“Can I see it?”
“Sure.” She winked at him. “But don’t ask me to take anything else off. Willy’ll get jealous.” She flipped the hat off in one neat move and handed it to Ford.
Sadie wondered if she’d practiced that.
He peered inside, and Sadie held her breath. After less than four seconds Sadie heard him think that it definitely wasn’t Bucky’s, but she had no idea why and could tell he didn’t either. It was just a gut instinct. Disappointed, he handed the hat back to Kansas and ducked away before she could kiss him again.
You could be wrong, Sadie pointed out. The gut is not the most reliable organ for thinking.
Grabbing a handful of napkins, he made a beeline for the first mirror he spotted to wipe Kansas’s lipstick off his face. Four napkins and five minutes later he was checking to make sure he’d gotten it all when Sadie heard him ask himself why. There was no girl whose feelings he had to worry about. If he came home with lipstick all over him it wouldn’t matter.
His eyes shifted to the reflection of the crowd behind him, everyone laughing and dancing. Maybe he should just go. If he left now he’d be home in time to watch the fireworks on the roof with Lulu. If he could convince her to go up there. With Copernicus.
You are not going to spend the fourth of July with your dog, Sadie heard him reprimand himself. Have some self-respect. You are going to stay at this party and have a good time.
You forgot to say “or else,” Sadie told him.
He stared hard at his reflection in the mirror, turned slightly to one side, and said aloud, “You are Mr. Irresistible,” so sarcastically that Sadie almost choked laughing. He did it again on the other side, sounding more bored than sarcastic. The third time he started with his chin lowered to his chest and raised his face slowly to meet his own eyes, saying in a cheesy television announcer voice, “You are Mr. Irresistib—”
The words died. Sadie’s breath caught. All of a sudden she wasn’t watching him look at himself, she was looking at him. Really looking at him, their eyes meeting, hers and his.
It shouldn’t have been possible, but it happened. She felt it, felt him. Felt his gaze holding hers. Felt him look at her, into her. Felt him see her the way she’d longed to be seen without knowing it, with intensity and interest and surprise, as if he’d found something he’d been seeking for a long time. He smiled at her and she smiled back, and her body lit up with the thrill of their connection.
Not bad, she heard him think. Before she could agree his hand came up to rub the shadow of stubble he’d let grow on his chin and he said aloud, serious now, “Pretty irresistible.”
Sadie’s cheeks burned with mortification. He hadn’t been looking at her or through her or for her. He’d been looking at himself. Smiling at himself. Of course. She shook herself. How could she have been so stupid? God, she was embarrassing. At least he would never find out, since they would never meet.
There was some comfort in that. In knowing they would never see each other across a crowded room, at a party, at the mall. Never bump into one another and have a moment of recognition, never have a casual conversation, share a coffee, accidentally let their knees brush. She would never turn at a movie and see him laughing in the seat next to hers, never watch his lids lower so his lashes touched his cheek in the moment just before a kiss. Never be seen by him at all.
She swallowed back a knot in her throat. Yes, that’s a real relief. He ate Meatballz for dinner and liked to punch walls and cheated at poker—at least she assumed he cheated, because she still couldn’t figure out how he’d guessed all those hands her first day with him. She wouldn’t even know what to say to him if they met.
“Hey, Ice,” Willy’s voice bellowed, and turning from the mirror—finally—Ford saw him beckoning from a bar set up at the edge of the dance floor. “Get over here. You look thirsty.”
When Ford joined him Willy gestured with a bottle of beer over the heads of his guests. “Isn’t this something?”
“It sure is,” Ford agreed. “How did you find this place?”
“Linc put me onto it,” Willy said. He signaled the bartender for two beers, then leaned against the bar and faced Ford, his expression serious. “Heard about your dustup the other night. Don’t worry, he’s not coming, parties aren’t really his thing anymore.” The bartender set the beers in front of Willy, and he pushed one toward Ford. “But you might want to keep out of his way. Don’t know what you did, but he’s a little loony about it.”
“I just—”
Willy put up his hands. “Don’t know and don’t want to know.”
“Got it,” Ford said, taking a sip of beer. It was cold and tasted good to Sadie. “What happened to him? He used to want to be a priest.”
Willy took a swig of beer. “Way I see it, there’s two parts to being a priest. Part where you save souls. And part where you give out punishment.” His eyebrows went up suggestively. “Who’s to say which part appeals most to Linc?”
Sadie watched Ford’s mind flip through images of Linc from childhood. Linc breaking up a fight between strangers at a dance, Linc persuading James not to steal the principal’s car. Sadie heard him thinking that none of it went with what Willy was saying, but neither did the angry guy who’d sworn to kill him. Ford shook his head. “I don’t understand why you all do it.”
“Do what?” Willy was looking out at his guests.
“Work for him. For the Pharmacist.”
Everything about Willy changed. He pulled himself up to his full height and turned to face Ford. He would have looked terrifying if his eyes hadn’t seemed so afraid. “Don’t say that name,” he whispered, his gaze darting left and right.
“Why don’t you and Linc go against him? The two of you, with all your friends, could overthrow him.”
“Takes a lot of trust, what you’re saying, Little Ice. The right incentive can make a man do strange things.”
“But you’ve been friends forever. You must trust Linc.”
“Your brother did,” Willy said with a sad smile. “James trusted Linc. Told him what he was planning. Trusted Bucky too.”
Sadie felt Ford’s heart skip a beat. “What are you saying?”
Willy looked at him hard. “Only that old friends are one thing, survival is another. You do what you got to in order to take care of what you love.”
Ford said, “I think the Pharmacist killed James.”
Willy cleared his throat. “This is no kind of talk for a party, Little Ice.”
“You’re right,” Ford agreed, and Sadie heard him thinking that if Willy knew more he’d tell him. “Did you propose to Kansas yet?” he asked.
Willy grinned. “This weekend.”
“She’s a catch,” Ford congratulated him.
“How’s your girl?” Willy asked.
“We broke up.”
Willy made a wide gesture with his beer bottle over the dance floor. “Lots of good fishing here,” he said.
Ford took a sip of beer, and Sadie heard a regular, flat countdown like a launch sequence so she knew it was coming when Ford said, “Speaking of girls, which of you do I have to thank for putting Plum in touch with me?”
Willy put up his hands. “Not me. Doubt it was Lincoln either.”
Ford frowned into his beer bottle. “Why do you say that?”
Willy picked up a cocktail napkin, held it in front of him, and recited as if reading from a paper, “I swear no matter what happens I will not put Plum in touch with Ford.” He dropped the napkin and looked at Ford. “Your brother made us all sign it.”