“Yeah.” He didn’t offer anything else so I left it alone.
“Do you work every day?” I asked. “I work in our shop all the time even though my parents wish I’d go out and do something else. I think they want me to be a juvenile delinquent.”
Karter laughed. “I’m here a lot in the summer, mostly in the afternoons. It’s quiet. I got my phone and I use the free Wi-Fi from the place next door.” He unlocked the door and slid the cactus in place to hold it open. I followed him inside. “Me and my mom take turns running things.”
“And she’s a lawyer too? How does she find the time to do both?”
“She puts in a lot of hours. Too many, sometimes. She’s one of those people who’s constantly grinding, you know? She never stops.”
“That can be a good thing,” I said.
“Sometimes.” The sadness in his tone had returned. “There’s such a thing as too much work though.”
As much as I was enjoying my first trip into town, my mind drifted back to the iron gate in the forest and what might be behind it. Circe had implied it was a garden but I wanted to see it for myself.
“I gotta get back to my parents,” I said. “But listen, it was really nice meeting you.”
“You too,” he said, smiling. “Can I, uh—can I call you?” As he leaned on the counter, his elbow slipped off and his wrist hit the countertop with a loud crack.
I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from smiling.
“Maybe we can get coffee or something?” He rubbed his arm.
He definitely wasn’t flirting, but I was still trying to figure out his angle. Maybe he was just a guy with friend potential, even though dudes like that were few and far between. The thought sent a wave of panic through me. I didn’t know if me and my parents were staying and if we were, would a friendship with him be any different from Gabby or Marlon when he inevitably found out what I could do?
But he was easy to talk to even if he was awkward as hell, and my parents already liked him way too much. If I was being honest, I needed a friend. Maybe more than I needed anything else.
“Coffee sounds good,” I said. “Let’s do that.”
We exchanged numbers and I left. As I headed back toward Ginger’s, my parents came strolling around the corner.
Mo gazed over my shoulder. “Where’s Karter?”
“He went back to work,” I said. “And thank y’all so much for embarrassing me like that.”
“I’m sorry, baby,” Mom said. “It’s good to see you doing things with kids your age. He seemed nice.”
“He is nice,” I said.
Mom and Mo raised their eyebrows in unison and exchanged mischievous glances.
I shook my head. “It’s not like that. Y’all are the worst.”
“Are we though?” Mo asked. “I kinda think we’re the best.”
“The absolute best, if you really think about it,” said Mom. She and Mo exchanged nods.
“I’m ready to head back if you are,” I said.
Mom pulled me close and kissed me on the side of my face. “My big-head baby.”
We drove to the house, and Mom decided she needed to take an oatmeal bath to deal with her rash. Mo fell into a food coma on the couch, and I spent the late afternoon debating whether I should go back to the garden or not.
I put on and took off my sneakers three times. My procrastination skills were legendary when it came to schoolwork and sometimes my chores, but this was on a whole other level. The incident with the man in the glade was fresh in my mind, but beyond that there was fear. Fear that I might find something I couldn’t walk away from. When I finally worked up the nerve to go back, it was already dark, and that seemed like a perfectly good excuse to put it off for one more night.
CHAPTER 10
The next morning, I was up before Mom and Mo. I sat on the edge of my bed and weighed my options—stay in and help my parents clean, or maybe face somebody’s knife-wielding pawpaw in the woods on my way to a secret enclosure where I was told answers would be waiting for me.
What happened had shaken me. He’d called me Selene, said he needed something, and then got laid out by a tangle of poisoned vines. I had to get out there but I