Page 55 of Tracking Snow

The lights flood back. The music hits different as the bar swings back into motion, and the Lost Girls move in a blur of bottles and laughter.

I’m still against the wall, but my gaze cuts through the crowd to find her again immediately.

Snow is laughing at something Ariel said, head thrown back, white hair falling behind her shoulders.

She doesn't know I'm here.

Are you going to keep standing against the wall, Two asks pleasantly, or are you going to go apologize?

Chapter 18

Give the Asshole an Oscar

ONE

Snow serves three other people at the bar before I recognize the obvious. She’s ignoring me.

The next time she reaches past me for a clean glass, I say, "Snow."

She doesn’t acknowledge me.

I wait until she walks near me again.

"Snow, can we talk? I want to⁠—”

She grabs the limes and keeps moving.

It’s another ten minutes before she comes back my way to grab a bottle of vodka.

"Are we done pretending I’m invisible, or should I come back tomorrow?"

The bottle lands with a hard clack. Both palms hit the bar as she finally looks at me.

"What do you want?"

You, someone whispers, but I can’t figure out which one of us said it.

"To buy a drink." When she doesn’t budge, I tug down my hood. "And to ask you to forgive me for acting like an asshole."

"Oh," she says with mock surprise. "You were just acting." She claps her hands with slow, dramatic effect. "You deserve an Oscar for that performance then."

She drops her hands and her flat gaze tells me she’s unmoved.

"You were right." I struggle to find the words, never having done this before. And the discomfort of being in this place makes it doubly hard to get out what I need to. "Everything is...boring without you."

For a split second her hardness wavers, but then she leans in, eyes narrowing. "Then why don’t you find some other useless human chick to bang?"

With that, she spins on her heel and goes back to serving everyone except me.

I feel a pair of eyes on me. When I turn, I see the slim, copper-haired Lost Girl. Ariel, I think? With a jerk of her head, she beckons me over.

Shoving my hands in my hoodie pocket, I squeeze my way to the other end of the bar as she rolls out from behind it.

"You the guy? Err, guys?" she asks.

Snow has been talking about us.

Seven blares alarm into our system like an air raid siren, but I do my best to ignore it.