Malice (28 page)

“We just need to find a few more volunteers,” Ava reminded them. “I think everything else on our list is done.” The planning committee had been divided into five subcommittees, with each taking three of the booths to arrange staffing for. “The two of you are still doing the face painting, right?”

They both nodded.

“We have the other booths tentatively covered. As long as no one backs out,” Julia told them. “But a few more volunteers would be nice so we can give them shorter shifts.”

“And I’ll be back-up,” Ava said. “In case…What are you doing?”

Molly was looking toward the cabin, blowing kisses. Ava turned to look over her shoulder. Grier was peering out of the window. When she realized what Molly was doing, she scowled and let the curtain fall back into place.

“Please tell me you didn’t ask Grier to cover a booth?” Molly begged.

“She volunteered to make sure all of the stations stay stocked with prizes,” Ava admitted.

“Good. Hopefully that way she won’t manage to scare the children.”

Julia neatly snapped her own, personal darts back into their case before sliding into the booth across from Ava. They were at Cheaters, their favorite hangout. It was actually everyone’s favorite hangout in Hunter Falls because really, it was the only one.

It was a family style bar and grill attached to an enormous arcade and game room. The décor was bland, at best. The tabletops were covered in an ugly, faux wood grain laminate. The chrome chairs had brown vinyl seat pads. On a lucky night, you could find one that wasn’t ripped. The booths weren’t in much better repair but they did offer some privacy. Two things that Cheaters excelled at were keeping on top of its cleanliness and serving good food. Good food that was fast
and
cheap. And regardless of the complete lack of ambience, when boredom set in, Cheaters usually filled up.

“So what are we getting?” Ava asked.

“I don’t know. A big dose of defeat with a side of humiliation?” Julia suggested.

Ava chased the words away with a laugh. “Come on, you’re getting better.”

“I’m not. But thanks,” Julia said with a knowing smile. “I’ll probably just have a giant pretzel.” Julia always ordered a giant pretzel.

Ava began needlessly perusing the menu board that hung over the counter. They’d memorized it years ago. As far as Ava could tell, not a single thing on it ever changed. “I think I’ll have the chicken strip basket,” she decided.

Julia frowned and Ava braced herself for the typical barrage of disgusting facts revolving around the inhumane and filthy care that went into raising chickens for human consumption. Julia didn’t eat meat or a plethora of other things that she’d determined hazardous to her health. Although her friends had never been swayed by her arguments, she never gave up trying to save them from their unhealthy choices.

This time, however, it wasn’t the chicken that had snapped up Julia’s attention.

“Um, that guy over there is staring at you,” Julia informed her. “No, don’t turn around!” she hissed.

“It’s probably someone who recognizes me from church,” Ava assured her.

Julia shook her head, pretending to look up at the menu. She was actually taking surreptitious glances off to the side to check out whoever it was that was standing at the counter.

“No, he’s not old. It’s a young guy. Our age. Whatever,” she said, frowning.

“Not everyone who goes to church is old,” Ava informed her with a smile.

“He doesn’t look like the type to go to church,” Julia said, her jaw-line hardening. “He looks like trouble. And he’s heading over here,” she warned, clearly distraught.

Curiosity won out. Ava glanced over her shoulder. Butterflies magically appeared to take up residence in her stomach. Ava’s lips twitched up at the fluttery sensation that the sight of Gabe had elicited.

Convinced she’d never see him again, she’d tried not to waste her time thinking about him. But he had crept into her thoughts. Quite frequently, actually. She had wondered if he’d been okay. Wondered where he had come from and wondered what he was doing in Hunter Falls. She didn’t recognize him from school. Hunter Falls High was small enough that she knew most of the kids that had graduated the past few years. This led her to wonder if maybe he was from Granville, the next, much bigger, town over. All of this wondering meant he had filled up a little too much space in her brain.

“It’s okay, you can relax. I know him,” she told Julia in what she hoped was a reassuring voice.

Gabe did look like trouble. Not because of the ripped up jeans, or long sleeved black t-shirt that clung to him in an enchanting way. Or even because of the well-worn motorcycle boots. But because of the look he wore on his face. It was a look that proclaimed he was waiting for something interesting to happen. It was a look that would make most girls’ knees go wobbly. But not Julia, who found danger in everything from the trans fat in French fries to the hazardous chemicals in hand sanitizer.

“
How
? From where?” she managed to squeeze out before Gabe reached their table.

“Ava, I thought that was you,” Gabe said. He gave her a smile that made Julia frown.

The first thing Ava noticed was how his face had healed. “Hey, how are you? You look good,” she told him. Gabe quirked an eyebrow at her even as he smirked and Julia’s frown deepened. “I mean, you know, compared to the last time I saw you,” she quickly amended.

“Oh, right,” Gabe replied, clearly amused.

He did look good, Ava realized. She had been too flustered to pay attention when they met. But he was, without a doubt, what Molly would consider swoon-worthy. And then some. He was quite possibly as close to perfection as Ava had ever seen. Typically she didn’t care for blonds but the way his slightly overgrown, almost curly but not quite, golden-blond hair was tousled just right and the way it set off his insanely blue eyes made her butterflies take off in full flight.

“So,” she finally said as she tried to stop herself from openly appraising him. “We were just getting ready to order something. Do you want to sit with us? Or were you meeting someone?” She could ask that, couldn’t she? It was the polite thing to do.

“No, I’m not meeting anyone. Seriously? You wouldn’t mind if I joined you?” Gabe asked.

“Not at all,” Ava said as she slid over. She motioned to a slightly uncomfortable Julia who had been warily eyeing Gabe’s attire. “This is my friend Julia. Julia, this is Gabe.”

Gabe nodded a greeting.

“Oh, you’re the strange guy Grier was talking about?” The little snippet of knowledge did not seem to put Julia at ease.

“Grier?” Gabe asked as he turned to look at Ava.

“Her sister,” Julia informed him.

“Technically my foster-sister but she’s lived with us for several years so I pretty much just consider her my sister now. She came home right after you left. Or I guess, while you were leaving, actually,” Ava explained. “She mentioned what happened to my friends.”

“Do you always eat alone?” Julia interjected. She would never consider it. She was immediately suspicious of someone who could not scrape up a single friend to eat with them.

Gabe gave her a curious once-over. “No. Not
always
. I came over from Granville, where I was working today, to pick up a few things over in the warehouse district. I got hungry. I stopped for some food. It happens.”

Julia didn’t look convinced. “What did you say your last name is?”

Gabe raised his eyebrows at her. “I didn’t. But it’s Castille.”

“You said you worked in Granville. Where at?” Ava asked. She was hoping to cut Julia off from asking anymore awkward questions. Like if he always wore tattered jeans on the job. Fashionably tattered, but too tattered for most jobs, Ava was sure.

“My dad just bought the radio station over there. I’ve been helping out some. Just, you know, organizing financial reports for him, figuring out where the station stands with supplies, that sort of thing.”

“Sounds like it would be kind of fun,” Ava noted. “Which station?”

Gabe told her as a waitress came to take their order.  

When she left, Julia was quick to ask, “So you’re not in high school?”

“No,” Gabe said giving her a steady look. “I graduated two years ago. How about you? What year are you? Sophomore?”

Undeterred, Julia answered. “We’re seniors. So how old are you then, twenty?” Twenty, to Julia, was clearly too old to be hanging around with girls still in high school. Regardless of the fact that they would be graduating in only a few months.

“Nineteen,” Gabe told her. “My birthday isn’t until the end of the summer. Anymore questions? Do you like…want to see my ID or something? Take a pint of blood? Check out my bellybutton to make sure I didn’t just beam in off my spaceship?”

“Wh-what?” Julia stammered.

Gabe shrugged. “For whatever reason, you are clearly not comfortable with me sitting here.” Julia’s face flushed and Gabe continued. “So, I can leave. It’s not a big deal. I can get my own table. It’s what I was planning on doing anyway.” He started to slide out of the booth. Ava grabbed him by the wrist.

“No its fine,” Ava said as she gave Julia a pleading look. Gabe frowned at her and tugged his wrist out of her grasp. He didn’t get out of the booth but he didn’t look convinced, either. “Please? Just stay?”

Julia was flushing furiously now. “Yes, please. Just sit down. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it. Sometimes I just…” She looked helplessly at Ava. “You tell him!”

“Sometimes she just gets carried away. She really
doesn’t
mean anything by it. Honest,” Ava told him. She gave him a reassuring smile.

“Are you sure?” he asked Julia as he favored her with a skeptical look.

“Yes,” she said as she nodded emphatically. To accentuate her point she pantomimed locking her lips and throwing away the key.

Gabe looked at her as though maybe
she
had just been beamed in off of a space ship. “What the hell was that?” he asked.

“What?” Ava wondered. Her gaze bounced between Gabe and her friend, wondering what she had missed.

“That…whatever she did. That freaky thing with her lips?”

“Locking her lips and throwing away the key?” Ava asked with a curious smile. “You’ve never seen that before?” Gabe shook his head. “Not even at school when you were a kid?”

“I was homeschooled,” Gabe explained.

“Oh, did your Mom teach you?” Ava asked. She knew she was being stereotypical but somehow Gabe just didn’t look like the homeschooled type.

“No,” Gabe said, his voice turning inexplicably icy. “I had a tutor.”

“That’s not the same as being homeschooled,” Julia blurted, instantly looking contrite.

“It’s not?” Gabe asked with a frown. “I was at home. I got schooled. How is it different?”

“It’s not,” Julia said as she shook her head. “I’m sorry. It’s not.”

“Just tell me if it’s none of my business,” Ava said as she tried to take the attention away from her embarrassed friend, “but why did you have a tutor? Were you ill as a child or something?”

“No, nothing like that. We’ve always moved around a lot and my dad preferred a constant tutor as opposed to a new school maybe twice a year, sometimes more. He buys out businesses that are in trouble. At least ones he thinks he can make money off of. Once they’re running to his satisfaction, he either sells them or hires someone else to manage them and he moves on to the next one.”

“Is that what happened with the radio station?” Ava wondered and Gabe nodded. “Did you just move here?”

“A few months ago. We actually live about halfway between here and Granville. I was heading back out of town but I got hungry,” he said as he gave Julia a pointed look. “I thought I’d check this place out.”

“So if you just moved here, you’ll be around for a while?” Ava asked. She hadn’t meant for her voice to sound so hopeful. Perhaps the perfectly gorgeous creature beside her was oozing an intoxicating level of pheromones that were impairing her judgment.

Gabe smiled for the first time since he’d sat down, setting Ava’s butterflies aflutter once again. The look in his eyes made Ava panic for a moment, ridiculously afraid he’d actually heard her thoughts from just a moment ago. She felt her cheeks heat up as his smile lingered for a few moments before answering her question.

“Yeah. I’ll be around for a while. We’ve been pretty busy with the radio station so I haven’t had much of a chance to check out the town. Or I guess I should say
towns
. The business is over in Granville but I spend lot of time running stuff back and forth between here and there. Maybe you could show me around sometime?”

“Yes,” Ava said with a nod. “I could definitely do that.”

The waitress stopped by to deposit their food. The pretzel and a strawberry malt for Julia. The chicken strip basket with fries and a butterscotch malt for Ava. And a bacon cheeseburger with a double side of onion rings and a large root beer for Gabe.

“So,” Gabe began, eying everything up. “Is the food usually pretty good?”

“Yes,” Julia answered, then looked embarrassed at doing so.

“Do you guys come here a lot?” he asked. He decided he would be nice if she could. “You must play often,” he said, motioning to Julia’s dart case.

“Not too often,” Julia admitted. “I just have my own darts because it’s safer.”

Gabe quirked a questioning eyebrow at Ava.

“She means they’re cleaner. Safe from bacteria and whatnot.” Ava’s lips were twitching as she tried not to show her amusement.

“Other people’s filth,” Julia clarified. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I know I promised I was going to stop talking but you really shouldn’t be touching that ketchup bottle with your bare hand,” she warned. “Do you have any idea how many people touch those things without having ever washed their hands? It’s swarming with bacteria. We’re talking e coli, trachoma…”

Gabe lifted an eyebrow incredulously. He reached for an onion ring with the same hand that had been accosted by the multitude of bacterium that lived on the ketchup bottle.

“Fecal matter,” Julia blurted. She needed to drive her point home before the boy across from her willfully contaminated himself with something so repugnant. His hand froze in place an inch from his plate.