Page 14 of Bows & Eros
That's how the fireman with the axe found us. Three adults, crouched in a closet, laughing until we cried about a fire alarm prank, while disgruntled people in wet clothes hovered between the church and the snowy yard.
"Care to explain yourselves?" the fireman asked in the same tone we'd used to talk to those teenagers under the bleachers.
And that just made us laugh all the more.
CHAPTER7
Pastor Dan's pickup truck was a rickety old thing, but by the mercy of all things holy, it had a strong, working heater. We had sat in it as it gurgled and hiccupped, basking in the warmth for a few minutes before I finally backed it out of the parish driveway and onto the road.
Ethan was still damp, though his coat had stopped most of it from getting to him. He had asked the pastor with a puckish grin if he could borrow a blow-dryer, which the very bald pastor did not find very funny. We just had to hope it would air-dry on the way to the diner.
He kept running his fingers through his hair, as though he wanted to encourage the warm air to hit all sides of every strand. It was a very distracting thing to watch and inexplicably sexy.
He looked really good rumpled, I thought, despite all my vitriol toward his slouchy wardrobe.
And I had kissed him.
Yup. That had happened.
I cleared my throat, adjusting my posture in the seat of Pastor Dan's driver's seat, reminding myself to focus on the road. I kept wondering if it was distressing my passenger that I drove with a single hand at neither 10 nor 2. I kept wondering what he was thinking about a whole lot of things. I wondered so hard that I'm sure he could hear it a little, like whispers seeping out of my ears.
"I didn't know it was Family Fun Day," he said, the depth of his voice jolting me out of my mind.
I frowned, but did not reply.
"Aaron isn't great about telling me these things. I think he gets that from me."
I shouldn't say anything and I knew that. I should let it go. I tapped the break as we approached one of the town's three traffic lights and pressed my lips together, knowing my mouth was going to override my better judgement. "It was in the town newsletter," I said. "And the school calendar every parent is given at the start of the year.Andsince half the town has a kid in school, if you'd talked toanyonerecently, they probably would have mentioned it too. Aaron might be absentminded, but he's also only ten. He's allowed to forget. You aren't."
There was a beat of cold silence in the truck, with only the pops and grunts of the ancient motor and its workings to fill the space until the light turned green again. The diner glowed in the near distance, a big, glowing sign that readThe Crete Diner - Since 1943.
We unloaded from the truck in the same silence, and I didn't dare look at Ethan's face. I imagined it was stony with anger, the way that parents get when a teacher has to question anything at all about a child's home life. I'd taken it a bit farther than that, I knew, but this was not a man who had ever responded to my diplomatic hinting when his son was in my class. He needed to be told, outright, what the problem was, even if it ruined the fragile friendship that had been forming between us today.
He did step ahead of me to pull the door to the diner open, and along with a welcome blast of warmth from the inside, I was surprised to see that it was bustling and busy with people, filled with the hum of conversation and the tinkle of silverware hitting plates.
We stood still for a moment, scanning the room from corner to corner, checking every face, even though neither of us really believed he would still be there. We stood there for long enough that it went without saying that neither of us had found him.
I sighed.
"There's a booth," Ethan said, pointing to a spot by the window, and without waiting for me, he made his way toward it, peeling off his jacket as he went.
I hadn't realized until just this moment how hungry I was. All I'd had today was that cup of tea and a few shortbread biscuits, and now, surrounded by everything from all-day breakfast feasts to hearty dinner portions, not to mention the tower of famous pies that glowed and rotated near the coffee bar, I could feel my stomach rearing up to make itself known. Absolutely everything I saw on every table I passed looked heavenly.
How do you even decide what to eat once you've allowed yourself to get this hungry?
I followed Ethan's lead and shrugged off my coat, folding it in half and tucking it into the far end of the booth before I slid in. I occupied myself with removing my gloves and earmuffs, avoiding Ethan's eye while I did so and hoping I looked as assured in what I'd said to him as I felt, even if I regretted having to become contentious.
I heard him suck in a little breath of air the way someone does before delivering a speech and I looked up at him, my heart pounding, only for my stomach to choose that moment to make its demands known, growling so loudly that the people in the table next to us looked over and giggled.
Ethan's mouth snapped shut again. He blinked at me and then said, "You should eat. We both probably should. We've been running around for hours."
"There's a missing child," I reminded him, wincing as my stomach gave another multi-pitched objection to my responsible nature. "That has to be our first priority."
"As long as he's with Hermes, he's safe," he said, his voice barely more than a mumble. "Relatively, anyway. So missing, yes, but in danger, no. We can breathe for a moment."
I paused, telling myself to breathe rather than snap. It might have been nice to know that on the drive over here.
I turned and slid one of the menus out of its holder by the window, setting it carefully in front of me. I was definitely going to need to eat if we were going to have upsetting revelations right now. I was pretty much guaranteed to be unreasonable on an empty stomach.
