Chapter Two All ways do lie open
CHAPTER TWO
All ways do lie open
AT FIRST, I WASN’T SURE I’d heard him correctly.
When people asked for readings, it was usually for one of two things: to learn about their future or to commune with a lost loved one.
Who will I marry? Will I get the job? Can you speak to my deceased grandmother?
The normal musings. But death? Learning how you’ll die? That was… different; tragic, even.
I drew away from him, my mind racing.
“Are you—sick or something?”
He seemed to consider that.
“Something like that,” he said finally. “But it’s—let’s just say it runs in my family.”
“And you want to find out when you’ll die?”
“Not when I’ll die,” he clarified. “How. I already know when. It’s going to be this year. It’s going to be soon. So I just need to know how it happens.”
He was serious.
“But if it’s an illness—shouldn’t you… know?”
“I never said it was one.”
“But it runs in your family?”
He sighed. “Look, will you help me or not?”
To be honest, I wasn’t sure myself. As much as my powers easily let me see into the past, the future was more nebulous. Whenever I tried to do readings of a timeline beyond the present, I’d get migraines and glimpses of shadowed figures and forms.
Except for the fire.
That had been the only time I’d seen a concrete vision of the future. And a moment after I saw flames in my mind, that horrific scene played out before me.
But since then, I usually just cobbled together my predictions of the future from what I could see in a person’s past. If someone asked whether they’d get a raise at the end of the year, I’d look into their past and glean what I could from their history.
Which, in my opinion, made me better than a charlatan.
At least my readings of the future were informed by some sort of real visions.
Behind us, the shop bell rang, its cheerful chimes an eerie contrast to what was unfolding between me and the Westfield heir. An older man in his forties approached us. Against the dark gray of his suit, a lily was stitched, just like the ones on their blazers.
“Mr. Saint James,” he said, discreetly flashing a holstered gun at his waist. “I suggest you and the others leave. There’s been a report of disorderly conduct.”
Saint James. Anyone who knew Westfield recognized that family name. This guy—the Westfield heir—he hadn’t been lying. He was actually going to inherit Westfield University and the man speaking to him was his bodyguard.
“We’re in the middle of something,” the Westfield heir said. “Can you give us some time?”
“Sir, I wouldn’t advise that.” The bodyguard gestured behind us, and we followed his gaze to the back of the shop. Gus was hiding, but he peeked out from behind a curtain with a phone pressed to his ear, like he could tell he’d been caught.
The Westfield heir laughed, his voice tinged with irony.
“I guess money can’t get me everything after all,” he said.
Even I, as combative as I was, had no answer to his words.
“My offer stands,” he said. “If you’re ever at Westfield, find me.”
He, his friends, and the bodyguard swiftly left. Moments later, security entered the store. They took a few moments to question me, and I made up some story about how Gus had dialed by mistake.
“Are they gone now?” Gus asked, retreating from his hiding spot.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” I snapped, frustrated. I grabbed the two-piece set from where he’d placed it on the counter and shoved it in my bag with the rest of my things.
“Your shift isn’t over yet,” Gus complained.
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I quit.”
By the time I left the shop, though, the Saint James heir and his friends were gone.
I was never early to Louisa’s psychic booth. But as much as I searched through nearby stores and combed through aisles, I couldn’t find the Saint James heir or his friends anywhere. So, with two grand short and nothing but time on my hands, Louisa’s stall it was.
It’d been raining all day, so the mall was more crowded than normal for a Sunday so close to June.
Shoppers streamed in and out of stores, jostling one another and leaving tracks of rainwater and mud in their wake.
And then, there was the smell. On the upper levels of the mall, the fragrant, oily scent of the food court always clung to your clothes, making everything reek of hot dog sweat and grease.
My stomach growled, but as starving as I was, my mind couldn’t wander to food.
All I could think about was him.
None of what he’d said had made any sense. He was going to die. He knew when. At least, he’d claimed to. But even if I had tried to see into his future, could I change his fate?
I mean, it hadn’t stopped the fire. Even when I’d warned the crowd during my audition, the flames consumed the auditorium moments later.
Yet a part of me felt guilty. As arrogant and entitled as he was, he’d genuinely been asking for help. My help—to the point that he’d offered to bring me to Westfield.
That place was inescapable. From my looming scholarship deadline to his request, something was pulling me to Westfield. Something I fought with every fiber of my being.
I took the escalator to the third floor, scanning the vendor booths until I found one displaying a whiteboard with the word Psychic written in colorful marker.
As expected, Aunt Louisa hadn’t arrived yet.
But Jojo Charles, Louisa’s newest hire, sat in my aunt’s regular seat next to an empty chair meant for me.
My Jojo.
“You’re early,” he said.
The sound of his voice made me act completely outside of myself. From the ridiculous puppy dog grin that stretched across my face, to the very non-platonic thoughts swirling in my head, he had a frustrating effect on me, despite the fact that we were just “friends.”
When we’d first met last fall, Louisa and I had been coming up on four years of living together following my brief stint in foster care.
Jojo was finishing a graduate program, and Louisa, like she’d always seemed to do when the college students new to our building wandered our way for free food, adopted him as her own.
She’d feed him home-cooked meals when he was cramming for classes, and the two of us would check on him.
His own family wouldn’t. Louisa even offered him some shifts at the psychic stall to help him stay afloat.
She didn’t have a ton to spare, but he became like family.
And in the weeks leading up to his classes ending, Jojo had started taking more shifts at the booth. His inadvertent smiles and the jokes he cracked at some of our more unsavory customers had sparked the beginning of my terrible crush on him.
“Am I?” I answered, trying to play coy. “What do I win? Employee of the month?”
“Technically, I think I won that, since I’m not supposed to be on the schedule today.”
“Okay,” I said. “What do you want?”
Jojo leaned forward, a twinkle in his eyes. “Guess.”
He was teasing me. He always teased me.
Normally, I’d have a better retort for him, but words escaped me with his body so close and my heart thumping in my chest. It was times like these when I found myself wondering if he felt something from me too.
New Year’s Eve had been a turning point for us. There’d been a party in our building, and somehow, Jojo and I had found ourselves together moments before midnight. We’d shared a kiss as the year ended and this new one began.
I hadn’t stopped thinking about it since.
But of course, just a few weeks later, he’d started dating a woman in our building. When she’d confronted Jojo about us in our downstairs lobby, he’d laughed it off.
“I work at her aunt’s psychic booth for extra cash. Sianna and I are just friends,” he’d said. “Don’t be delusional.”
The words had been a brutal reality check.
“Well then, don’t make me feel like I am,” the woman had said. “And stop acting like you have feelings for her.”
Jojo had apologized and I scurried away as the two of them embraced. I had no interest in watching that. When they’d broken up the next day and I asked him why he’d ended it, he’d said dating was a distraction from his career. He’d rather have friends in his life at the moment, friends like me.
I sat beside him, placing my bag on the ground between us and trying to keep my expression blank when our thighs accidentally brushed.
“Louisa’s going to be back in a bit. She’s off luring customers.”
I nodded.
“Aren’t you going to ask why I’m here?” he said. He smiled, and there was that dimple on his cheek—the one that I always yearned to be the reason for.
Suddenly, it occurred to me.
“Wait, why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be in one of those orientation sessions for your new job?”
With him leaving for his new research residency and Aunt Louisa moving our entire life to Rhode Island, finding a local place on my own would be the only way I could stay in Virginia and be close to him. Hence, my desperate need for money.
“Something came up,” he said. “So I thought I’d come see you. Are you happy?”
I turned away from him, hiding the smile that had already started tugging at my lips.
“Psh, to see you?” I lied.
Jojo laughed. Beneath the mall’s incandescent lighting, his rich brown skin gleamed softly, and I found myself spacing out, smiling at the way his ebony locs fell gently against the side of his face while he spoke.
My mind flickered back to the Saint James heir, remembering the intensity of his strong gaze.
But I buried the thought. Between their similar broad builds and glow, maybe I had a type.
Still, Jojo had an air of experience and manhood that was nothing like the arrogant yet youthful glint of boyhood that the Westfield heir embodied.
“Why are you making that expression?” Jojo snickered. He’d leaned forward, vying for a look at my face as I shifted away from him.