is massive as he hugs her back tightly.
“Better watch it, Sunday. Payne here might start to think you missed him or something.” At the teasing older voice, she giggles and jumps down.
“Yeah, like I’d miss a brother, right, Payne?” She leans into his side briefly, seemingly oblivious to his megawatt grin losing more than a few degrees of cheerfulness at her words. Turning to the only other occupant of the booth, she steps forward and holds out her hand politely. “How are you, Mr. Halliday?”
“I’m doing okay, Sunday, thank you for asking.” He answers and shakes her delicate hand in his much larger one. The words he says are for her, but he delivers them looking straight at me, and I can’t stand here anymore. My legs feel like wet spaghetti, and my heart is trying to beat its way right out of my ribcage. The pukey feeling that’s been building over the past few minutes intensifies.
Breathe.
It’ll pass.
I taste the bile in my throat.
Or not.
Bowing my head, hand over my mouth, I turn and run for the staff restroom off the kitchen. The bells over the front door of the diner mock my distress as they cheerily announce the arrival of another customer. Once inside the small restroom, I flip the lock on the door and throw up the awful coffee from this morning. When the retching stops, I turn and flip the lid closed on the single toilet and sit heavily on it, my elbows digging into my knees. With my head down, my fingernails scrape my scalp and grip handfuls of hair, attempting to ride out my anxiety and the harsh remnants of nausea.
It’s just a panic attack. Breathe. You’re fine.
It’s only Payne and Mr. Halliday. There’s no need to be scared—Callum’s dead, Bingham’s not here.
And so what if Poe couldn’t be bothered to come? You ran. Can you blame him?
Even though breathing still feels like trying to force air into a pair of lungs that are two sizes too small, I manage to talk myself down after a few more minutes. My heart is still alternating between pounding and fluttering, but my breathing is at least manageable, and finally, the urge to vomit subsides. Wiping the sheen of sweat from my forehead, I straighten my sweatshirt and fix my messy hair. Turning on the tap, the water is cold and refreshing as I scoop up a couple of handfuls to rinse my mouth and ease my dry throat. Taking a last look in the mirror, I unlock and open the restroom door.
“Hey, Star.” The nickname slips from his lips like the softest kiss. He leans against the opposite side of the narrow hallway—black snapback on backward, slim grey joggers and black hoodie slightly rumpled, and one Converse-encased foot braced against the wall.
Poe.
Everything in me lets go at the sight of him, at the sound of his voice. With a gut-wrenching sob ripped from the deepest parts of my bruised soul, I throw myself into his waiting arms, and wrapped in the warm scent of sandalwood and sunshine I cry enough tears to drown us both.
Chapter Three
When we land at the airport in Syracuse, New York, I realize I’m nervous.
Me.
I don’t get nervous, especially over anything to do with girls. My best friends and I are used to having our pick, and we only have one rule—the ride is always over in the morning. Most of the time, it’s not a problem and we’ve never had a shortage of willing participants. The problems happen when one of those participants forgets the rule and catches feelings, getting it in their head that a quick fuck is somehow the prelude to a marriage proposal.
There was one girl in particular who became unhealthily obsessed with Payne when we were about sixteen. She skulked outside every one of his classes and followed him around at parties. For a solid month, every girl he hung out with got mysteriously jumped and had the shit beat out of her—pretty soon, no girl in her right mind would go near him. There were notes passed to him in class and weird gifts left at the gates of his family’s estate. She finally ended up shoving a pair of her dirty panties through the vents in his locker and sent him a video of herself masturbating to his yearbook photo.
After watching the crazy happen from the sidelines, Sunday and the girls took matters into their own hands when the panties showed up. They decided to go