se. Just the sense that something might be happening. Never mind.” She pointed at Maven. “You there, with the blond hair.”
Maven stood next to Chance, watching. He raised his eyebrows. They were supposed to be at a formal and instead they were standing
out here in the rain with me. Not one of them was acting like they wanted to be anywhere else.
“Yes, ma’am?” I didn’t imagine that Maven called a lot of people ma’am but boy had he read Kay right. She brightened up right there on the wet street like we’d suddenly appeared on a sunny beach with nothing but blue skies ahead.
“Go to my car. The blue one. In the trunk is something I brought for Giovanna. I took it from the store yesterday.”
I touched her arm. “You don’t have to keep giving me things.”
Maven nodded, heading toward the street. Banyan took a step forward. “Do you need anything, ladies? Is there anything I can do?”
“Thank you, sweetheart, we’re fine.” She waved her hand. “I like you. This girl is going to make you so much happier than you ever thought you could be.”
“Kay,” Connie yelled at her, but Kay ignored her. “You’re going to frighten them.”
Banyan shook his head. “I’m not easily frightened. I am, in fact, wet. Can we all move inside somewhere? I’d be happy to take us all to a restaurant. Or a drink somewhere.”
Connie shook her head. “We’re leaving.”
Kay pulled me into a tight hug again. “Here is what is going to happen. You’re going to go live your life and stay in touch with Connie through email. She’ll tell me all that you’re going through, and we’ll see each other half a dozen times more before I’m too old to know what is going on in the world.”
I hadn’t known these women very long, but they had become so important to me. When I’d needed something just to survive, they’d been there. I had to find my voice. “Are you telling the truth or pretending to right now?”
“Fifty-fifty, my darling.”
She let me go and Banyan was right there to pull me against him. This part of my life, such a brief time, but I was sure in that moment would always be pivotally important, had burned to the ground.
What would come from the ashes was still to be seen.
I sat in the back of Banyan’s car, wet and miserable. The two things seemed to go hand in hand well. “Do you need to stop by the formal?”
Chance rolled his eyes. I could see it in the rearview mirror from where he sat in the front passenger side. “No. Somehow they’re all going to survive without us there. Maybe we should have just taken that attitude from the beginning.”
Maven shook his head. “There were circumstances tonight that made things different. We were elected. We had to do as we’d agree to do because we’d agreed to do it. Taking on the responsibility of this was what we said we’d do when we ran for the offices. That’s all there was to it. Giovanna’s psycho ex roommate has crazyed this into a different circumstance altogether.”
Banyan lifted his eyebrows where he drove. “For my part, I never gave a shit about any of it except you guys. I participated because you wanted me to. That’s all. Something you do for your friends. Watching our buddy die four years ago? That changed things for me. For you two, also. If I’d known we were almost going to lose the best thing to happen to us by not paying attention to how lonely she felt then I would have said fuck it to the whole thing months ago. And guess what? The world would have been fine.”
“I’m afraid for all of you. She’s burning down things that are important to me. That’s going to mean you. I mean, it’s not just me. She burned down the Pie house because they pissed her off. The volleyball shed. I don’t know what the garbage bins were all about.”
Chance shrugged. “Showing off. There is ego involved in this. Maybe I shouldn’t feel that way. But there is. And, yeah, I’d have dropped out, too. If I’d understood it and so would have you, Maven.”
“I would have.” He scooted closer to me. “I hear what you’re saying about her coming after you. First the dorm while you were in it. Then the fraternity and saying you should be sisters? I don’t know if she’ll come after us but maybe we should leave the house for a while, guys, stay in the hotel so she doesn’t know where we are. I won’t have Giovanna scared anymore.”
Banyan nodded. “Agreed. Last night was fun, but let’s get our own rooms on the floor. Leave Giovanna in there. I want to paint and you know I might want to do that in the middle of the night.”
Chance laughed. “Yes, spare us water colors at two a.m. There are just a few more weeks left of school. I’ve never been so relieved to think of graduation.”
I looked out the window. “Not for me.”
“Yes, you have a year.” Maven leaned over to kiss my cheek. “We’ll figure it out. See you every weekend. Don’t start thinking about endings.”
I hadn’t told them. “I don’t even think I’ll have another year. I’m failing math. I’ve emailed my parents. They haven’t answered.” At least not since the last time I checked. It had been a long time since I obsessively looked. “I’m probably failing science, too. I can’t afford to stay here with them so completely out of touch. It’s kind of pathetic, and I’m not living off you guys before any of you suggest it. I might just have to drop out.”
“You’re failing?” Chance turned around in his seat. “Now that is something you could have said weeks ago. Why didn’t you?”
“It’s called embarrassment and disbelief, genius.” Banyan groaned. “Don’t mind him or Maven, Giovanna. Neither one of them has ever been academically unsuccessful. They don’t get it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t fight. I should have said something. I didn’t because I’m so used to just pretending I can do whatever I need to do. I can’t. I’m a mess.”
“Okay.” Maven nodded. “But you’re our mess. And you’ve taken on three giant messes in this relationship. We’ll figure it out. There is always something to do.”
“They’re going to catch Molly, right?”
“Oh for sure.” Maven answered me, but like other things I’d suddenly become aware of after a small time away from them, I just knew Maven was telling me what he thought I wanted to hear. He wasn’t at all certain that they were going to catch her.
I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed his fingers. “I didn’t get to wear the dress you bought me.”
“You will.” He smiled slowly. “We’ll find a reason. And you have another dress. That odd woman who clearly loves you sent a black dress. Smaller than the ones I’ve been buying you that seem to fit.”
The black dress. She’d sent me my character’s black dress. “It’s something I use to write. Stimulates something in my brain. I can’t explain it.”
“How’s the writing going?” Chance asked.
“Not well. You guys took my creativity with you when you left.”
Chance blew a kiss to me. “There, you have it back.”
“Thanks.” Was it going to be that easy?
“Let’s go get her stuff,” Maven told Banyan.
“Good call.”
I was halfway through packing my room when Felicia burst through the door. She threw her arms around me, and we both hit the side of the bed before Banyan righted us. “Are you okay? I can’t believe it. How could it be Molly?”
She voiced what everyone must be thinking.
I shook my head. “I’m totally oblivious because I didn’t know.”
She wiped at her eyes. “I’ve been so worried about you.” She rounded on the three guys in the room. “And you three. You’ve caused this girl so much pain. If you do it again, I’m going to come after you. I don’t care if you’re some big, powerful frat brothers. She’s important.”
Banyan held up his hands as if in surrender. “I promise.”
Maven pointed to Chance and himself. “We do, too. Giovanna, you have some good friends. Between Felicia and those ladies you used to work for I think you could get us gutted if you wanted to.”
I rolled my eyes. “I wouldn’t need help.”
“Har. Har. Har.” Maven’s dimples showed, which always gave me a flutter in my heart.
“Isn’t it the worst thing ever? Their store?” Felicia exploded into tears. Molly had really de
stroyed so much more than property. I wondered if any of us were ever going to go through life again wondering if the people we met were going to turn out to be insane enough to start torching the world to the ground.
The hotel lobby was full, but Banyan had managed to get us three new rooms on the same hall near the one I was apparently staying in. Across town from the school, it wasn’t walkable distance from classes. I was going to have to get a ride with the guys.
It took a moment to realize their fraternity brothers and their dates surrounded me. The formal was the night before. I’d not stopped to consider why we’d been there in the first place the night before but it all made sense now. Everyone else was checking out.
“You,” a girl hollered at me. I blinked. I didn’t know her, but she’d been in the group of girls who had let me know all about the guys’ intentions to take other girls out. She staggered a little bit when she ran toward me. Was she drunk?
I looked around. Okay, she really was yelling at me.
“You are why they’re not here. You screwed up everything. My friends were supposed to be here. And they’re not because you’re some kind of slut who has some magic pussy that makes everyone just do what you want? Well, fuck you. And your roommate who is burning it all down can go screw herself with you.”
I should feel anger but I just felt sad for her. There was something incredibly sad about that woman right there. She was drunk, stupid, and yelling at a stranger.
“Hey,” Maven shouted at her. The room had gotten so quiet that if someone had dropped a piece of tissue, I could probably hear it hit the floor. “I don’t touch women in anger so you’re in no danger from me, but you should know that I’m furious with you right now. You and every small minded idiot in here and everywhere else at school who dared to talk about my girl or to her in a way that hurt her feelings in any form.”
He walked forward, and I could see all of a sudden how he was their president. The guys in the room all stepped away from their dates. Apparently, when Maven spoke everyone listened.
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