“Aha.” Drue brightens with unnatural drama. “Saved from the hotel room hair dye job by the dominatrix wig.” And then pulls out her hair tie and blithely toss-tosses her lush blue waves. “But also because this shit’s a bitch to switch.”
I smash a few fish and wobble my left leg. “Maybe all I need is a simple haircut.”
Allie frowns. “Not with that distinct color, darling.”
“Biggest asset. First thing on the APB broadcast,” Drue adds.
“Thanks for nothing, thumbtack butt.”
Deftly, she catches the fish-shaped cracker I’ve hurled. As Allie throws her hands up to celebrate the clean pass, I give in to a heartfelt smirk—right before my sincere confession.
“It’s so good to have you guys here.” I reach for their hands. “I mean that. Thank you both. For absolutely everything.”
Drue smirks with definitive purpose. “You’re just saying that because I took the bullet of going to the pharmacy counter.”
At once, I groan. It barely edges out Allie’s fresh gasp.
“What bullet? In what way? The pharmacy? Rae, are you okay?”
I fling another cheesy fish. “Well, there’s the topic transition we didn’t need.”
After fishing in her bra for the cracker, Drue flicks it back at me. “And there’s the response that tells me everything.”
“Everything about what?” Allie’s all but bouncing in her seat. “Damn it, what loop am I out of?”
I jerk my head back and forth. “Not important.”
“Which means it is,” she insists. “You’re never this cagey about trifles and trinkets.”
I roll my eyes. “Because my professional reputation depends on trifles and trinkets?”
“Good try but no good.” She darts her scrutiny between D and me. “Come on. You both going to tell me to chalk this one up to jet lag too?”
Silence stretches.
Drue stares at me.
I scrutinize three more smushed cheesy fishes.
But she finally speaks. “You didn’t take it, did you?”
Allie huffs. “Take what?”
All of a sudden, I’m restless. Surging to my feet barely helps, especially because I twist my fingers together like some fretting frau from long ago. All right, maybe only two hundred years ago. But that’s far enough away for a full-on conscience crisis. An inner debate that hasn’t set me free since this morning.
“Well, you have seventy-two hours, right? So there’s still time to decide.”
“Seventy-two ho—” Allie interrupts her snit on a blunt snag of breath. “Oh. You mean that kind of a decision?”
I leave the kitchen area, pacing out across the bedroom. “You know, fifteen minutes ago, we were deciding other things. Girls’ night in, remember? Passionflix? HBO? Nail polish? Maybe even hair dye?”
Allie rises too. “Fifteen minutes ago, I wasn’t aware that you and Bastien had tumbled quite that far over the edge.”
I stop. Pivot. And then snap, “Well we did, okay? But I’m working it out for myself, and—”
“Hey.” She holds up both hands. “No judgments, chica, especially not from me. Things happen when one is dealing with a naked De Leon.”
Drue tosses a cracker high and again catches it in her mouth. “I don’t know whether to order you both for details or puke up everything in my stomach.”
I stop and let a laugh burst free. “And I don’t know which one of you should get a harder hug.”
“Probably her.” Allie thumbs toward D. “Because I’m not letting this subject go so fast.” She endures my frustrated groan while sitting on the edge of the bed. “Don’t get a rash, Tavish. You’re a grown woman and have every right to your ultimate decision. You also don’t have any obligation to share that with us. But if you really haven’t chugged that pill yet, it does say a few significant things.”
I settle onto the couch with folded arms. “Only a few?”
She presses her hands together in her lap. Her nails are a stunning shade of Roma Red. Of course. “Well, one in particular.”
“And thank God someone else said it.” Drue sidles over and leans on the threshold between the two spaces. “Well, not yet, but…” She jabs up a thumb in Allie’s direction. “Take the shottie, Hemline hottie. Right here for you, missy.”
Allie throws her a grateful look. The expression solemnifies as she swivels it back to me. “This possibility…” she says, “of what might already be going on in your body, because of Bastien… I think it’s your way of still being connected to him. A tangible way, that you can understand—instead of all the other ways, which are freaking you out.”
I look down. Like that’s going to confirm…what? That I spilled a stupid amount of dumpling gravy on my soon-to-be-burned yoga pants?
Or maybe…that she’s hit my emotional bull’s-eye more accurately than I thought and now has glaring confirmation of it?
“I’m not freaked out.”
“No?” Allie returns. “Because you know, I was the megaphone for freaked when all I had to deal with was a two-hundred-plus-year-old lover. If he’d also told me I was a ringer for his dead fiancée, who then started uploading scenes from their life into my mind, I’d start—”
I hiss in aggravation, pushing again to my feet. “That’s not—she’s not—that’s just—”
“Sounding very much like the truth,” D comments. “At least from where I’m sitting.”
I scowl. “You’re not sitting.”
“And you’re not accomplishing anything by running,” Allie asserts. “And before you start, you know exactly what I mean.” She moves fast, reaching and grabbing my hand before I can step back. “Dearest wench whom we love so much. Would you just come and sit down? You too, Drusilla.”
While we’re all readjusting against the headboard, Drue snickers. “Is this the part where I get to turn the room into a winter fantasy bower?”
Allie groans.
I giggle, and it feels so damn good. “Don’t stress, Allie-rific. She’s got a long way to go before this place approaches a bower.”
“We’re not talking about her right now.” She drapes a comforting arm around my shoulder. “So what makes you so sure that you’re not the miracle reincarnation of Magique De Lys?”
At once, I sit forward. “And what makes you so sure that I am?”
“Seriously?” Drue tilts her head back, regarding me from the top of her cute pop star nose. “The man is clearly knocked on his ass for you.”
“The man doesn’t know me. It’s been two days.”
Allie spreads a wide smile. “It was about the same blink of time before you two saw the same thing in Maximilian.”
Drue nods. “And there are a lot more flukes going on this time.”
“Okay, Jesus toast is a fluke,” I volley. “That doesn’t mean it’s got to be tossed in a manger.” I scoot up and then turn around, regarding them with crisscrossed legs and my chin on my knuckles. “I have a life, you guys. And full memories of my own. Birthdays and snow days. Old schoolmates and new heartaches. Vacations with my parents to Vermont and the Vineyard. One time, they even bit the bullet and took me to Orlando. And yes”—I press at the middle of my sternum—“I even remember every second of how I got this. So if all that’s legit, then what’s another woman doing in my psyche? And why?”