4. Mallory
MALLORY
The weeks flew by as July faded into August, and the cottage slowly started looking like it might pass for a home. Mom and I spent days sourcing furniture and décor from thrift shops, antique stores, estate sales, and local marketplaces.
Elmwood was a treasure trove, full of discoveries to be found.
It was one of the things I loved about buying secondhand, the imagining of where a piece or painting might have been, what it had survived.
It gave us an excuse to explore Elmwood, learn our way around the town, and see what it had to offer.
Mom’s job, her actual job, not the side gig where she hacked up bodies, gave us a decent life.
We were far from rich, but it paid the bills while also giving her the freedom to decide when she put in the hours.
She ran her own boutique branding studio, designing logos, social media kits, and website layouts for startups, influencers, and small businesses.
She’d always been creative in more than one way.
We also drove by Elmwood Public High School, where I would be starting my senior year next week. The idea of a new school evoked mixed feelings within me.
On one hand, I was excited. The possibility of making friends. Walking with a class to get my diploma. Maybe actually attending a dance.
On the other hand, I was terrified. I wasn’t good at fitting in. Never had been. I’d perfected the art of being invisible when necessary or intimidating enough to be left alone when invisibility failed.
I wanted this time to be different. I wanted to be different. A new person.
Normal.
The problem was, I wasn’t sure I knew how to be normal.
Not when your mother taught you body disposal before driver’s ed. Not when you could recognize the smell of industrial cleaner at twenty paces and knew exactly what it was covering up. Not when “family dinner” sometimes got interrupted by emergency trunk disposal runs.
But I hadn’t exactly made an ideal first impression. If Maddox Corvo was as popular as his online presence suggested, then who knew what I would be walking into my first day of school.
I doubted he was giving me a second thought, and hopefully, I’d just be the new girl with no preconceived notions.
Now, if I could just get my brain to stop reliving those few minutes in the coffee shop as if they held meaning.
His name had taken up residence in my head without asking permission, playing on repeat, and I couldn’t turn it off.
I convinced myself I wasn’t going back to the coffee shop for him.
It was the matcha I craved, and yet, I found myself walking the same path downtown to Daily Dose.
Maybe it was the way the sunlight hit the same corner table at the same time every morning, nine-thirty on the dot.
I told myself routines were healthy. Grounding.
Walking downtown with my headphones got my body moving.
This was just me settling into Elmwood the way normal people settled into new places.
But if I was being honest, and I usually wasn’t, even with myself, I wanted to see Maddox Corvo again.
I went back to the café more than a few times. More than I’d admit to my mom, who’d stopped asking where I was going every morning and started just handing me cash with a knowing look I chose to ignore.
Not that it mattered.
He was never there, at least not when I went.
But Paisley was.
She worked most morning shifts and had a different hair color every week. Last week it was purple, but this week it was teal with pink tips. Her brown eyes were always warm and friendly when she saw me, and after my second visit, she remembered my order.
Like the days before, I took my strawberry matcha and sat down, busying myself with journaling or scrolling mindlessly on my phone, all under the pretense of not hoping or waiting for him to walk in.
The chair across from mine scraped over the floor, and a body dropped into the seat.
I glanced up, surprised to see Paisley. Her eyes regarded me with complex intrigue.
“He’s not here,” she said, taking a sip of the Coke in her hands.
Pop seemed to be her choice of caffeine.
She drank it throughout the shift behind the counter.
We’d shared friendly small talk over the last two weeks, but this was the first time she’d sat with me.
I looked up from my phone, where I’d been scrolling through nothing. “Who?” I played dumb and felt like a fool immediately. Had I been that transparent? Obviously, I had been, or she was more observant than I gave her credit.
“I notice things. Like you looking for someone each time you come in.”
Heat crawled up my neck.
“And how Maddox Corvo,” she continued, “hasn’t been back since the day he met you.”
My heart tripped over itself, stumbling into a rhythm too fast. “He hasn’t?” I couldn’t stop myself from asking, immediately regretting it.
She smiled and shook her head, sending her pink tips dancing. “Not once. Which is unusual for him. He’s in here at least three times a week. Same order. Same time. All summer.”
I set my phone down, suddenly more interested in this conversation than anything else. “Are you friends?”
Her shoulders lifted in a half-ass shrug. “No, I wouldn’t call us friends, but I’ve known him most of my life. Small town.” She picked at her black nail polish, flaking off a chip. “You can’t avoid anyone when there’s only one elementary school and one public high school.”
“It must be nice.” A bit of wistfulness snuck into my tone.
She gave me a curious look. “Where did you live before moving here? It had to be more exciting than this.”
“Texas. Arizona. Washington. California.” I rattled off state after state.
“Wow. A traveler. You must think Elmwood is so boring.”
I shook my head. “No, not really. I love it here.”
She took a drink of her soda. “Give it a month. You’ll be clawing to get out like the rest of us. Are you going to Public then?” she asked, even though she probably already knew the answer.
I nodded. “It’s my senior year.”
“Mine as well.” She smiled. “You’ll see a lot more of him. The Corvos are…everywhere. They’re unavoidable.”
I leaned my chin in my hand, my elbow propped on the table. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
A sparkle danced in Paisley’s brown eyes. “Just wait. You’ll understand what I mean once school starts.”
I had zero patience. “And if I don’t want to wait?”
She sighed and leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Fuck it. You’re going to find out sooner or later anyway, so you might as well know before you make a stupid mistake.”
I stiffened, my fingers tightening around my cup. “Know what?”
“The Corvos,” she said quietly, glancing toward the counter like she was making sure no one was listening. “They’re not just football royalty. They’re dangerous on the field, but off the field…they’re worse. There are things people don’t talk about. Things everyone knows but nobody says out loud.”
My pulse kicked up but not with fear. With interest. “What kind of things?”
“The kind you don’t ask questions about if you’re smart.” She held my gaze. “There are plenty of boys at Elmwood Public, Mallory. Any of them would be safer than a Corvo.”
Safer? Did safe even exist?
“I’m not looking for safe,” I heard myself say and wondered a second later if that was the wrong thing to admit. She was probably going to think I was weird. I was blowing this whole normal gig.
Paisley’s lips pursed, lacking any of the judgment or surprise I expected. “Yeah. I figured. Just...be careful. Okay?” She looked a tad sad, and I wondered why. Had she had a bad experience with Maddox?
“I will.”
“We should hang out sometime, outside of the café, I mean, before school starts. I could show you around, if you would like,” she offered.
“I would. A lot.” I sighed, thinking how wonderful it would be to know someone the first day of school and avoid the awkward phase of staring at a sea of people and not knowing where to sit at lunch.
Paisley grinned. “Great. How about Friday? I get off at five. You could meet me here?”
I smiled back, feeling a warmth inside, a blooming of hope. “That sounds great. Thanks for being nice to me. Seriously.”
She wrapped her fingers around her Coke can.
“I have selfish motives. It gives me time to convince you just what a bad idea it is to get tangled with someone like Maddox Corvo, regardless of how hot he might be. Don’t let those muscles hypnotize you.
Plenty of girls have fallen for them and gotten hurt.
” She stood from the table, checking the clock on the wall. “See you Friday?”
I nodded and watched as she headed back behind the counter to deal with the afternoon rush starting to trickle in.
I sat for a few more minutes, staring out the café window at the quiet streets of Elmwood, at the locals wandering past with ice cream cones and shopping bags.
A couple sat on a bench, their dog panting in the August heat.
Everything looked so picture-perfect, small-town America, but I’d learned a long time ago that surface didn’t mean shit.
Take my mom. At first glance, no one would ever suspect this sexy woman to be able to kill in cold blood. And as I drained the last of my matcha, the aftertaste coating my tongue, I had the unsettling thought that maybe the danger Paisley should be worried about wasn’t Maddox.
I was halfway up the driveway, tote bag slung over my shoulder and the smile still on my lips since Paisley asked to hang out, when a familiar engine rumbled behind me.
The Impala.
I turned as it rolled over the curb and up the driveway.
My mom killed the engine and hopped out in one fluid motion.
I stood off to the side, wondering how this stunning woman was my mother.
Who went to the grocery store in four-inch black heels, white cotton shorts accenting her defined tan legs, and a black strapless top?
She had an energetic bounce, suggesting something had happened while she’d been navigating grocery store aisles. God only knew what.