“Hey,” Kaylie said. “What could you possibly be doing that takes all day?”
“Just some stuff around the house,” I answered. “Did you go shopping?”
“Yeah, I got an awesome new bag. What time are you coming over?”
It felt like last night with Josh was a part of another lifetime. I looked around the room and felt the crushing weight of the stuff wash over me. All of a sudden I felt exhausted, like the only thing I wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep for weeks.
“About that,” I said. “I don’t think I can make it tonight. Something came up.” I winced as I said it, knowing she wouldn’t let this one go easily. You’d think that all my lying over the years would have made me better at it. You’d think.
There was silence on her end for a long moment. “Something came up? Are you seriously trying to tell me something came up that’s more important than seeing Josh play? At a party that he asked you to go to?”
“It’s just—”
“No. Way.” I could picture Kaylie holding her hand up to the phone. “I don’t want to hear any of your excuses.” Her voice was getting louder. “I’ve been planning all day for tonight. You can’t let me down like this—you can’t let
“I can’t—”
“At least meet me at Sienna. In twenty. Then you can explain all this to my face.”
I knew that if I didn’t go to the cafe she would try to come over here. “Okay—” But the phone went dead.
I wiped my forehead with the back of my arm. I could use a break, and some coffee was definitely in order if I was going to keep at this for much longer. It was almost five o’clock, and I would have to work late into the night —probably all night—to keep making any progress. I had just enough time to change out of my maggot-deflection gear and get over there before she got suspicious.
chapter 10
4:45 p.m.
I ordered my drinks and headed to the bathroom at the back of the cafe—I’d managed to beat Kaylie here. I knew Josh’s work schedule by heart, and luckily he was off on Tuesdays so I didn’t have to see face-to-face what I was giving up. I had a feeling that if I looked into those brown eyes, I’d be able to rationalize just about anything.
The bathroom was empty, so I turned on the hot water full blast in the sink and poked at the stream with my finger until it got warm. Once I had the temperature adjusted so that it was just this side of too hot, I ran it over my hands and lower arms, feeling a shiver raise the hairs on the back of my neck as the warmth reached through my skin and into my blood. I stood staring into the running water, enjoying the sensation of hot water cleaning away the maggots and the dirt and the thoughts of everything that had gone on today.
Out of everything else, I missed hot water the most. I had a bathtub in my bathroom, and a couple of times in the last few years I’d warmed up enough hot water in the microwave to take a teeny tiny bath, but it took so long to get bowls of water hot enough that, in the end, it really wasn’t worth the effort for five inches of lukewarm water. Showers at the gym were nice, and they never cared that I often stayed in there so long that clouds of steam rolled off my red skin by the time I got out. Maybe we could get a hot tub for the backyard when everything was cleaned out. I’d always wanted a hot tub.
A lady with a bad orange dye job opened the bathroom door and went into a stall, so I just soaped up my hands, rinsed one last time in hot water heaven, and turned off the tap. My hands were red but warm all the way through as I patted them dry with a paper towel and went back out into the busy cafe.
The frothing sound of the milk steamer was soothing, and it calmed the flutters of panic that kept rising in my throat and threatened to reject the blueberry scone I was picking at. My stomach was starving, but my head wasn’t interested. I chewed another piece of scone and looked around. It was somewhere between lunch and dinnertime, and there were a surprising number of people sitting down for their afternoon jolt. Nobody paid attention to me—I just blended in with the rest of the people in the cafe staring into space and waiting for their drinks. It was amazing that a person could have such a big secret and it didn’t show at all.
“Two large vanilla lattes,” the girl called, setting my cups on the counter.
Just as I reached for them, Josh walked out from the back room, tying a black apron around his waist. “I’m back if you want to go on break,” he said to the cashier. I was frozen between trying to pick up the steaming coffee without being noticed and running away. Damn Kaylie. She must have known he’d be working today, which is why she wanted to meet here.
I grabbed the coffee and tried to turn around quickly, but it didn’t work. “Lucy,” he said, sounding surprised and (I hoped) happy to see me. “Fueling up before the party tonight? I was on a break, or I’d have gotten you something special.” Josh grinned, showing off every one of his perfect white teeth with the small but adorable gap in the middle. He wasn’t making this easy, standing there looking like something out of a magazine.
“It’s okay. Thanks, though,” I said. I pretended to be absorbed in slurping up the little plume of foam that had appeared through the tiny hole in the lid. “Yeah. I’m, uh, meeting Kaylie.”
“Here she comes.” He nodded toward the front doors.
Kaylie walked in with the phone to her ear, talking loudly to someone, but she snapped it shut as soon as she saw us. “Good,” she said. “You’re here. I guess you’ve told him already?”
Josh tilted his head and looked at me. “Told me what?”
I willed more people to show up and desperately need caffeine, but it looked like everyone in town was taken care of for the moment. I took a sip of the hot latte. “Mmm. Maybe later. You’re busy.” I made a move toward an empty table, but Kaylie grabbed my arm and held me there.
“Lucy has decided that she can’t come tonight, after all,” Kaylie said to Josh. “Something has ‘come up.’ ” She made little quotation marks in the air with her fingers.
It was hard to read Josh’s reaction. Even though I knew that there was no way I could show up at the party, I wanted him to look at least a little disappointed.
