I walked around the room, looking for an exit that might lead outside. “That’s what I said.”
I wasn’t in the habit of apologizing. For anything.
“What the fudge? Why on earth were you following me?”
“In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a murderer on the loose.” No need to tell her the other part: that her mention of a “friend” had driven all of us — Beck, Noah, and me — out of the house and on her heels.
“You’re acting like the murderer is some random killer instead of someone who obviously targeted Harold Pembroke,” she said. “And you wouldn’t have the right to follow me even if there was a random psycho killer on the loose.”
I tried one of the doors behind the judge’s bench, hoping it might lead to an office and another exit, but it was locked. “There are things you don’t know.”
“What things?” Avery set the transparent slides on one of the tables where the lawyers sat when they were presenting a case.
“Things.” Damn. The second door behind the judge’s bench was locked too.
“If these ‘things’ are serious enough that you’re following me around town, I think I deserve to know what they are.”
“What do you care?” I walked in front of the bench and turned to face her. “You’re not going to be here long anyway.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t care.”
“Sure it does.” I knew what was happening, knew I was coating my disappointment in cynicism the way I always did, but I was powerless to stop it. I didn’t want Avery to leave, but I couldn’t articulate why and I definitely wasn’t up for telling her that. “You can’t claim to care about people, about a place, and then bail on them.”
My voice had gotten hard, the way it did when I shut down.
It hadn’t happened in a long time, mostly because I’d learned not to care about anybody enough to be disappointed when they bailed.
“I’m not…bailing.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “What would you call it?”
“I… I have a life in the city. I can’t justleave.”
“You don’t owe me an explanation. Just don’t act like you’re invested in Blackwell Hollow when you’re planning to cash out and never look back.”
We were separated by the space between the judge’s bench and the lawyer’s tables, but I saw her eyes flash even across the distance. “You’re a real jerk, you know that?”
I shrugged. “At least I’m honest.”
“I call bull-sugar.”
I lifted an eyebrow. “Bull-sugar?”
“Yep. I don’t think you’re being honest at all about why you followed me.”
I held her gaze across the shadowed room, but instead of making Avery squirm, I shifted on my feet under the weight of her gaze.
Jesus fuck. Why was this strange, absurd girl getting under my skin? And why was I protecting Beck and Noah?
“You’re right,” I said. “We followed you because Beck and Noah were jealous.”
Sucks to be you, losers.
She shook her head, clearly confused. “Jealous of what?
“You said you were meeting a friend, and since you have Beck and Noah wrapped around your finger, they got hot under the collar about the possibility that you were meeting another guy.”
“I was meetingLena.”