Page 32 of Deceitful Oath

I laugh knowingly, coming around to open her door and help her out. “My mom’s favorite place. I had pretty bad insomnia as a kid, so we’d come here at all hours of the night and get ice cream.”

She spins around, taking in the little pink ice cream shop, picnic tables, and string lights. Soft 50s-era music plays over the speakers and colorful lawn chairs litter the grass, surrounded by wildflowers. It’s exactly as I remember it.

I grab her hand, leading her to the shop. Her head is thrown back, staring up at the sky, and she stumbles.

“Come on, princess,” I say, catching her and pulling her closer to me. “We can stargaze once I have my cup of Rocky Road.”

She giggles, struggling to catch up to me, and we burst into the shop like a pair of excited kids. I place my order right away, but Lux wanders up and down the display case, reading out every single flavor. I smile, enjoying her sense of wonder.

She finally settles on Cherry Cheer and we take our cups outside, finding a pair of empty deck chairs.

“This is amazing,” she gasps, digging into her ice cream. “I mean, this was the last thing I expected tonight.”

“You said you needed ice cream.”

“Doesn’t everyone need ice cream?” she muses, staring at the stars again. “Tell me about your mom. What’s she like?”

The ice cream sticks in my throat and I swallow hard, taking a moment to let the brain freeze pass. “I haven’t talked about her in a long time…with anyone.”

“Oh? Is she…gone?”

“She is,” I sigh, slouching down in my chair. “She died when I was a teenager. It was tough, to say the least.”

“You can talk about her if you want,” she murmurs, placing her hand on my arm. “Or not, if you don’t want to.”

We sit in silence for a few minutes, the noise of our wooden spoons scaping our cups the only sound around us. Finally, I take a deep breath and imagine my mother’s face.

“She was kind,” I start. Lux looks at me encouragingly. “My father was a good man, but he was tough as nails. She was the soft one…and she brought out his soft side.”

She smiles, starry-eyed. I laugh, telling her how my father used to joke that falling in love with Mom made him too soft. And after she died, he would say it more seriously—as a warning to me—but I don’t share that part with Lux.

What am I doing here? I’m telling my father’s murderer about my mother.

That’s all kinds of fucked up.

But when I look at her, all I see is compassion—not the dead, cold eyes of a killer.

“I really like you,” I blurt out, avoiding her gaze. I hear a soft little oh escape from her lips. She laces her fingers through mine, squeezing gently.

“I really like you, too.”

My brain can’t comprehend if I’m acting or if this is real, but it doesn’t matter. Whatever helps me move the plan forward is what I should be doing, and this certainly will.

“Can we make it official? Or whatever people say these days?”

She glances slyly up at me, a shy smile on her lips. “Like boyfriend and girlfriend?”

I lean down to kiss her, running my fingers through her wind-tangled hair. “Exactly.”

She nods so enthusiastically that her empty cup flies off her lap.

Perfect. Step one: seduction. Step two: relationship. Step three: destroy.

We sit and stargaze a bit as Lux points out constellations and tells me their backstories. When I see her eyes drooping, I suggest we head back to the city. It almost physically pains me to release the hand I’ve been stroking for the last hour.

As we pull up to her building, both of us half-asleep, she slides her hand onto my thigh. “Stay the night with me?”

I don’t even think twice. We park around the back and head through her lobby. I’m pleased to see newly installed lights, thanks to some threatening words from Enzo to her deadbeat landlord.

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