By the time we were up, they were gone.
I growled in frustration and slammed my fist into the wall. “Damn it!”
Michael jerked the bar stools to an upright position. “He’s not gone forever. Lily can track him through the pocket watch.”
I pulled the pocket watch out and swung it by the chain in front of Michael’s face. “No. She can’t.”
“If you have the pocket watch, how did Jack get in and out of here so fast? He needs duronium to travel.” Michael sat down on the edge of the couch, his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.
“I don’t know.”
“I’m sick of not knowing. What he’s doing, what the future holds.” He paused, on the verge of telling me something he was afraid to share.
I waited him out.
“She was with you.”
“What?”
“When I didn’t make it back. When I died saving your dad. I traveled to the future to make sure she’d be okay. On that time line, before she broke the rules to come back and get me, Em was with you.” The honesty cost him. “With you with you.”
“She loves you.” I sat down. “That would never happen.”
“Even if I’m dead?” Michael’s laugh didn’t match the morbidity of the statement. “There’s no way to know. Travel used to have rules, and now everything is completely out of control.”
I listened. Which was exactly what he needed.
He started to pace. “The fact is that, even if time is rewound, you’ll still exist, and Em will still exist. Maybe in a different state of being. She could be … sick. She could be the broken Em that was the sole survivor of a terrible bus accident. She could be medicated out of her mind.”
“I wouldn’t know her if that was the case,” I argued. I didn’t want to think of Em like that.
“She’s in your father’s files. Maybe you’ll go find her.” He lifted his hands. “Or maybe you’ll take over for Liam, and you’ll see someone like your mom, and you’ll want to help her.”
“What exactly did you see?”
He stopped and turned toward the window. He could hide his face, but not his emotions. Not from me.
“Michael?”
“You were holding her. On your lap, in your arms. You were on the front porch of your house, sitting in one of your mother’s rocking chairs, and you were holding her.” He sounded so resigned, like he was willing to surrender without a fight. “You keep showing up, loving her when she needs it most.”
“I do love Em. But it hasn’t progressed the way I thought it would at first.” I searched my soul for the truth. “I don’t want to take your place. I couldn’t.”
He faced me. “I hope we never have to find out if that’s true.”
“We both know the future is subjective. Just because you saw us together … doesn’t mean it’s going to happen,” I said. “And so many things would change. Like Lily.”
“She’s different for you, isn’t she? You look at her when she talks,” Michael said, watching me. “Weigh what she has to say.”
“Because what she has to say matters,” I said. “She matters.”
“Have you told her?”
“No.” But I’d thought about it all night.
He smiled. It, along with his emotions, was bittersweet. “What are you waiting for?”
“I don’t know. That’s a lie. I’m scared. That she won’t feel the same way. That she will.” I stood up and took over Michael’s pacing. “I mean, I’ve never done this.”
“One question.” He paused until I stopped and looked at him. “Is she worth it?”
I didn’t hesistate. “Yes.”
“Then tell her.”
Chapter 37
I
’d been standing downtown for an hour, trying to work up my nerve, watching mothers picking up or dropping off their daughters at the Ivy Springs School of Dance. There was an overabundance of pink, glitter, and hair twisted up in buns. The buns made me think of Lily. But, then, everything did.
A white van pulled up in front of Murphy’s Law across the street, and I watched as a guy in khaki pants took a dolly out of the back and huffed into his hands to warm them before he rolled it inside. A cold front was moving in, the first taste of winter. Storms always followed.
A minute later, the man came out with a full load of bakery boxes. They had the Murphy’s Law logo on them, bright blue and white.
When he left, I’d go over there.
I would.
“Kaleb?” I looked away when a girl with really blue eyes and red hair stepped into my line of vision. She had a bun and tights, too. I tried to place her, but all I could remember was that her name started with an A. “I’m Ainsley. We met at Wild Bill’s last summer.”
I smiled, but inwardly I was cussing like a freak. I remembered her now. The night Michael had to come downtown to get me from the bar, right before I met Em. I’d had a little too much fun. How much, exactly, I didn’t know. “How are you?”
“Wondering why you never called me.” The blue eyes held a hint of disappointment.
Apparently, not calling was a trend with me.
“I thought we had a good time,” she continued, and then gave me pouty lips that I think she meant to be sexy. They weren’t.
“There’s been a lot of … stuff happening.” My dad came back from the dead, an attempt was made on my life, I didn’t remember you existed. “Sorry about that.”
“Well, it’s lucky we ran into each other now.” After digging around in her duffel bag, she fished out a permanent marker and grabbed my hand, pulling it toward her. She wrote her number on my palm, and then curled each of my fingers around it. “Don’t lose it this time.”
And then, right there in the middle of the sidewalk, she kissed me.
Just as Lily came out of Murphy’s Law.
“Oh no.” I pulled away from Ainsley.
Really? Really?
Ava stepped out of the dance studio, raising the lapels of her peacoat together to block out the wind. She had on tights and a scuffed-up pair of pink ballet shoes, and her auburn hair was pulled into a tight bun. I hadn’t really talked to her since helping her move in.
“Hi, Ainsley. I didn’t know you knew Kaleb.” Ava’s voice was sweeter than I’d ever heard it.
“I didn’t know you knew Kaleb.” Ainsley’s voice was ice-cold.
Ava sensed something was up, either because I’d broken out in a sweat, or because Ainsley was looking at me like I was her lunch money and Ava was about to steal me.
“I do know Kaleb.” Ava wrapped her arm around mine and winked up at me. “We go way back.”
I looked from Ainsley to Ava, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Lily stood fifteen feet away, a bakery box in each hand, her head tilted to the side. And she was pissed.
“So is there something between you two?” Ainsley asked. “Do you date?”
I tried to make eye contact with Lily, give her some kind of sign that I wasn’t an active participant in what was going on.
“I think ‘something between us’ accurately describes it,” Ava answered.
Lily smiled briefly at the man as he took the bakery boxes and put them in his trunk.
“I guess that was a waste of Sharpie,” Ainsley said, gesturing toward my hand before wrinkling up her nose. “I can’t believe you’re with Ava. She’s like a walking skeleton.”
“Aw, thanks,” Ava answered. “We all have our strengths. At least I don’t misplace my panties on a regular basis like some people do. Keeping them on helps with that, by the way.”
Ainsley stalked into the studio on straight legs. I craned my neck, trying to catch another glimpse of Lily. She was gone.
“Kaleb Ballard. Please tell me you did not hook up with Ainsely.” Ava’s voice was full of disgust.
I had to explain things to Lily. A line extended all the way out the door of Murphy’s Law, and her emotions had been pretty clear, even from across t
he street. I could wait until the crowd thinned out.
“Did you?” Ava demanded.
I realized that she was talking to me, and I looked away from Murphy’s Law. “I don’t think so. I might have been in the process at one point.”
“That girl is crazy pants.”
I laughed. “Crazy pants?”
“Yes.” Ava waved the question away. “It’s a thing. Anyway, I’d take a swim in some turpentine before that number soaks into your skin. It might turn into a brand.”
“Thanks for coming to my rescue.” I fought against sneaking another glimpse at Murphy’s Law, hoping Lily would reappear. “Wait. Why did you? You don’t like me.”
“You had a panicked look on your face.”
“That should make you happy.”
“It’s true, not too long ago, I would’ve thrown you to the wolves. Maybe told her you couldn’t stop talking about her, that you drew her name inside hearts on all your notebooks, had her picture in your locker.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” I said. “And I don’t have a locker.”
“Wouldn’t have mattered. My hate knew no limits. But,” she said, removing her arm from around mine, “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about in the gatehouse. All the things that happened—that I did—last year.”
“What did you come up with?” I asked.
“Jack.” She stared at her feet. “I guess he figured out I’d be easier to use and abuse if I felt alienated from the rest of you.”
“Separate you from the pack.”
She nodded.
“Yeah. Predators always go for the weakest animal.”
Ava was so broken on the inside. I wished I could dissect it all, help her figure out the truths and the lies.
“You know, I don’t even really know what my ability is. I mean, it’s telekinesis, but not the garden variety. I think Jack knows, and I think he took away anything I knew. He’ll use it against me again. If he gets another chance.”
A couple of raindrops splattered against the sidewalk. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t.”
“It won’t be easy. I was valuable to him. Valuable enough to seduce. I just don’t know why, or when he’ll come back for me.”
“Ava, I’m so sorry.”
“The worst part is … I don’t even know if I … did anything. With him.” She shuddered and closed her eyes. “But the fact that I thought about it is bad enough. He made sure to leave those memories intact.”
I understood her blackness a little bit better now.
Ava opened her eyes. “Sorry. That’s too much information, I know. I just don’t really have anyone to talk to about that kind of stuff.”
“If you don’t feel too awkward, you can talk to me whenever you want.” I frowned down at Ava in dismay, shocked I’d made the offer.
Her expression must have mirrored my own. “Let’s take twenty-four hours to think about that. Then we’ll reassess.”
“Okay.”
“Okay,” she said. “But thank you. I need an ally. I feel like he’s three steps ahead of us in some crazy game, and he already knows who’s going to win.”
“We will,” I promised her. “We will.”
“I hope you’re right.” She shook her head. “Because if you aren’t, Hell’s going to come down on us like rain.”
Chapter 38
I
went home. A month ago, I would have taken off for downtown Nashville, found a bar, and drunk myself into oblivion. Now, instead of holding a beer, I had a measuring cup. And all the ingredients for peanut butter cookies. And chocolate chip.
I fumbled and lost them all when I saw what was on the kitchen island.
A box with the Crown Royal label sat in the exact, dead center. The beam from the pendant light above it shone on it like a spotlight. I dropped the cookie ingredients and picked up the box. Brand spanking new. When I ripped it open, I saw that the seal on the bottle was unbroken.
We had a stare-down, me and that bottle. It won, of course. Whisky doesn’t blink.
I twisted off the top with a snap.
Smelled it.
Got down a glass from the cabinet.
There were so many things to run from.
Things Jack wanted me to run from.
I realized then who had left the bottle.
I thought of my dad, and all the things he’d finally trusted me with. Michael, and the understanding we’d come to.
And then I heard Lily’s voice. “You’re worth more than what you’ll find at the bottom of a bottle.”
I put the glass back in the cabinet and upended the liquor into the sink.
“I question your sanity sometimes, Ballard, but I know you aren’t an idiot.”
“Thank you for the compliment, Shorty.”
I was on the couch in my living room, balancing a full plate of cookies on my chest. Emerson stood over me like some kind of military general, wearing her Murphy’s Law work clothes.
“You kissed a random girl on a street corner? In the middle of the afternoon?”
“It wasn’t what it looked like.”
“I’ve heard that before, maybe I’ve even said that before, and only because in that case, it actually wasn’t what it looked like. I’ll listen.” She picked up my legs by the bottom of my basketball pants, dropped onto the couch, and then lowered my feet to her lap. “What did you do?”
I didn’t even bother trying to argue that it wasn’t my fault. “This girl comes up to me out of nowhere, writes her number on my hand, and then lays one on me. Yes, on a street corner, and yes, in the middle of the afternoon.”
“And now we’re going to discuss why this is a problem.”
“Because it happened at the exact same time Lily walked out of Murphy’s Law.”
“And you care about this because?”
“You’re leading the witness.”
She crossed her arms.
I sighed. “I care because I like her.”
“In that way?” She sounded like we were in third grade, hiding under the slide on the playground at recess.
“Good grief, Em, yes, in that way.”
Her smile almost extended past her ears as she reached out to snag a chocolate chip cookie. “So who was the girl?”
“The one I was with the night before I met you. The night Michael came to rescue me. I didn’t even remember her name.”
“Not knowing her name does not make it better. Why didn’t you go talk to Lily right that second? It’s afternoon already. Why haven’t you tried to talk to her today?” she demanded. “Why are you ignoring her?”
“I’m not ignoring her. Ow!” She grabbed a few leg hairs and pulled, and I was quickly reminded that tiny and irritable didn’t make the best combination.
Especially when you poked it with a stick.
“I didn’t. I avoided her because I didn’t know what to say. Did she tell you anything?”
Leaning over conspiratorially, she whispered, “You want to know what she said about you?”
“Emerson.”
She sat up. “Fine. She said that the two of you had a weird conversation about feelings, and she told you she wanted to bite you?” At this, she raised her eyebrows. I nodded. “Oof. No wonder seeing you with that girl on the street hurt her.”
“It hurt her?”
“Why do you think she was so mad?” She asked the question like I was an idiot. Which, apparently, I was.
“I don’t really understand how this stuff works.”
“I love you both. You know that,” Em said.
I nodded, and a little bit of the fire in her voice died down.
“If I’ve learned something from all this crap with Jack,” she continued, “it’s that living anywhere other than in the moment is a mistake. Like Michael always says, the future is subjective. The past could be a lie—not just my past—but all of our pasts. Even Lily’s.”
“You still don’t think Lily’s being here is a coincidence.”
?
??No. Because every time I think I’ve dealt with Jack and all the ways he’s screwed with me, I prove myself wrong.” She shook her head. “Do you have any idea how much it kills me that so many of the good things in my life are there because of him?”
“I’m so sorry I didn’t stop him when I had the chance,” I said. “I’m sorry I didn’t take my dad’s files before he stole them, before he could find you.”
“Where would I be now if you had?”
I sat up and put the plate of cookies on the table, frowning at her.
“If you’d taken the files before he could get to them, Jack wouldn’t have known about me and my ability to travel to the past. I’d still be a crazy lump in a bed. Lily could be living somewhere else. Your dad would be dead.” She gave me a grim smile. “You could chase the circles of consequence for days. If this had happened, then this wouldn’t have. Vice versa. It’s mind-boggling.”
“There are a hundred different scenarios.”
“Exactly, and it proves my point. The present. Right now.” Her eyes were more serious than I’d ever seen them. “The exact spot where the hourglass filters the sand from the future to the past. That’s where we have to live, Kaleb. Before all the sand runs out, or before somebody shakes it all up again.”
“I am so glad I have you in my life, for whatever reason.” My vision was suddenly blurry, so I paused and blinked a few times. “So, Lily. I have your blessing?”
“Treat her right, or I’ll kill you.” She held up a tiny, yet mighty, fist. “I can see how you feel about her. I know how she feels about you. And I guess I wonder … how many times have we had this conversation? What if last time you didn’t listen to me and you regretted it, or I told you not to go after her at all? Wouldn’t you want to do things differently now?”
I ruffled her hair. “Is this what goes on up there in that head of yours?”
“All the time.” The answer was solemn. Melancholy.