Timepiece (Hourglass 2)

Ava opened her eyes. “Sorry. That’s too much information, I know. I just don’t really have anyone to talk to about that kind of stuff.”

“If you don’t feel too awkward, you can talk to me whenever you want.” I frowned down at Ava in dismay, shocked I’d made the offer.

Her expression must have mirrored my own. “Let’s take twenty-four hours to think about that. Then we’ll reassess.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” she said. “But thank you. I need an ally. I feel like he’s three steps ahead of us in some crazy game, and he already knows who’s going to win.”

“We will,” I promised her. “We will.”

“I hope you’re right.” She shook her head. “Because if you aren’t, Hell’s going to come down on us like rain.”

Chapter 38

I went home.

A month ago, I would have taken off for downtown Nashville, found a bar, and drunk myself into oblivion. Now, instead of holding a beer, I had a measuring cup. And all the ingredients for peanut butter cookies. And chocolate chip.

I fumbled and lost them all when I saw what was on the kitchen island.

A box with the Crown Royal label sat in the exact, dead center. The beam from the pendant light above it shone on it like a spotlight. I dropped the cookie ingredients and picked up the box. Brand spanking new. When I ripped it open, I saw that the seal on the bottle was unbroken.

We had a stare-down, me and that bottle. It won, of course. Whisky doesn’t blink.

I twisted off the top with a snap.

Smelled it.

Got down a glass from the cabinet.

There were so many things to run from.

Things Jack wanted me to run from.

I realized then who had left the bottle.

I thought of my dad, and all the things he’d finally trusted me with. Michael, and the understanding we’d come to.

And then I heard Lily’s voice. “You’re worth more than what you’ll find at the bottom of a bottle.”

I put the glass back in the cabinet and upended the liquor into the sink.

“I question your sanity sometimes, Ballard, but I know you aren’t an idiot.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Shorty.”

I was on the couch in my living room, balancing a full plate of cookies on my chest. Emerson stood over me like some kind of military general, wearing her Murphy’s Law work clothes.

“You kissed a random girl on a street corner? In the middle of the afternoon?”

“It wasn’t what it looked like.”

“I’ve heard that before, maybe I’ve even said that before, and only because in that case, it actually wasn’t what it looked like. I’ll listen.” She picked up my legs by the bottom of my basketball pants, dropped onto the couch, and then lowered my feet to her lap. “What did you do?”

I didn’t even bother trying to argue that it wasn’t my fault. “This girl comes up to me out of nowhere, writes her number on my hand, and then lays one on me. Yes, on a street corner, and yes, in the middle of the afternoon.”

“And now we’re going to discuss why this is a problem.”