teeth, and before she could think better of it, she freed her hair from its band, spreading the red and gold waves over her shoulders.
And then she fluffed them.
She actually . . . fluffed . . . her hair. But it did look even better, framing her small face, giving her character she felt she otherwise lacked.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, she remembered all the nights Isobel had stood in this exact spot and scrubbed her short hair until it had spiked up. In the background, there had always been Beatles songs playing. Maybe some Bob Dylan. Sometimes Bob Marley.
Isobel had joked when Justin Bieber had come out and she’d liked one of his releases that clearly there had to be a B involved for her to get on board with the downloads.
Frowning, Helania lowered her hands, resting them on the sink’s edge. For no good reason, she considered the amount of time she spent thinking about her sister: What Isobel had done. What she had thought. What she had liked and disliked.
Remembering the dead probably wasn’t a bad thing, especially when you were in the early stages of grief. The problem was . . . she had always done that. Even before Isobel’s untimely, violent death, she had felt more comfortable sitting on the sidelines of life and experiencing things in a filtered fashion, her sister living on the outside and bringing stories home.
Movies, in effect. Except the events and the people actually existed.
That one boyfriend Helania had had? Their relationship had been her sole foray into a life of her own away from this apartment. And even then, if she were honest, she had only been with him because Isobel had told her she really should try to find someone—
The knock on the door was soft, and Helania ripped around, heart pounding.
Although not with fear.
No, definitely not with fear.
She quickly turned the bathroom light off in an attempt to deny that she had spent any time on her appearance. And yet as she all but skipped to the door, she was pulling her jeans up into place and tugging her fleece down so that the soft fabric didn’t have any bunches in it. When she checked the peephole, she inhaled quick.
Opening things, she didn’t bother hiding the smile that hit her face. “Hi.”
Boone looked exhausted. Still, his eyes lit up. “Hi.”
The pair of them stood there stupidly. And then she shook herself and stepped back. “Please, come in. But as I texted, it’s not fancy.”
“It’s perfect,” he said, even though he was still staring at her and not looking around at where she lived.
As Boone came over the threshold and shut the door behind himself, she decided he had a point about the perfection. Because what do you know, with him in her little apartment? The place suddenly felt exciting and fresh. Decorated by a designer. Kitted out with windows that had nice views instead of solid concrete walls that were landlocked.
He was transformative. And not just when it came to her walls and ceiling.
He was also, she realized, the first visitor she had ever had in. “May I get you a drink? I have milk.” What, like he was a five-yearold? “And, um, I also think there’s some orange juice in the fridge—”
“I’m fine.”
“I can take your coat?” She shook her head. “I mean, would you like me to? Take your coat, that is.”
“Oh, right. Yes.”
He shrugged out of his leather jacket, revealing a fine cashmere sweater, and she noted that he was wearing slacks, not leathers. As he passed the heavy bundle over to her, she breathed deeply, catching his scent in the folds.
“I wish I had thought to buy food,” she said as she put the thing on the back of a chair. “I would have—”
The weight of the coat was so great, it pulled the chair over, the whole shebang landing with a thud.
“Sorry,” Boone said. “I . . . ah, I have things in the pockets.”
She got to the jacket before he did, and this time, she laid it out on the table.
A gun? she thought. Or guns, plural. Ammo, too?
It was a reminder of what he did during the nights, and made her wonder, given that he was on a kind of compassionate leave for his father’s death, exactly how long he was going to be off.
As she turned back to him, he was staring at her with an intensity that was not hard to interpret. And as she met