“Or that we’ve liked,” Ladon goes on.
“That’s only because none of you know the real me,” I tell them with a wink.
They laugh like they think I’m joking, not realizing that the sweetheart with some death-faking talents is a fraud. None of them would really like me if they truly knew me. They’d feel uneasy, uncomfortable, and definitely unwilling to come help me with my random requests.
Everyone likes the sweet, smiling girl. No one ever really cares for the damaged goods.
“Thanks for dropping off my car for me, but I need to get going,” I say as I finish the second cup of coffee and ask for one to go.
“No problem,” Kevin says. “But seriously, are you in trouble?”
I shake my head again, feeling a little impatient to shed Karen and be Kara for just a little while for the first time in so long. Just long enough to get settled somewhere and decide who to be for another seven years or more.
“No trouble, guys. I promise.”
“We should get going too. We have to go to our family lodge, and show Collin this,” Kevin says as he grins…and then he takes a selfie with his arm around me.
“And this,” he adds, stretching his arm out farther so he can get the whole table in.
“If you show a bit more cleavage, he’s sure to come chasing after you,” Troy stage whispers.
Rolling my eyes, I laugh as I stand, going to the counter. The guys all toss down their tips, having already eaten and apparently paid. It took me a little longer to get here than expected.
I try to drive the speed limit. Given the obvious, I know that sounds weird, but high speeds aren’t my thing, and despite my charming tongue, I’ve never been able to talk my way out of a ticket. Cops can smell damaged goods like me from a mile away.
I’d hate to explain a backpack full of weapons minus their serial numbers.
“Hey, why five?” Tommy asks me as he comes to the counter, leaning up beside me. “You said back then you needed all five of us for the scene, and said the film was about a girl on the run from her criminal father who wanted to kill her for betraying him to the cops.”
“What do you mean?” I ask absently as I stir in some sugar for my to-go coffee and drop my own tip at the counter.
“I mean, why did you need five guys for the scene instead of just one or two? Five seems like overkill to rough up one woman.”
Smiling a little secretively, I answer, “Because her father would have never have believed any less than five could have taken her.”
“Oh, making the chick a badass. Figures. You look like one of those feminist, Wonder Woman fanatics,” he says, rolling his eyes, even as his grin tells me he’s kidding.
But I don’t smile back as I stare back down at the coffee. “Not a badass,” I say quietly. “Just a trained and desperate survivor.”
When my eyes come back up, he’s giving me a look that has me remembering I still need to wear my Karen Canady smile for just a minute longer.
The second it spreads, his eyes soften. “Call us anytime, Canady. Or marry Collin so we can see you a little more, you hermit.”
He drops my keys on the counter and takes the other keys I brought in.
“Collin’s going to be really pissed that you gave me old Margaret. He knows how much you love that car.”
“You make it sound like we dated longer than a week,” I dutifully point out, forcing him to laugh a little louder.
“But that was the best fucking week. So much meat got stored in the freezer that season.”
“Obviously. I’m a superb hunter,” I tell him, same as always.
“All because you two scared all the hell out of the forest and sent the living things racing toward our end. Damn banshee girl.”
“The banshee was actually Collin,” I quip.
To this, he doubles over, laughing so hard he can’t catch his breath, and I savor this last moment as Karen. I wish I’d had more moments like this as her. She’s a rather boring girl most of the time.
He claps my shoulder on his way by, and the other four wave at me, calling out Checkmate as they go.
I wait a few minutes for them to leave so they don’t watch which direction I go. Once I’m sure they’re gone, I exit, sipping my coffee as I pull my keys out and head to the blue car. I’m not sure what kind of car it is.
Don’t care.
I gave them money to buy me something cheap, dependable, and great on gas. Then they held it for a year.
I’ve been planning ahead for a while.
I felt the clock counting down.
Growing up with a paranoid father who had/has a hellacious amount of enemies definitely stirs extra doses of instinct. You learn to feel danger long before it reaches the point of breathing down your neck.