Audition - Skye Warren, Amelia Wilde Page 0,36

keeps recent photos. Recent enough that what I did to Caleb shows on his face in one of them. But I don’t need a photo to know what he looks like now.

Because he’s standing on the porch, his hands in his pockets.

There’s a single heartbeat left where he doesn’t see me. Caleb’s not expecting me here, the fucker. I can’t believe it. He should be on the lookout for me everywhere he goes. Then he lifts his head. Narrows his eyes. Scowls.

I fling the door open wide. “Welcome home, buddy.”

He steps in and crushes my hand in his. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

I pound his back hard, pulling him close. I want him off-balance. “I’m at work,” I tell him jovially. “Protecting a client.”

“What client?” He backs up, putting some space between us, eyes ablaze. “What fucking client?”

“Caleb, come in here and have some tea.” Mamere’s voice floats out from the kitchen, knocking us apart as surely as if she’d stood between us and put her hands on our chests. Caleb still bristles, his shoulders set. What the hell does he think he’s going to do, tackle me in front of his grandmother? No. He won’t do that. “Bring your friend with you.”

I snort back a laugh. “Yes, Caleb. Let’s have some tea and catch up.” I fix him with a wide grin that feels like a feral dog baring its teeth.

“I’m short on time.” He turns on his heel and goes into the kitchen. I follow him in time to see him wrapping up Mamere in his big arms. After all the things I’ve seen him do, it’s jarring to see him hug her so carefully. We’re all such fucking contradictions, aren’t we? “I can’t stay,” he tells her, though he was clearly planning to stay when he got here. He was wearing that half-relieved, half-contemplative expression we all wear when we’re thirty seconds from kicking our feet up and closing our eyes somewhere safe. Caleb should know better. Nowhere is safe.

“Bethy’s put out the tea,” Mamere protests. She runs her hands over the front of his shirt. “It won’t take you a minute to drink it.”

Caleb keeps his body angled away from Bethany as much as he can. She presses herself against the counter. I can tell she’s trying to make it look like a casual lean. It’s not working. I keep my posture relaxed. It’s no reflection of how I feel, which is like a mean German shepherd at the end of its chain. I want to throw myself between them. Caleb straightens up and heads back toward the door, caught between the two of us. The air in the room crackles. His right hand balls into a fist. I track every twitch of his muscles. I let my guard down walking in here like a fucking idiot. It won’t happen again.

“Stay,” says the old woman. Bethany’s face is blank. She’s focused on some spot in the middle distance, far from here. She holds herself tight as if she’s trapped between wanting to run and wanting to stand tall. Like there’s some part of her that still, after all this time and all this bullshit, wants to lean into Caleb and face the world with him. It turns my stomach.

“I’ve got some things to take care of,” Caleb insists. “I’ll come back another time.” For the first time since he walked in, he swings his gaze from me to Bethany and back. Caleb Lewis doesn’t dare sneer at me in front of his grandmother, cataracts in her eyes or not. “As for you two.” The threat rings like a bell in the center of this cocoon of a kitchen. Mamere blinks, her near-blind eyes tracking Caleb’s voice. “I’ll be seeing you both very soon. Consider that a promise.”

Bethany, present time

Sleeping in Josh’s bed is killing me.

It’s only been a week, and it’s a good bed. Joshua North wouldn’t buy a piece of shit for a bed. It’s not some secondhand thing dragged in off the curb or even an IKEA piece that looked good in the showroom but deteriorates by the day under the fitted sheet. It’s somehow both plush and firm—probably the nicest mattress I’ve ever slept on in my life. And it’s making me feel like a broken doll.

I add a bit of extra stretch into my third position, and then my fourth. My shoulders are tight knots that won’t release. I can feel others knots in my hamstrings. My body is a