Page 99 of The Next Lie
Sonny grabs my wrist and drags me out before I can interrogate him further. The sun hits hard the second we step onto the sidewalk, bright off the old buildings and damp pavement. The Quarter is already awake around us. Delivery trucks, tourists in day-drinking clothes, music leaking from somewhere, a man in a linen suit arguing with a parking meter.
Ever follows half a block behind us. He is not subtle.
Sonny glances over her shoulder. “Does he always do that?”
“Lurk?”
“Protectively stalk.”
“Yes, him or Shiloh.”
“Hot.”
“It’s annoying as fuck.”
“It can be both.”
I look back. Ever’s eyebrows lift, and I turn back around.
“Men are exhausting,” I mutter.
Sonny hooks her arm through mine. “That is why God made cocktails, carbs, and besties who know where to find both.”
We walk deeper into the Quarter. Sonny gives me a tour that consists mostly of gossip, crime statistics, and which restaurants have bathrooms they will let you use without buying anything. She points out balconies, courtyards, shuttered windows, the places where musicians like to set up after dark. I try to listen. I even enjoy parts of it.
I’m distracted, though, half my brain wondering what the hell is going on with the guys. I know it’s something. Maybe something with Deacon, or Delia.
My stomach lurches. Maybe he’s bringing her to me later.
Or maybe—
Sonny tugs me toward a narrow shop with painted signs in the windows and strings of beads hanging in the doorway. Candles crowd the display beside little bags of herbs, tarot decks, carved saints, gris-gris charms, and a sign advertising palm readings.
I stop. “No.”
“Huh? This is a NOLA rite of passage.”
“No.”
“Absolutely yes.”
“Sonny.”
“You need something silly.”
“That place does not look silly. That place looks like it knows my childhood nickname.”
“All the better.”
She hauls me inside.
A bell over the door gives a tired jingle. The shop is cramped and dim, shelves packed so tightly I’m afraid to breathe wrong. Sonny goes straight to a display of novelty candles shaped like male anatomy and starts laughing under her breath.
I drift toward the back, where an older woman sits behind a small round table covered with a purple cloth. Her hair is silver and braided down one shoulder. Glasses hang from a chain around her neck, and she looks up from a paperback romance novel with the expression of someone who has been expecting me and finds me late.
“Palm reading?” she asks.
“No, thank you.”
