Page 27 of Don't Cross the Blue Line
“I remember.” Again, going for friendly, nice—and somehow careening over an embankment into creepy. I should stop while I’m ahead. But I don’t, and spoiler alert, I’m probably not going to. “I remember the hair. Red. Very red.”
Stop, Beckett, for the love.
Something flickers across her face—a grimace? Concern?
Silence falls between us, sucking up every molecule of oxygen that should be supplying my brain. Tiny sirens go off inside my head while I nod, smile, act as though we’re talking and not just staring at each other in awkward silence. And then my mouth says, “So, what are you doing here?”
Wrong. Wrong! I hear it the second it clears my teeth.
Her chin lifts. A millimeter. “What am I doing here? At my father’s event? At the rink where I grew up?” She catches herself. “I can be here, Benson. I don’t need an excuse.”
“That’s not what I?—”
“I can be here. Deal with it. I’m in the stands where I belong, right?”
I wince. Wow, she throws a punch like an enforcer. Bam. Then she turns, clearly charting a course for anywhere but here.
I start to follow. “Listen, I was just trying to be friendly—” And of course, my foot catches the stone lip of the fountain. I stumble forward. My hand connects with her camera—just enough to knock it sideways on the strap, the lens cap popping off and skittering across the tile like a tiny fleeing witness.
She yanks the camera against her chest. “What are you doing?”
And the look she gives me—well, we’re suddenly time traveling seventeen years, and I’ve sprayed ice on her and somehow destroyed her life.
Okay, I can admit some regret of the moment.
But she totally overreacted and?—
Nope. Not going there. Instead, “I’m sorry—I didn’t—” I reach for the lens cap. She snatches it first. Takes a full step backward. A small step, but a continental distance.
“It’s fine. The camera’s fine.”
“Everly—”
“Look.” She pulls her camera against her chest. Pushes her glasses up. Her jaw is set exactly like Coach’s. “I’m here for my dad and the rink. You’re here for the event. Those are two separate things that can happen in the same building without intersecting. You stay out of my way. I’ll stay out of yours. I think even you can probably figure that out.”
“Fine,” I snap. Sheesh. What is wrong with me? But she just has this power to turn me into an angry teenager.
She nods, turns toward the rink, and walks away—camera against her chest, red curls bouncing.
I stand by the fountain. It’s a dry basin full of cemented pennies. Wishes that went nowhere.
“Fine,” I say again, apparently still coming to terms with the way that conversation went, and head back toward the locker room.
Halfway down the corridor, I pass the old offices. A door marked Staff Only—cracked open two inches. A voice catches my attention. Tense. Hushed.
I freeze, just barely able to make out Cole Thompson through the crack. And across from him, one of the hard-faced men from the parking lot. Cole’s face is drawn, hands lifted, imploring. The man’s expression suggests it’s not working.
Cole’s eyes flick to the door. To me. I’m not sure, but something that looks like fear, or maybe desperation, washes over him.
Then the door swings shut.
Huh.
Maybe I imagined it.
I keep walking. Whatever’s going on with Cole, he got himself into that mess.
I am not here to rescue anyone, thank you. I can barely rescue myself.
