3. Ainsley
Chapter 3
Ainsley
T his night could not have surprised me more if everyone in the bar got up and started a flash mob dance.
Not only did I snag a reintroduction to a charming, insightful girl from my past—albeit a bit awkward with all the dead mom talk—but now that girl is taking me on an adventure.
And I know what she said about spending one night together, but it’s Christmas. The holiday could still work its magic.
Gem leads me out to the street, which is officially white after the last hour of steady snowfall. I’m wearing boots, but she’s just got on sneakers. I’m tempted to mention it, but I don’t get the chance beforeshe grabs my gloved hand with her mittened one and only thoughts of her touching me remain in my head. I curse gloves and winter and snow. Any other season and I would be touching her skin right now.
“Did you walk here?” I ask, needing to say something. I suddenly want to know everything there is to know about this girl—and I’ve only known her an hour.
“I’m not telling you where I live,” she says with this fire and sass that does something to me.
I laugh, trying to shake off the tingle running down my spine. “Why not?”
“Because I can’t have you showing up all heartsick and making a fool of yourself in front of my roommates.”
I laugh again and shake my head, even though she can’t see me. She’s a foot or so ahead, pulling me along behind her.
I follow willingly.
We walk like that in silence for a few blocks, Gem leading and me trying not to slip in the snow or trip over my own feet as I watch her long, sandy hair bounce under her yellow knit cap.
I try to keep my gaze above the hem of her coat, although god knows why. She isn’t watching as I check her out. I give in and have to clench my teeth to keep from moaning at the way her hips fill out a pair of tight, dark jeans, swaying side to side as she tromps through the snow.
When she finally turns from the main road, it’s to take us past a dumpster into a dark alley.
“Um, I somehow don’t think the sex will be any more satisfying with the aroma of people’s rotting garbage in the air.”
“It’s winter, Ains. The garbage isn’t rotting. It’s frozen.”
But all I can think about is her casual use of my nickname. How easily the word slipped from her lips, as if she’d been saying it her whole life.
I’m about to call her out on it when she turns us again toward the end of the alley, and I stop short. My hand slips from hers as my heels plant and she spins to face me.
“Come on.”
I’m not a timid guy. I’ve spent my life flying all over the world, bungee jumping, white water rafting, helicopter skiing. But the sight of those narrow, dimly lit steps leading up into complete darkness at the end of an alley in Seattle, led by a woman I barely know who could very well have it out for me or my family…
“I don’t know about this.”
She cocks her head to the side in annoyance, hands on hips. “Don’t worry, Ainsley. I’m not going to tie you up and hold you for ransom.”
I take a step backward.
She stops me escaping by grabbing my hand and pulling me behind her once more. Against all better judgment, I allow myself to be led up the stepsonto a surprisingly beautiful rooftop.
“What is this place?” I ask softly, spinning in place to take in my surroundings.
A dark wood pergola stretches across the back half of the open space, its dormant vines heavy with snow but still sheltering the metal lounge chairs beneath. Jewel-toned planters in deep blue and gold ring the perimeter, while intricate Turkish paving stones blanket the ground, their elaborate patterns just visible under the gathering snow.
In the center of the wide-open patio is a potted tree almost as tall as Gem, adorned with what looks like orange slices and a star holding a snow-covered candle.
“It’s the patio for The Stone Moon downstairs.”
“The junk shop?”
Her gaze cuts to meet mine, sharp and unimpressed. “The crystal shop and tarot reading studio, you mean?”
“Oh, yeah. I guess that’s what I meant.” I’m back to spinning slowly, taking it all in. “Whatever the place is, they really made this roof amazing.”
“I know. I love it up here.”
“Come here often?” I ask, dropping back to reality.
“As often as I can,” she answers, walking away from me and under the cover, where she starts dragging a chaise lounge out into the soft snowfall.“I used to work at the shop.”
Which explains why she didn’t want me calling the place junk…but also raises a few concerns. “Used to?” I ask, trying not to let my tone betray how nervous I am that she got fired and we’re now trespassing.
“I had to give it up for my last quarter of grad school.”
Satisfied that we’re probably not doing anything illegal, I drag another chair over next to hers and flop down in the falling snow.
There’s something going on and whatever it is, I’m here for it.
She’s quiet long enough next to me that I get anxious and have to break the silence. “So, tarot, huh?”
When she rolls her head to the side to look at me, there are snowflakes on the tips of her lashes. “Tarot. You’ve heard of it?”
“Yeah,” I answer honestly. “I’ve heard of it.”
“But not into it, huh?”
I shake my head. “No.”
She rolls back to face the sky without answering, and I panic. “I mean, I’m not not into it. I just…it’s not something that’s ever crossed my path, I guess.”
“But you probably don’t believe in divination or magic, huh? I bet you’re a political science major. No, pre-med.”
“Environmental engineering,” I say, offering an answer to the easier part of her statement. “And I’m pretty open minded.”
The words earn me her piercing green-eyed gaze once more, her attention lighting a fire inside my rib cage that seems to spread.
Which is handy, considering we’re currently laying in the snow.
“Open minded, huh?” she asks .
I nod. “Other people have the best ideas most of the time. I’m always up for learning something new.”
“What are you doing alone on Christmas?” she asks in an abrupt subject change.
I’m just happy this incredible woman is talking to me at all, so I allow it. “My dad and his fiancé are back in New York at the estate and…and I decided to stay here and get some work done.”
“Third wheel?”
“Not necessarily. I mean, I guess. My dad and I have had a lot of holidays just the two of us, doing things the same way every year. At some point, you gotta move on, you know? Besides, I have to get a jump on the stuff I need to do for next quarter.”
The last thing I want is to get into all that when I think I’m doing pretty well on this first impression, so I steer the conversation back to her. “What about you? Why are you alone on the merriest day of the year?”
Silence falls and I let it, waiting patiently for her to answer.
“I had a dinner I could have joined. A couple of them, I guess,” she says finally, a new emotion entering her voice that wasn’t there before. “But I just…I don’t know. Holidays are hard, and I’ve spent a lot of them feeling like an uninvited guest, so I guess I prefer to just skip when I can.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, but the depth of her statement reminds me that I’m almost a complete stranger, and I’m not sure it’s my place to ask.
I turn back to the horizon and watch the snowflakes fall for a long moment. The world is so quiet, the night so dark, the patio illuminated only by the gold glow of the orb lights under the awning behind us. There is something magical about this moment, believer or not.
That’s when I see it.
A small rectangle on the patio about three feet in front of my chair, collecting snow differently than the ground around it. “Is that a tarot card right there?”
Gem sits forward and follows my hand to where I’m pointing on the ground. Then she flops back in her chair and smiles at me. “You should go flip it over.”
I want to play it cool, but I fail miserably, flying out of my chair and crossing the deck to hover over the wet card. I brush the snow off and see a crisscrossing diamond pattern with moons and swords that even a layperson could understand is the back. “Can I pick it up?”
“Definitely.”
I peel the card from the cold concrete and bring it back to my chair with me. “Will you use this card to tell my fortune?”
Gem shakes her head, smiling. “No, but you could.”
I grimace uncertainly. “I don’t know if that’s true.”
“What does it say?”
I hold the card up so it reflects the light behind me. I can just barely make out a figure on the card. He’s standing on a cliff, or dancing on a cliff, with what looks like a bag of some kind slung over his shoulder. I can see a bell on the end of his hat and rolling hills in the distance.
“The suspense is killing me over here,” she jokes, and I smile over at her.
I squint at the lettering at the bottom of the card and groan. “I want a new card.”
She just laughs. “Tell me.”
“It says The Fool.”
Her head turns in my direction, and her gaze pins me to the spot. Frozen. I wait for her to proclaim the card my fortune, that I’m a fool to even be here, thinking I have a chance with her, but she says nothing.
I panic. “I’m not a fool.” The words sound stupid, and I panic more. “I mean, I’m pretty levelheaded. I?—”
Gem jumps in to save me. “We’re all The Fool at some point.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better about drawing the worst possible card?”
“There’s no worst card. There are no bad cards at all.” She sits up and brushes snowflakes off her jacket. “I should probably head home.”
I shake my head and toss the stupid card on the ground between us. “Would you be saying that if I drew the knight in shining armor card?”
Gem laughs softly and reaches down to retrieve the offending card. She wipes both sides against her jeans and then fishes in her jacket pocket, producing a pen. I watch as she writes something on the card before holding it out to me.
When I take it, I see that she’s written her number.
That puts the smile right back on my face. “Ah, so you’re into fools, huh?”
She doesn’t respond to that. Not even with a smile. She just turns her head, shrugs, and says, “Walk me home?”
She’s not going to give me anything more. I feel it in her body language. “Of course,” I answer her before moving the chairs back where they go and following her down the stairs.
Walking down the sidewalk with Gem so close by my side I could touch her gives me the strongest, most disorienting sense of deja-vu.
Like we’ve done this before.
Like we’ve known each other forever.
The silence is comfortable enough, but I want more from her. I want everything.
“What are you studying?” I dive into the safest topic first, hoping I can get her talking.
“My undergrad was in creative writing, and I’m doing my masters in fiction and publishing.”
“Nice. I was right about your English major, then.”
She smirks over at me, tapping her shoulder against mine, causing our bodies to ping pong a bit as we walk down the lightly dusted sidewalk. “You know, pointing out when you’re right is unbecoming.”
There’s no malice in her tone, so I grin down at her. “Unbecoming is a word that doesn’t get used enough. I’m going to see if I can add it to my vocabulary.”
“Feeling sorry for left behind words, huh? I didn’t know you were such a softie.”
“You don’t know much about me at all. Which is why you should invite me in when we get to your house.”
She laughs but doesn’t touch me again. The place on my arm where hers bumped against me moments ago aches with the loss.
“Okay, okay, so you moved out to Seattle for college, you live in a house with roommates, you’re a writer, and you like tarot and magic. Anything else I should know about you?”
“That’s a lot more than you knew an hour ago.”
“An hour ago I didn’t know you existed.” I regret the words as soon as they leave my mouth. They’re true, but saying them to a girl who knew me when we were younger somehow seems insensitive. “Sorry, that’s not what I meant.”
She stops walking and turns to face me. “What did you mean?”
Damn. I’m in trouble now. Called out by a girl who I’m willing to bet is a tad bit smarter than me. I have no choice but to throw myself on the line. “I’m in a crazy period of flux. Of change. I thought I knew what I was doing, but it turns out I know nothing. Graduation is around the corner, and I’m supposed to make decisions I don’t want to make. Tonight, I was feeling really alone, like all of my choices in life landed me in a stupid townhouse by myself far from anyone I know, who knows me, and sometimes I like it, but other times I just feel like I’m failing at life. And then you climbed onto the stool next to me. A girl who knows me from when I was a kid. I didn’t know who you were, but I felt like I knew you. I feel it even more now. I know that sounds crazy, but it’s true. I can’t shake the feeling that everything I’ve done up to this point was leading me to right now. And I’m terrified I’m going to screw it up before I get the chance to see where it all could go.”
Gem has her arms folded across her chest against the cold. I watch her face go from amused to curious to serious as I give my completely unplanned monologue.
I’m starting to worry that she’s going to roll her eyes and tell me I’m an idiot when she cocks her head to the side and smiles. “The Fool.”
I cough out a laugh in surprise. “Yeah, I guess so.”
She must see the letdown in my face because she reaches out and grasps my shoulder in one gloved hand. “I love that you can see that you’re embarking on a new journey. Those are scary, even when we know where we want them to lead. If we don’t know, well, that can be even scarier.”
“Were you scared to start your journey?” I have no idea what I’m asking, but I’m desperate to get the focus off me, off my problems, so I won’t accidentally make myself look like more of a loser. A fool.
“Of course. I had my school paid for, but it was still a huge leap for me to move out here all alone, get my first job, buy myself a bed and a bookshelf. I didn’t have anyone to show me how to take the next steps in life, so I had to figure it out on my own.”
I try not to fixate on the mention of her bed, biting my lip and forcing my mind out of the gutter. She's opening up to me, and I want to honor that. “Do you still feel alone?”
It sounds desperate once I say it aloud, like I’m fishing for an opening in her life she’ll let me fill.
When she shakes her head, it feels like a sword through my heart.
“No. I found myself a community of souls on similar journeys who’ve become my new family.”
I just nod stupidly, feeling dismissed.
Once again, Gem reads my mind, hooking her arm through mine and starting us down the sidewalk once more. “But there’s always room for one more.”
I smile to myself in the darkness, letting her words soothe me more than they probably should. It’s a start. It’s something. It feels like an invitation to get to know her—one I’ll certainly take.
We stop in front of a large, white house, the only house on a street lined with flashy, modern condo buildings about ten blocks from the water. It’s closer to campus than my townhouse, although my place would fit in on this street far better than this squat, wide, wooden craftsman. I take in the front porch with its swing and brown, wintering plants in large ceramic pots.
“Nice place you got here.”
She glances over her shoulder at me and then back at the dark windows. “My roommates are all out at their holiday celebrations.”
My eyebrows raise as I try to determine if that was an invitation of another kind. “Do you need someone to check the closets and under the beds for intruders?”
Gem smiles and shakes her head. “The house is very well protected. ”
I cock my head to the side. “By piles of salt in every corner?” It’s something I saw in a movie once.
I meant it as a joke, but Gem shrugs. “Something like that.”
I narrow my eyes and prepare to voice my concern for her safety, but she stops me by lifting on her toes and pressing her lips to mine.
Just a peck. Just the lightest brush.
And then she pulls away.
I lean forward, nearly stumbling as I fail to move my feet to catch my weight, chasing the feeling of her mouth on mine.
But she just smiles and takes another step backward. “Thanks for walking me home.”
“Anytime,” I say. But what I mean is, I will walk you home every day for the rest of our lives. But, as much of a fool as I apparently am, I’m not foolish enough to say that out loud.
“See you around?” she offers, taking another step backward.
I shake my head, stepping forward even as she reaches the steps and starts backing up them. “No. Nope. Not ‘see you around’. I need more than that.”
It’s desperate, and maybe even a little threatening, but Gem doesn’t seem put off by my words. “Let’s not forget that we don’t know each other at all, remember? You just learned I existed. How can you know what you want from me?”
“I just know. I feel like I just stepped out of the fog of my life and there you were. And we don’t know each other, that’s true. But we have to start somewhere. Why not here?”
She takes another step up. I don’t chase her, my feet firmly planted on the sidewalk where she left me.
“You might regret making such bold claims when you learn more about me,” she says.
“Impossible.”
That earns me a laugh. “Impossible, huh? There’s nothing I could tell you right now that would send you packing, regretting ever sharing fish and chips with me one lonely Christmas night?”
I shake my head. “Nope. Serial killer, witness protection member, future IRS agent…I’ll take it all.”
Her smile gives me courage, and I plow forward, reckless now, desperate not to be left here without a promise of a next time. “I’ve been stumbling along on a path I thought I wanted, but all I’ve learned is that I know nothing. Whatever you know, teach me. Wherever you’re going, I think it’s where I’m supposed to go too. How else can you explain how we both ended up right here, right now?”
She’s shaking her head but still smiling. “You have my number, fool. Call me.”
Her feet reach the porch at the top of the stairs, and she pauses there for a moment. I can't think of anything else to say so I just nod asshe disappears into the shadows of the porch, out of view from my vantage point at the bottom of the wide, wooden steps. I hear her keys and see the door swing open.
“Goodnight,” she calls.
“Goodnight,” I manage to call back just before the front door closes. I hear the deadbolt slide into place. “Merry Christmas.”
I force myself to play it cool for a block or so, until I’m sure I'm out of view of the house, before taking a running leap and whooping in joy, nearly ending up on my ass.
That strange, magical, beautiful, mysterious woman likes me. She gave me her number. This Christmas is turning out okay after all.
And it’s one hundred percent due to my celebratory state of mind, completely filled with fantasies about calling her up and taking her out, that I fail to see them coming.
“Nice jacket, kid. Bet your wallet’s just as nice…”