Page 105 of A Sin So Pure

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll be frowning at me again before sunrise,” I say. “But that’s okay. I’ll still be a bitch in the morning too.”

Silas gives us a suspicious side-eye while reaching into his jacket pocket. He pulls out a pack of smokes and a lighter, reaching over Wrath to offer me both. I pluck a cigarette fromthe pack, but shake my head at the lighter, pulling my own from where it lives in my jacket pocket. He shakes his head with amusement before sticking a cigarette between his lips.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” I say.

Clicking open the lighter, I ignite the flame and hold it close, shielding it from the wind with my free hand. When it’s back in my pocket, I shake out my hands, the cold having made the joints stiff and numb.

“It’s a new habit,” he says begrudgingly. “I recently found myself craving the taste of smoke on my tongue.”

Smoke curls around us in silence, mixing with the cloudy puffs of our breath.

I close my eyes, letting the burning embers warm my face—such an honorable little war the cigarette rages against the chilly mountain air. It’s unexpected, the stillness we linger in. It’s what three friends would do, not three strangers-turned-colleagues-turned-co-conspirators.

It doesn’t last more than a few minutes before the itch to leave twitches through me. The one that warns me that the quiet is getting too loud.

I flick the half-smoked cigarette onto the ground and stand, smashing it into the snow with my boot.

“Well. This has been less than pleasant, but better than terrible,” I say, retreating towards the metal door. “Goodnight.”

“Night,” Wrath parrots back to me.

“Sweet dreams, Nora,” Silas says to my back.

26

IMOGEN

The middle of the pencil is a bumpy mess where my teeth dig into it. I chew on the wood despite Josie telling me a hundred times that I’m going to get sick from the paint.

“What do you think about a fruit theme?” I say, releasing the pencil from my mouth. I jot downfruitwith a few question marks after it onto my notepad. “And you can source us some unique human ones no one has heard of for signature cocktails.”

“That could be fun,” Josie says from the kitchen.

I asked her to come over to help ideate, given how amazing her collaboration was with Gluttony’s restaurant, but we haven’t gotten anywhere. My journal is full of crossed out thoughts and scribbled ideas that haven’t gotten me any closer to finding the “it-factor” we need to make this new place special.

It needssomething, otherwise it’s a copy of the Den. Which, at this point, is probably better than any of the ideas I have.

I groan, flopping back on the couch and chucking my feet over the arm. The journal falls to the ground with athunkwhen I fling my arm out, and the pencil rolls across the floor and under the coffee table. Blood rushes to my head as I lay, tilted back.

“All these ideas are terrible,” I say.

“I don’t think they’re that bad,” Josie says, coming back from the kitchen with the bottle of wine she uncorked and two glasses. I watch as an upside-down Josie sets them on the table and pours herself a glass, all the while smiling down at me and my dramatics. “But if it doesn’t feel right, then it doesn’t feel right. What kind of energy are you going for?”

“Energy?”

Josie curls up onto the armchair next to the couch, tucking her feet under her butt. She’s dressed casually, in work overalls and a cotton button-down with the sleeves rolled up; I’m no different, wearing a plain polo and wool sport knickers.

Am I riding a horse any time tonight? No. But they are comfortable.

“The Den is alluring because it’s dark and indulgent. You can get lost in anonymity on the dance floor or cozy up in a booth with friends,” she says over the lip of her glass. “What do you want this one to be?”

I gaze up at the ceiling—the white slab of sheetrock is no different from my mind: blank.

“It’s okay if you don’t have an answer right now.”

I roll my eyes. “Alright, miss mind-reader.”

“It’s not my fault you’re easy to read,” Josie snorts.

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