Was she ever a sight in the middle of the thrift store. I’ve never seen anybody have so much fun in what can be kind of a sad place. By the end of the shopping trip, every person there was half in love with her, including Mr. Ambrose, who has been shamelessly flirting with her since.
We finally make it in the diner's back door only after Sunday solemnly agrees to consider the old man’s tongue-in-cheek marriage proposal. Halfway across the kitchen, the swinging door to the dining room flies open, smacking into the wall behind it and making us jump while presenting a flushed and flustered Sally in front of us.
“Girls! Hi!” She smiles so widely I can count nearly every tooth in her mouth, and I immediately know something’s up. Fanning herself with the bottom of her apron, she just stands there silently, continuing to smile and fan and block our way.
“Uh, hi? What’s with you, Sal? You look like a fifteen-year-old who just stole the keys to her daddy’s liquor cabinet.” Her face turns a deeper shade of pink, and she swats at me playfully.
“You two have visitors, and if they aren’t the best looking dudes I’ve ever see—” The rest of her sentence is lost to me as my stomach takes a nosedive and lands somewhere near the bottoms of my feet. I see her mouth moving but don’t hear a single word.
They’re here.
They came.
HE came.
My body is getting its wires crossed and flipping between gleeful excitement, the pants-shitting anxiety I love so fucking much, and straight-up anger. Sunday looks at me with concern and grabs my hand when I start to wobble, instantly turning Sally’s freak out dial to thirteen.
“Shit! It’s them, isn’t it? Should I tell them to leave? I own the damn place, so you know I can kick ‘em out if you want me to. I don’t care how hot they are.” Sally pushes her sleeves further up her arms in preparation to throw down, but before she can ask us to hold her earrings, Sunday pats her on the arm with a reassuring smile.
“You hold on there, Killer. It’s okay. Our girl here is just having a moment. Right, Stell?” Squeezing my hand tightly, my best friend in the world looks me in the eyes, seeking some kind of confirmation. Finally, she nods once and gently pushes past Sally, leading the way into the dining room and tugging me along behind her.
The place is empty except for the two figures seated in a red vinyl booth in the corner; one young, one older.
That’s not right. There shouldn’t be an older one.
I didn’t think it was possible, but at the realization, my stomach sinks even further, and there is a pretty solid chance I’m going to throw up on my shoes. Sunday has the opposite reaction. As Payne unfolds his six-foot frame from behind the table and stands to greet us, she drops my hand and launches herself at him, jumping up and wrapping her arms and legs around him like a baby koala. His blush is endearing, and his grin is massive as he hugs her back tightly.
“Better watch it, Sunday. Payne here might start to think you missed him or something.” At the teasing older voice, she giggles and jumps down.
“Yeah, like I’d miss a brother, right, Payne?” She leans into his side briefly, seemingly oblivious to his megawatt grin losing more than a few degrees of cheerfulness at her words. Turning to the only other occupant of the booth, she steps forward and holds out her hand politely. “How are you, Mr. Halliday?”
“I’m doing okay, Sunday, thank you for asking.” He answers and shakes her delicate hand in his much larger one. The words he says are for her, but he delivers them looking straight at me, and I can’t stand here anymore. My legs feel like wet spaghetti, and my heart is trying to beat its way right out of my ribcage. The pukey feeling that’s been building over the past few minutes intensifies.
Breathe.
It’ll pass.
I taste the bile in my throat.
Or not.
Bowing my head, hand over my mouth, I turn and run for the staff restroom off the kitchen. The bells over the front door of the diner mock my distress as they cheerily announce the arrival of another customer. Once inside the small restroom, I flip the lock on the door and throw up the awful coffee from this morning. When the retching stops, I turn and flip the lid closed on the single toilet and sit heavily on it, my elbows digging into my knees. With my head down, my fingernails scrape my scalp and grip handfuls of hair, attempting to ride out my anxiety and the harsh remnants of nausea.
It’s just a panic attack. Breathe. You’re fine.
It’s only Payne and Mr. Halliday. There’s no need to be scared—Callum’s dead, Bingham’s not here.
And so what if Poe couldn’t be bothered to come? You ran. Can you blame him?
Even though breathing still feels like trying to force air into a pair of lungs that are two sizes too small, I manage to talk myself down after a few more minutes. My heart is still alternating between pounding and fluttering, but my breathing is at least manageable, and finally, the urge to vomit subsides. Wiping the sheen of sweat from my forehead, I straighten my sweatshirt and fix my messy hair. Turning on the tap, the water is cold and refreshing as I scoop up a couple of handfuls to rinse my mouth and ease my dry throat. Taking a last look in the mirror, I unlock and open the restroom door.
“Hey, Star.” The nickname slips from his lips like the softest kiss. He leans against the opposite side of the narrow hallway—black snapback on backward, slim grey joggers and black hoodie slightly rumpled, and one Converse-encased foot braced against the wall.
Poe.
Everything in me lets go at the sight of him, at the sound of his voice. With a gut-wrenching sob ripped from the deepest parts of my bruised soul, I throw myself into his waiting arms, and wrapped in the warm scent of sandalwood and sunshine I cry enough tears to drown us both.
Chapter Three
When we land at the airport in Syracuse, New York, I realize I’m nervous.
Me.
I don’t get nervous, especially over anything to do with girls. My best friends and I are used to having our pick, and we only have one rule—the ride is always over in the morning. Most of the time, it’s not a problem and we’ve never had a shortage of willing participants. The problems happen when one of those participants forgets the rule and catches feelings, getting it in their head that a quick fuck is somehow the prelude to a marriage proposal.
There was one girl in particular who became unhealthily obsessed with Payne when we were about sixteen. She skulked outside every one of his classes and followed him around at parties. For a solid month, every girl he hung out with got mysteriously jumped and had the shit beat out of her—pretty soon, no girl in her right mind would go near him. There were notes passed to him in class and weird gifts left at the gates of his family’s estate. She finally ended up shoving a pair of her dirty panties through the vents in his locker and sent him a video of herself masturbating to his yearbook photo.
After watching the crazy happen from the sidelines, Sunday and the girls took matters into their own hands when the panties showed up. They decided to go above the girl’s head. They delivered the used underwear to her mortified and seriously pissed-off parents after showing them their daughter’s attempt at amateur porn. They ended up yanking her out of school for a few weeks, and when she finally did come back, she avoided all of us like the plague.