Pretty Perfect Toy - Angel Payne Page 0,37
corner into the kitchen to find Prim kneading a mound of bread dough. Two more loaves cool nearby, next to four platters of cookies and frosted petit fours topped with candy decorations, nearly too exquisite to eat.
The woman peers up through a blonde dreadlock, an escapee from the others knotted atop her head. She wears an oversized Dashboard Confessional T-shirt and bright pink shorts, the same attire in which she tore into the living room as Doyle and I hustled Cassian out to the ER. Not a line of weariness mars her face. If not for the mini bakery surrounding her, I would think she’d gone back to bed after we left. I want to hate her for that but cannot summon the strength or the heart—in many ways, because of the new lens Cassian has given me to her. Temptation is not just the building in which the woman works. It is the home she has found.
It is a helpful conclusion—to an extent. I battle for a peaceful demeanor as Prim hurls her stare around Doyle and me before charging, “Where is he?”
“He’s fine.” Doyle cuts to the real root of her demand. “And he’ll be back soon. I need one of those cookies. Now.”
Prim blocks his path with a stance that could stand up to even my soldier of a little brother. “You need to tell me where you let him go with a busted-to-hell hand. Now.”
“For fuck’s sake. He’s a grown man.”
“He also had a…tumultuous night.” The pause in her statement is due to glancing—correction: glaring—once more toward me.
“‘Tumultuous.’ Damn. Bread, cake, cookies, and the walking thesaurus.” He fakes a step to the right before sliding left and snatching a cookie. “You are stressed.”
“And I don’t have a fucking right to be?”
“Didn’t say that.” A groan caps the comeback. “But I will say you make amazing cookies, woman. Shit, this is—”
“The woman said to get away from the cookies.” The warning comes from the newest arrival in the room: a scowling Hodge, whose flame for Prim is a secret to no one but the woman herself.
Now is clearly not the moment to turn that light on for her either. “Can everyone forget the damn cookies for a second? The man took out his shower door with his own hand. Did you really just let him leave the hospital and—”
“Prim.” The interjection does not belong to Doyle or Hodge. Too tender. And female. “Honey. Breathe.” It is one of Mallory Court’s favorite words, usually used to tease, though issued this time as a mandate. She lets Prim gets through a minor fume before stating, “I’m quite certain Cassian is aware of what he did to his hand. I’m also certain he didn’t just feel the need to go for a little coffee run.”
Prim rolls her eyes. Pivots back to the bread dough, digging hard at it. “My coffee is better than any swill in the neighborhood anyway.”
“And if you have some of it fresh, I’d love a cup.” Mallory’s smile is such a seamless stitch of regality and warmth, I wonder why she is not queen of some small island of her own. “Thank you,” she murmurs, after Prim sets a cup of the fragrant brew in front of her.
I feel nowhere near as elegant as another steaming cup is slid over—in front of me. It is plain hot water, accompanied by a small wire ball filled with my beloved blend of jasmine and mint teas. I look up, bewildered, into the golden gaze still bisected by the single dreadlock. Though those eyes no longer glower at me, they are a long way off from friendly.
“I…know how he can be,” she finally mutters. Reaches and pats my hand—just once. The gesture, a Prim Smith version of an olive branch, diffuses the tension in the room faster than a puppy in a preschool. Accordingly, Hodge and Doyle make up like a perfect pair of four-year-olds, talking in grunts, fist bumps, and three-word sentences while fetching their own coffee then vanishing.
In the stillness that falls, I am jittery. There is no explanation for it, as Mallory and I have always been all right with passing silences with each other. In just six weeks, we have had plenty of practice. The hours in the hospital, watching over Cassian after the shooting. After bringing him home, dealing with fidgety moments by tending the potted plants and flowers up on the terrace. Even our long minutes of strategic silence during Scooby Doo Monopoly…
But