Page 122 of Lies Like Love

“She wanted to know how I heard about Twisted Roses.”

I wasn’t aware Fel asked Maren about it. The beach is the last time I mentioned it.

“Here.” Maren hands me a business card with an address scribbled on the back. “I got it from this guy at a bar. I was admiring the work on his arm, and our conversation went from tattoos to piercings. He said if I wanted to get my nose pierced, he knew just the place. Not sure why it matters though.”

So it really was random that Fel walked in here when she did?

I should be relieved, but I’m not.

“Anyway, I’m on my way out, so if you want to give that to her when she gets back, that’s all I know.”

“Thanks.” I nod.

I might not like Maren, but at least she’s been helpful.

Maren skims me over but doesn’t make a move to leave right away. “Be good to my girl, Jude.”

Like I wouldn’t?

But I don’t bother responding because there’s only one girl I’ll explain myself to.

Maren doesn’t seem to mind my silence. She searches my gaze for some honesty, and her expression softens the longer she stares. She knows I’ll protect Fel, even if she doesn’t understand our relationship.

Hate me all she wants; Fel is my world.

Finally, Maren nods once. The smallest tick of acceptance for something she can’t stop if she tried, before she walks out the door and leaves me with the card in my hand.

I flip it over. Back and forth. Nothing to see—except my stomach sinks as I register what’s on the front. Flipping it once more, I stare at the symbol in the corner. The company name might not be familiar, but I’d recognize that mark anywhere.

And it’s crystal clear. Fel walking back in my life wasn’t random at all.

38

Fel

Thismansionusedtofeel like my home, and not just haunted walls with ghosts around every corner. Some I’ve been acquainted with for years, while others are only now revealing themselves to me.

I pause in the large foyer, the cold stone tiles stretching before me. Empty space that used to feel like it housed a family. Or at least, some version of that.

After Mom died and Jude’s dad went to prison, it was nothing more than a memory of what once was.

My grandparents sold their house in New York and moved to California, so I could finish high school with my friends. Looking back, they probably should have dragged me far away. It would have been easier to heal had I not been soaking in constant reminders of everything that broke me.

Rooms that housed memories I’d replay each time I stepped in them.

My final year of high school I finally understood why my mom refused to acknowledge my father’s death. Sometimes it’s easier to play pretend.

It’s what I did. Lived between these walls like they didn’t reek of blood and the secrets seeping from them. I lived among those ghosts, pretending certain doors were walls, and the demons behind them didn’t exist.

Lies potent enough to survive until I disappeared to college.

Walking in here now knowing the truth, all I feel are the haunted creatures I was too scared to face back then. Secrets Jude locked away so I wouldn’t have to deal with their presence. And I’m not sure how I never saw them for what they were while they stared me in the face.

“Felicity.” Carmen steps into the room. Her dark hair is pulled in a tight bun, and not a strand is out of place.

She’s worked for my grandparents for the last few years, never wavering from her stone-cold expression. She never smiles, and barely acknowledges people more than the simple act of handing them something. An even temperament is something my grandparents appreciate, and Carmen embodies that quality.

Cool indifference.

---