It was about to get worse. I knew it would because I was going to make it get worse.
And I did it on purpose.
Barlow Bitch Blood was pumping so watch out!
“At Ren’s,” I answered.
The air in the room went scary as I walked in, got close to Luke, put my phone down on the bar and grabbed the bag of Milanos. I shoved my hand in the bag, studiously avoiding the scary air and Luke’s gaze and nabbing a cookie.
“Ava.”
I looked at him. He was in his controlling-fury mode, I knew it with one look.
“Yeah?” I asked, sounding unconcerned and a little surprised at myself that I could pull it off.
“You wanna tell me what you did at Zano’s?”
Not really.
Still, I answered, “I needed space to get my head together. He gave it to me. I spent the afternoon at his place, alone, and took a nap. When he got home from work, he made me dinner and brought me back here.”
I’d gone from lying through my teeth every other second to being honest when it was definitely not good for me. I should have stuck with lying. Even though all this was perfectly innocent, I could tell Luke didn’t like it, not one bit.
“Now that you answered that question, you wanna tell me why you couldn’t get your head together and take a nap here?”
I shrugged, being Queen of Calm. Barlow Bitch Blood was apparently latent. I’d lived twenty-nine years hardly ever being a bitch. Now it was coming out in spades.
“Okay, then you wanna tell me what your drama was about at Fortnum’s?”
I was starting to bite into my cookie, I took it out of my mouth and said (back to lying),“I didn’t have a drama.”
“Then what was that?”
“It wasn’t a drama.”
“Eddie said he saw you crawling on all fours.”
Jeez!
This was so annoying. He had sources everywhere.
“I dropped a contact,” I lied.
Luke glared at me and then said, “Ava,” in a very low, very lethal voice.
“I told you, I had somewhere to go. I had to meet Ren so he could help me out.”
“When did Ren Zano become the one who helped you out?”
“Yesterday, at dinner,” I told him breezily, shaking my cookie in the air for effect.
Not a good answer. I knew this because the scary air started pressing in.
Surprisingly he let it go and asked instead, “Where did you sleep?”
Again I was about to bite into my cookie but stopped and asked, “What?”
“At Zano’s, where did you sleep?”