Page 13 of Ignition Rites

“Uh… hi.”

Lorelei’s voice gets my head up immediately.

She’s standing just inside the door in an old hoodie two sizes too big — probably Rafe’s, which does something ugly and immediate in my chest — with her hair pulled back and her bare feet on the concrete like she walked out here without thinking about it too hard.

“Should I leave?”

“No.” It comes too fast, so I try again. “No. It’s fine.”

She comes farther in, hands buried in the hoodie pocket, looking around the bay like it’s a foreign country. “This is where you live, huh?”

“Pretty much.” I wipe my hands on a rag. “You okay? It’s kind of late for a walk.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” She runs a finger just above the Camaro’s fender without quite touching it. “Rafe told me something tonight.”

“I know.”

Her eyes flick up to mine. “Right. Of course you know.” She looks back at the car. “I don’t know what to do with it yet. Part of me still thinks he has to be exaggerating.”

“He isn’t.”

Her attention comes back to me. “You believe all of it?”

“I believe enough.”

Her mouth tightens. “That’s comforting.”

“It wasn’t supposed to be.”

“No, apparently that’s Rafe’s job.”

A smile almost gets out before I catch it, and she notices anyway.

“Why’d you come here instead of going back to bed?” I ask.

She shrugs too quickly. “You said I could come to the shop if I needed anything. I just…”

“I remember.”

“Did you actually mean that?”

“I don’t say things I don’t mean.” The words land heavier than I intended.

She tilts her head. “You disappear a lot.”

“What?”

“At dinner. Family stuff. Anything that starts feeling remotely intimate, you suddenly have somewhere else to be.” She glances around the shop. “Usually here.”

I wasn’t ready for the question to turn on me, so I give her the easy answer. “I’m not good in rooms with too many people watching.”

“That’s not the only answer.”

“It’s a true one.”

She doesn’t push, just lets me keep it, and the quiet that follows makes me reach for something else to say before I think better of it.

“There was a condition,” I tell her. “With Rafe.”