Deceptions (Cainsville 3)

Another vague look, as if her mind was elsewhere.

"I saw him leave," Gabriel said. "Clearly, he didn't take the news well and--"

"Oh, that

. No. He's fine. He just went to grab dinner."

"Dinner?"

"Pizza, I think. Can't find that in Cainsville. I'm sure he'll bring plenty, so you're welcome to join us if you want some."

There were many things Gabriel wanted. Pizza was not one of them.

He cleared his throat. "So you told him everything and . . ."

"Not everything. Just about the omens and Cainsville. The omens part was fine. He's struggling a little more with the fae. As one would. I think he offered to go get pizza to take time to process everything. But he's not questioning it. He's more like you that way. I may have grown up with those superstitions in my head, but that was my only exposure to anything preternatural. You have Rose and her second sight. Ricky grew up with the stories, including the Wild Hunt."

"What?"

Olivia slowed as they neared her apartment. "When I was out at his cabin, we went . . . for a walk at night. We heard the Hunt. The Cwn Annwn. He joked about it being the Wild Hunt--he knew the stories from his grandmother. Of course, he rationalized it away--just nighttime hunters--but I think he said that for my benefit, that deep down he suspected what it really was."

Of course he did.

He squeezed his eyes shut, forcing the voice to be quiet.

"Gabriel?" Olivia said.

"A slight headache," he said.

"I'm not surprised, given the last forty-eight hours. If you want to rest, I promise I won't go to the Carew house. I might go for a run, though. Or we could walk, if you need fresh air more than a rest." She grinned at him. "I know better than to suggest you join me in a run."

"I would, but my sweats are at home."

Her grin grew, as if she thought he was joking. Then she saw that he wasn't.

"You run?"

He shrugged. "Not much lately."

"And you never mentioned it?" A short pause, then a wry smile. "You were afraid I might ask to join you, right?"

He didn't know how to answer that. He would happily run with her. He just never wanted to presume. There was, too, always the possibility that he overthought these things. It was foreign ground to him. He did recall a couple of tentative childhood friendships. There'd been a girl before he was old enough for school. She lived down the hall. That lasted until his mother took advantage of his access to their apartment to steal everything that wasn't nailed down. Then there'd been a boy in first grade. That ended when his mother slept with the boy's father.

Thus began the slow process of learning to avoid anything that could be taken as an overture to friendship. It hadn't bothered him, really. He wasn't sociable by nature, and to be honest, his "friendships" had been more "playing in the same room as an equally unsociable child." Learning what might constitute an overture had been profitable later in life, as a way to manipulate marks into thinking they'd earned his friendship. The result, though, was that he was, perhaps, a little hyperaware of his interactions with others. Even Olivia. No, especially Olivia.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'll never pester you to run with me."

"I--"

"I get it," she said, that wry smile touched with something like sadness.

And thus an opportunity evaporated again, as it often did, and he was left stuck between cursing himself for losing it and telling himself it was for the best.

"But the walk?" she said. "Are you up for that?"

He motioned for her to carry on past the apartment building. "We'll walk."

She smiled then, a real one. Someone else did, too--Grace, on her stoop, watching them with a smug look.