Page 119 of The Black Table
I almost jump out of my fucking skin at the voice—not just the sound of my own name, but coming from a familiar source.
Female. I flick my gaze up from where I’ve settled on the grass, and there she is, Gwenna, winding down the worn path, breathless, her cheeks pink from the cold. I cock my head.
“You get lost?” I ask. “Campus is that way.” I nod in the other direction.
“No, I just…” She trails off, hugging herself.
I don’t know who Kingston got to buy her an entirely new wardrobe, but they did a good job. Those sweaters might cover a lot of skin, but they still don’t leave too much to the imagination.
At least, if it’s an imagination like mine, anyway. I’m a very visual learner.
And I have memories, too.
Of her skin.
Of that scar.
“I just needed some air,” she finishes.
I sweep a hand in front of me. “Well, you’ve come to the right place. Plenty out here.” My eye catches the smoky trail of my cigarette, and I stub it into the ground. “Er, sorry.” I fan it away hurriedly.
She laughs, and I’m surprised by how good it feels to hear that sound.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” she says. “I’ll leave you alone.”
“Nah, nah, it’s fine,” I say, before my brain can acknowledge what I’m doing. Drunk Kai is nothing if not sociable. “Come on over, the water’s great.”
She balks. “You’re not swimming, are you?”
“Ha.” I run a finger through my damp hair. “No, this is from good old-fashioned indoor plumbing.” I jerk my head back at the walkout door to the salle. “Just got done practicing, and now I’m…”
What, berating a ghost girl to give me the right to leadership that she bestowed on my foster brother?I think.Yeah, even for a drunk guy, that sounds a little far-fetched.
Instead, I just shrug. “Drinking.” I hold up the decanter of Clase Azul. “You want?”
It’s half a joke, but she considers.
“You know what? Yes,” Gwenna says definitively. She settles into place next to me and I obligingly hand her the mezcal, which she lifts and drinks.
Drinks…a lot.
“Easy,” I say, snatching it away. “You trying to drink to forget or something? Because that’s an Alzheimer’s level dose.”
She laughs. “No. Just to…um.” She blinks. “Escape my mother.”
I jump like I’m startled. Look behind me in a comical overreaction. “Escape? Is she here?”
Gwenna laughs again. God, that sound is like pure dopamine. Heroin. I could drown in it.
“No, thank God,” she mutters. “But she might as well be. She’s watching me like a hawk. Or—correction,” she says, dipping her head in acknowledgement, “watching my student account,making sure I’m on top of everything and not…” she fiddles with the knee of her black jeans, “…you know, screwing up.”
I lean back onto my hands, tipping my head up to the darkening sky. “I know that feeling. Got you by the purse strings.”
“Yeah.” She leans forward, her chin on her knees, and we sit like that a while in silence. “She called me up, gave me the third degree about where I was living on campus now since apparently my room and board charges are on pause.”
I lift an eyebrow. “And?”
“I told her I was your new equipment manager.” Gwenna grimaces. “I hope that’s okay.”
