All the things I’d planned to say fell out of my mind and rolled across the floor and out of reach. A large part of me had believed that, once Ahanti saw me here in person, she’d throw open her arms and tell me exactly what was going on.
Now I had no doubt that she’d gotten my messages and had chosen to ignore them.
That still didn’t tell me why.
Terrance’s client was openly gawking, and whatever was going on, I doubted Ahanti would discuss it in front of a client. The tattoo parlor didn’t have quite the same one-sided stereotypical dynamic of a bartender with a customer, but it did have a lot more in common with a beauty salon than most people probably realized. Tattoo artists often filled the role of listening ear and unofficial therapist for their clients, which meant they weren’t as forthcoming with their own personal lives. Clients wanted to unburden, not take on the added burden of whatever was happening in their artist’s life.
“Could we talk in the back?” I asked.
Her fingers tapped against her leg. “We don’t need to talk. If you’d like to see a book of past designs, I’d be happy to set you up with that.” She gestured toward two plush chairs off to the side. “But we only do custom work, and we don’t take walk-ins.”
This conversation had to sound strange to anyone listening. I clearly knew her, and she was acting like I was some gawker off the street. I moved closer and lowered my voice. “I talked to Geoff. He’s worried about you, and so am I.”
Something flickered across her eyes—there and gone before I could figure out what it was. “Noted, but I know what I’m doing.”
I know what I’m doing rather than I’m fine. Maybe it was my paranoia rearing up again and making me see dangers and cries for help where there weren’t any, but that struck me as a deliberate choice of words.
“I can help.” I kept my response sub-vocal, trusting her to read my lips. “Is something wrong?”
She set the ink down on the counter. “I know letting go of an old friendship can be hard, but people change, and it’s time to move on. I don’t have time for a long-distance thing.”
Her expression stayed neutral. If she needed help, if something was wrong that she felt like she couldn’t talk about here, she could have given me some sort of tiny signal. She didn’t.
I turned for the door. I felt more than saw Mark fall into step behind me. His hand slid gently onto the small of my back as we headed out the door.
“If that’s your best friend,” he said once the door closed behind us, “I hope we don’t run into any of your old enemies.”
He meant it as a joke to take the edge off the sting, I knew. That was the Cavanaugh way. The lump filling my throat kept me from answering.
She sounded like she was fine and had decided she wanted a different life than the one she had. Like she’d decided, as abruptly as she’d decided she was done with Geoff, that my friendship wasn’t worth the effort.
A BMW swerved in front of us, nearly clipping our front bumper. It wasn’t the first.
Mark laid on the horn and let slip a curse word. He glanced over at me. “Sorry. That guy doesn’t know how to drive.”
In the few minutes it’d taken us to drive from M Street to Georgetown University, I’d watched Mark transform from mild-mannered Dr. Cavanaugh into road-rage filled Mr. Hyde. He gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the bones in his hands stood out in harsh lines.
This trip was turning out to be a learning experience for both of us. “I thought I didn’t like DC traffic, but you’ve got me beat.”
The look Mark shot me was the closet I’d ever seen him come to scowling at me. “If we move here, we need to live near public transit.”
“You didn’t have a car in New York?”
He shook his head. “I’ll have an ulcer within a month if I have to drive in this every day.”
I decided that this was one of the few times I probably shouldn’t tease him. I hadn’t actually minded the traffic that much when I lived here, but that was because I used the time to listen to audio books. A good story made bad traffic much more tolerable. We could find a place with convenient public transit for Mark, and I’d battle the traffic to work.
The GPS told us to take the next exit, and we were soon safely parked. Despite the traffic, we were even five minutes early. The change in Mark as soon as he shut the car off was visible. The hard edges came out of his jaw, and the color returned to his hands.
He stepped out of the car the way a seasick person steps off a boat onto solid land. “I’d suggest you drive us back to the hotel, but I know your driving record.”
I stuck my tongue out at him. “Hardy har har. For your information, I didn’t have a single accident here.”
He grabbed my hand and brushed a kiss across my knuckles before we headed inside.
The tour almost made me forget Ahanti’s rejection, the horrible traffic, and the impending dinner with my parents.
The lab was exactly what I’d expected from a research grant, but the people—it was like we’d been on an alien planet and we were returning home. The team leader met us in the lobby, wearing a t-shirt with a math joke on it under his lab coat.
“Worth the drive,” I whispered to Mark at one point.
I got the full force of his dimples in response.
My heart felt cleaved down the middle. If he wanted this job, I’d come back here for his sake, but it held a lot less appeal now. Most of my so-called friends from when I’d previously lived in DC turned out to not be interested in keeping in touch when I went from lawyer to maple syrup farm owner. Ahanti had been one of the few who stuck by me.
My steps slowed even though Mark and the team leader continued on.
I don’t have time for a long-distance thing, Ahanti had said.
But I’d already told her we might be moving back. She must have been betting on me realizing that what would sound like a brush off to anyone listening was exactly the opposite.
It was a silent cry for help.
3
What kind of trouble had Ahanti gotten into that she was afraid of speaking freely even in her own studio? And that she’d feel the need to cut off her fiancé and me? I had to assume now that she’d done it to protect us.
