Chapter 11
Fallon
Bundled against the cold, I finish my morning walk back from the bake shop that makes my favorite muffins and cupcakes.
My footsteps are purposeful, dreaming of getting home quickly to eat my tasty lemon and poppy seed muffin, but something makes me stop on the cracked sidewalk yards from the turn to my block.
A cardboard sign is taped to the inside glass door of a shop, written in marker:
Closed. Owner Hospitalized.
The storefront sign overhead says it’s a cannabis shop. The owner is the guy who tried to destroy my garden. My tormentor is hospitalized.
For a second, I can almost hear the way he talked to me. Rude and menacing. Like my tears were a game to win.
“Rhys put that guy in the hospital,” I murmur under my breath, feeling his shadow behind me even when he’s not here. “For me.”
Whoa…
The thought of this guy suffering and possibly on a breathing tube makes a bubble of laughter break from my throat.
“Good,” I say, grinning. “I’m glad he’s in the hospital.”
A purple-haired woman vaping nearby turns to me, her over-tweezed eyebrows raised. “Weirdo. Bill didn’t deserve a skull fracture.”
My smile falters, and I’m about to tell her in detail how vaping will destroy the tissues in her mouth, but her words click. “Bill. His name is Bill?”
“Yeah,” scrapes from her ugly mouth.
“Skull fracture, huh? Is he going to die?”
“I hope not.” She puffs and stalks off.
My eyes follow her until I notice across the street that a pop-up Christmas shop is decked out in gold lights and velvet bows.
“No. No.” I check my phone and choke.
NOVEMBER 21.
The date is a punch to my stomach. My chest locks. My vision tunnels.
It’s almost time.
My body won’t move. The crowd flows around me, bumping my arms and muttering their rude annoyances.
Then, like a record scratch, Rhys appears a few feet away on the sidewalk. He glides out of the crowd and spots me. Seconds later, he’s standing in front of me, towering over me, his frame blocking the sun.
“Fallon, what’s wrong?” His eyes cut across my face like he’s hunting for whatever knocked me off balance.
“Nothing,” I say, my voice sounding far away.
His gaze narrows, unconvinced.
I can’t keep falling apart.
I’m an assassin’s girlfriend.
I’m supposed to be unshakable.
“You look cold. Are you heading back to the building?” He tries to get my attention.
“Yeah.” I move away from Bill’s cannabis shop.
Whether or not Rhys knows it belonged to the guy who harassed me, I’m not sure. But as the man who put Bill in the hospital, it’s best he doesn’t hang around nearby.
“You sure you’re all right?”
I force my shoulders back, and my knees remember how to work and stand strong. “Just thinking about the holidays.”
“Aye. Those again,” Rhys grunts like I just mentioned tax season.
“Mmm,” I hum.
He glances at the white bag in my hand. “What’s that?”
I blink and feel terrible that I didn’t get him something for breakfast, too. “A muffin. Do you want some?”
He puts his arm around me and herds me down the sidewalk toward our block. “No. I had breakfast at a diner with Connor.”
“Your cousin, right.” I scan every inch of Rhys, checking for tiny hints of blood splatter from his collar down to his shoes.
Nothing.
We walk back to our building, his boots and my sneakers striking the pavement in mismatched rhythm.
Rhys greets our doorman, who glances down at me with concern.
I hope he doesn’t tell my father I’m dating an assassin.
Daddy pays for my apartment, and while he calls me once a week, I often wonder if he sends one of his spies to check on me.
I act indifferent and stroll to the open elevator that is waiting for us.
It whirrs as it flies up in its narrow silo. Rhys vibrates with energy, his mood dark and coiled. By the time the elevator door slides open, I’ve folded my panic into a neat invisible square and tucked it into my pocket.
In the hallway, we amble toward our apartments, mine then his. Flat… He calls his place a flat because he’s from Ireland.
“See ya,” I say lightly when we reach my door.
“Sure.” His eyes burn a hole in my back as I work the key.
I glance over my shoulder, and he watches until I’m inside. “Bye.”
“Bye, Fal.” His towering frame vanishes as I close the door.
I click the lock shut, press my back to the metal, and exhale. But the date flashes back in my mind. The calendar is waiting for me.
I’m late.
Can’t be late.
Must be perfect.
Shaking away the stress, I announce, “Emergency meeting, everyone.”
The apartment is silent for half a beat. No one is speaking. I can’t hear their voices. What is happening?
Then…
‘What now?’ Basil sighs from his perch near the window, his leaves quivering dramatically. ‘Did you see I was sunning myself?’
“It’s that time of year again,” I tell him as I scoop him away from the window. “The holidays are officially upon us.”
I stride toward the wall of closets where my color-coded calendar dominates the surface of a rolling whiteboard. Each square is still filled in from last year with sticky notes and little fabric flags, like a war map.
‘Ugh.’ Fern drapes one feathery frond over the edge of her hanging basket like she’s fainting. ‘People. Noise. Glitter.’
I tap the red circle from last year’s Friendsgiving, a green triangle from the lobby tree-trimming party, and a sparkling gold star sticker on Christmas Day.
“This…” I draw a wide arc over all of them with a purple marker “…is our busy season. This is when we shine.”
‘Shiny and busy,’ Ivy echoes dreamily from her pot, her vines shaking in excited approval.
Basil snorts. ‘If by busy you mean you get to dodge airborne germs and endure screaming children, have at it. I’m glad I’m a house plant.’
“This is when people need me.”
The plants go quiet, watching me while I transform the board with this year’s event dates with color markers that range from warm oranges to icy blues.
I slap a sticky note labeled JOY OR ELSE on the top of the calendar.
‘Question,’ Basil drawls, more softly this time, ‘Will HE be going with you this year?’
I freeze, a marker hovering over Black Friday.
I then pretend to be deeply interested in straightening the December tabs. “Rhys will be too busy this year,” I say softly. “Like last year. And the year before.”
While I’m representing us at these events, Rhys will be sharpening knives or burying more bodies in the park or whatever else he does when he’s not around.
Ivy rustles. ‘You want him to be with you, though.’
“Of course.” I nod, eyes tracing the neat calendar boxes that map out my whole season schedule.
“Crowds, cheer, and mandatory merriment aren’t his kind of thing.
He doesn’t do sparkle.” My chest tightens just a little.
“I mean, I’d love him to just see it all.
Feel what it’s like when everything smells like cinnamon and fresh snow.
What it feels like when the world is smiling. ”
‘Just ask him!’ Fern pushes.
“No,” I snap, clicking the marker closed.
‘He’ll have a good time because he’s with you,’ Ivy swoons.
‘Mistletoe is wasted on guys like that,’ Basil mutters.
I don’t remind him how some people use basil instead of mistletoe. He’ll wilt right in his little pot.
“We’ll manage like we always do,” I say and start plotting the seating chart for Friendsgiving.
In the next two hours, I transform my living room into a command center.
The whiteboard calendar dominates the room.
It’s color-coded to within an inch of its life with sticky flags, tabs, and notes written with silver and gold glitter pens.
Each square is packed corner to corner, the edges teeming with my microscopic handwritten notes and ideas.
“Well, committee…” Wrung out, I sit cross-legged on my rug in front of the whiteboard. “The Holiday Season Summit is now in session. Please keep your comments and suggestions until the end.”
‘I’ll try,’ Ivy chirps, her vines twisting like clasped fingers in excitement.
‘I’ll TRY to stay awake.’ Basil vibrates on the windowsill, leaves tilting toward the last ray of the afternoon sun.
Fern just cackles, swaying in her pot.
‘Why does she get to be in the swing and have all that fun?’ Ivy asks.
“Focus team!” I point to the first red-inked square. “Friendsgiving.”
‘Was that the party where you cried in the bathroom last year?’ Fern asks dryly.
“Those were happy tears,” I lie. “I think I will try that cinnamon-infused apple stir fry.”
‘Cinnamon-infused because you gave Minty away,’ Basil grumbles.
“Moving on to wardrobe: Santa Sweater, red leggings, and boots.”
‘Not the sweater that makes you look like you mugged a pumpkin spice latte,’ Fern sasses me, competing with Basil.
“Focus, greenies.” I point to a cluster of gold stars in early December. “Bryant Park Holiday Market. That’s where all the hard work throughout the year lets me shine.”
The plants rustle their approval.
I breathe in relief, considering the uproar last year when Ivy cried after finding out her friends from the garden were trimmed like show poodles and then sold off as centerpieces.
On a roll, I finish going over the chart without interruptions until I get to the final event of the season.
My eyes land on the bottom square outlined in gold foil washi tape:
Christmas at Daddy’s.
The Hunger Games with tinsel. Each year, I try to survive and get out of there alive.
Not literally. I’m just relieved when he lets me leave Ashbourne and go back to my life here in Manhattan.
The plants go silent, every leaf stiff like they’re holding their breath.
Except Basil.
Always Basil.
‘Is Kosta still in jail?’ he bravely asks when no one else will.
Dread turns my stomach to ice as I slog to my desk and take out his letters, all banded together with a dirty rubber band. No nice ribbon for him.
I didn’t want to read them, but it physically hurt not to.
Phones must be answered.
Mail must be opened.
I stare at the top one, the last letter. Shaking, I slide the paper out.
Fallon,
I’m up for parole again.
This time I have a lock.
I’m coming for you.
K
My first and last time having sex was horrible.
Kosta was rough. Too rough. He smelled like alcohol and cigarettes, then called me Irina halfway through.
I’d spent the whole time trying to figure out what was supposed to feel so magical about it.
All while he kept telling me to shut up.
I cried, and he hit me. Told me he’d hurt me worse if I snitched to my father.
I was supposed to marry him, but by some stroke of luck, he went to jail.
That’s when Daddy rented this apartment for me. He said it was to keep me safe, but I think he didn’t want to look at or deal with me anymore.
Fine by me.
Rhys would never hit me.
Shaking and dizzy, I drop the letters and sit on the sofa, Basil clutched to my chest.
‘It’s okay.’ He acts all nice when he sees me spiral. ‘You have a boyfriend now who is an assassin.’
I look up and stare at the wall dividing Rhys and me. “You’re right, I do.”