Wesley actually winks. Dad smiles. I can practically see the marquee in his head: Relationship Material! Wesley must see it too, because he capitalizes on it, and sets the mop aside.
“Would you mind if I borrowed Mackenzie for a bit? We’ve been working on her summer reading.”
Dad beams. “Of course,” he says, waving his paint roller. “Go on, now.”
I half expect him to add kids or lovebirds, but thankfully he doesn’t.
Meanwhile, Wes is trying to tug off the plastic gloves. One snags on his ring, and when he finally manages to wrest his hand free, the metal band flies off, bouncing across the marble floor and underneath an old oven. Wes and I go to recover it at the same time, but he’s stopped by Dad’s hand, which comes down on his shoulder.
Wes goes rigid. A shadow crosses his face.
Dad’s saying something to Wes, but I’m not listening as I drop to the floor before the oven. The metal grate at the base digs into the cut on my arm as I reach beneath, stretching until my fingers finally close around the ring, and I get to my feet as Wesley bows his head, jaw clenched.
“You okay there, Wesley?” asks Dad, letting go. Wes nods, a short breath escaping as I drop the ring into his palm. He slides it on.
“Yeah,” he says, voice leveling. “I’m fine. Just a little dizzy.” He forces a laugh. “Must be the fumes from Mac’s blue soap.”
“Aha!” I say. “I told you cleaning was bad for your health.”
“I should have listened.”
“Let’s get you some fresh air, okay?”
“Good idea.”
“See you, Dad.”
The café door closes behind us, and Wesley slumps back against it, looking a little pale. I know the feeling.
“We have aspirin upstairs,” I offer. Wesley laughs and rolls his head to look at me.
“I’m fine. But thank you.” I’m struck by the change in tone. No jokes, no playful arrogance. Just simple, tired relief. “Maybe a little fresh air, though.”
He straightens up and heads through the lobby, and I follow. Once we reach the garden, he sinks down on his bench and rubs his eyes. The sun is bright, and he was right, this is a different place in daylight. Not a lesser place, really, but open, exposed. At dusk there seemed so many places to hide. At midday, there are none.
The color is coming back into Wesley’s face, but his eyes, when he stops rubbing them, are distant and sad. I wonder what he saw, what he felt, but he doesn’t say.
I sink onto the other end of the bench. “You sure you’re okay?”
He blinks, stretches, and by the time he’s done, the strain is gone and Wes is back: the crooked smile and the easy charm.
“I’m fine. Just a bit out of practice, reading people.”
Horror washes over me. “You read the living? But how?”
Wesley shrugs. “The same way you read anything else.”
“But they’re not in order. They’re loud and tangled and—”
He shrugs. “They’re alive. And they may not be organized, but the important stuff is there, on the surface. You can learn a lot, at a touch.”
My stomach turns. “Have you ever read me?”
Wes looks insulted but shakes his head. “Just because I know how doesn’t mean I make a sport of it, Mac. Besides, it’s against Archive policy, and believe it or not, I’d like to stay on their good side.”
You and me both, I think.
“How can you stand to read them?” I ask, suppressing a shudder. “Even with my ring on, it’s awful.”
“Well, you can’t go through life without touching anyone.”
“Watch me,” I say.
Wesley’s hand floats up, a single, pointed finger drifting through the air toward me.
“Not funny.”
But he keeps reaching.
“I. Will. Cut. Your. Fingers. Off.”
He sighs and lets his hand drop to his side. Then he nods at my arm. Red has crept through the bandage and the sleeve where the bottom of the oven dug in.
I look down at it. “Knife.”
“Ah,” he says.
“No, it really was a teenage boy with a really big knife.”
He pouts. “Keeper-Killers. Kids with knives. Your territory was never that much fun when I worked there.”
“I’m just lucky, I guess.”
“You sure I can’t give you a hand?”
I smile, more at the way he offers this time—tiptoeing through the question—than the prospect; but the last thing I need is another complication in my territory.
“No offense, but I’ve been doing this for quite a while.”
“How’s that?”
I should backtrack, but it’s too late to lie when the truth is halfway up my throat. “I became a Keeper at twelve.”
His brow furrows. “But the age requirement is sixteen.”
I shrug. “My grandfather petitioned.”
Wesley’s face hardens as he grasps the meaning. “He passed the job to a kid.”
“It wasn’t—” I warn.
“What kind of sick bastard would—” The words die on his lips as my fingers tangle in his collar, and I shove him back against the stone bench. For a moment he is just a body and I am a Keeper, and I don’t even care about the deafening noise that comes with touching him.
“Don’t you dare,” I say.
Wesley’s face is utterly unreadable as my hands loosen and slide away from his throat. He brings his fingers to his neck but never takes his eyes from mine. We are, both of us, coiled.
And then he smiles.
“I thought you hated touching.”
I groan and shove him, slumping back into my corner of the bench.
“I’m sorry,” I say. The words seem to echo through the garden.
“One thing’s for certain,” he says. “You keep me on my toes.”
“I shouldn’t have—”
“It wasn’t my place to judge,” he says. “Your grandfather obviously did something right.”
I try to shape a tight laugh, and it dies in my throat. “This is new to me, Wes. Sharing. Having someone I can share with. And I really appreciate your help—That sounds lame. I’ve never had someone like… This is a mess. There’s finally something good in my life and I’m already making a mess of it.” My cheeks go hot, and I have to clench my teeth to stop the rambling.
“Hey,” he says, knocking his shoe playfully against mine. “It’s the same for me, you know? This is all new to me. And I’m not going anywhere. It takes at least three assassination attempts to scare me off. And even then, if there are baked goods involved, I might come back.” He hoists himself up from the bench. “But on that note, I retreat to tend my wounded pride.” He says it with a smile, and somehow I’m smiling, too.
How does he do that, untangle things so easily? I walk with him back through the study and into the lobby. As the revolving doors groan to a stop after him, I close my eyes and sink back against the stairs. I’ve been mentally berating myself for all of ten seconds when I feel the scratch of letters and dig my list from my pocket to see a new name scrawl itself across my paper.
Angela Price. 13.