few seconds passed before Keelie blew out a slow, steady breath. “I’m sorry . . . and not just because you walked in while I was kissing Zach. And that’s what it was. It was a shitty thing to do, but it was all on my part. He’d never . . .”
When Keelie trailed off, Abigale glanced over at Zach. He was staring at his friend with an unreadable face. What the hell? Abigale wondered. Looking back at Keelie, she said, “I know. It was shitty, he’d never, and it’s done. We’re cool.”
“Just like that?” Keelie crossed her arms over her chest and stared at her, defiance written all over her face.
“Just like that.” Shaking her head, Abigale said, “I don’t know why you’re so hostile to me, unless it really is all about him, but I just don’t care that much. He loves me . . . and I figure you know that. I love him. There’s no reason for me to get worked up over something that meant nothing to him.”
Keelie flinched. “Ouch. You know how to twist the knife.” Then, with a short, stiff nod, she turned and headed back down the hall. “It’s over, it was shitty . . . we’re cool. I can live with that, I guess. I’m gone for the night.”
As she strode down the hall, Zach and Abby looked at each other.
Javi called out, “Wait a second, kid. I’m walking you to the car, remember?”
“Home?” Zach murmured, after Javi had slipped out the back with Keelie.
She went to answer: hell, yes.
But the weight of the book in her hand reminded her. “Just a minute.” She glanced around, her gaze lingering on the counter. “You got any string?”
He blinked at her. “String?”
“Yeah.” She waggled the book at him. “I finished the plan. Well, everything except the photographers, and hey, I did flip off your brother, so maybe that counts. Now I need to do the rest of the stuff in here.”
“And you need string . . . ?”
She sighed and opened it to the page where it read:
Hang the journal in a public place.
Tapping on that page, she said, “I need to hang it up. Ask people to draw in it.”
He skimmed it over and then flipped it to the very front where her plan was. “And when they see this?”
“Welllll . . .” She was blushing as she answered, “It’s not like they know who it belongs to. Let them guess.”
He sighed and then pushed it back into her hands.
While he was gone, she scrounged in her purse for a pen. Tugging it out, she added in a sixth item.
He came just as she was tucking the pen up.
“You sure you want to leave it lying around here for a day?” he asked, eyeing her skeptically.
“Zach . . . you worry too much. Besides, who is going to take it? Javi?”
Javi had just come back into the main room and he looked at them, puzzled. Eyeing the twine, he jerked up his hands. “Hey, I’m not into . . . ah . . . what are you talking about?”
Abigale flashed the journal at him and he leaned in, studied it. “Nope. I don’t do journals.”
“It will be fine,” she said, looking back at Zach.
“Okay.” He pushed a hand through his hair and then reached for it, using the twine he’d dug up and looping it around it, tying it so that the twine kept it open on just that page. Then he rigged it so that it was hanging just off the counter. “We’ll watch it for a few hours tomorrow and then take it down, cool?”
“Sounds good.” Licking her lips, she pulled out a pen and then shoved it into Javi’s hands. “Hey, why don’t you draw on the page?”
He shrugged and flipped it open, found the page and doodled for a minute. When he was done, there was a samurai slashing his sword through the air. “Nice,” Zach murmured. “Hey, it was in a public place. We can take it home now.”
“Relax. There’s nothing in there I’ve got a problem with people seeing.” She flipped to the front and glanced down as though she was reading it for the first time.