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CHAPTER FOUR

As I expected, Avery’s apartment is in a Federalist Era row house—in the basement, to be exact.

Even though the stairway is well lit, I grip the iron railing, kicking and crunching fallen leaves as I make my way down.

Warm light welcomes me from a high, curtained window.

I take a deep breath, and before I chicken out, knock on the sturdy black door.

I expect it to be answered by a perfect stranger, so I’m surprised to be greeted by a smiling Leo.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hey.”

“You made it.”

“I made it.”

He steps back and swings out an arm. “Come on in.”

Hesitantly, I step past him and into the apartment. I have a love-hate relationship with historic buildings. They either feel sacred or creepy. But to my relief, this old basement doesn’t feel either.

A hand presses on my elbow and I realize Leo is trying to usher me further into the living room.

It’s a small, cozy space. Cottage-like. The furniture is your typical college contemporary, a mixture of hand-me-downs and bargain finds.

But there are artful touches around the room: unframed drawings taped to the walls, crocheted pillows, house plants.

I doubt it gets much natural light during the day, but there are candles, lamps, and string lights enough to keep it cheery.

On the couch sit a Black guy and a red-haired girl, their eyes on me.

“This is Aaron and Avery,” Leo tells me. “And guys, this is Betts.”

Aaron gets to his feet. He’s tall and slender, with dark eyes that crinkle behind his glasses as he offers me his hand and a smile.

The girl beside him makes no effort to greet me. Instead, she rolls her eyes and directs a sneer at Leo. “A sorority girl? Seriously?”

“I’m not in a sorority,” I say.

She snorts. “Not yet.”

I bite my lip. I don’t seem to fit in here.

Leo stands beside me wearing his trademark shades of gray, Aaron looks like he doesn’t get out much, and Avery?

She’s my polar opposite. White skin and red lips, dyed red-orange hair, black clothes.

The two of us together have all the makings of a bad teen movie: The Goth Girl vs. The Homecoming Queen.

Leo admonishes her, “Don’t be so quick to judge,” and Aaron laughs and tells her to “heel.”

I lower myself into the chair Leo’s offered me, feeling abandoned when he disappears into the kitchen to fetch me a drink.

Meanwhile, Aaron gets right down to business. “So, Betts, you know anything about Tarot?”

“Tarot?” I wrack my brain for any association.

When he pats the coffee table between us, I look down.

I’ve been so busy cowering from Avery’s glare that I’ve barely noticed the cards spread out right in front of me.

I’ve seen those cards before. In movies they’re used by wrinkly old ladies looking into crystal balls and wearing lacy black veils.

“You tell fortunes with them, right? ”

Yet again, Avery snorts. I want to hide my burning face, but I also kind of want to kick her.

Aaron is more gracious. “Yeah, lots of people do that. They ask a question and draw a card for an answer. Here—” He scoops all the cards off the table and stacks them into a deck in his big hand. “Ask them something.”

“Ask the cards?” I glance up at Leo, who’s returned with my beer.

“Go ahead.” He tips his head at the cards. “Ask them.”

I can’t think of a single question to ask. My mind’s a complete blank. What kinds of things do people ask fortune-tellers? Will I find my true love? No way I’m going to ask that. Will I die young? Not something I want to know. Finally I blurt, “Will I be rich someday?”

Avery scowls and rolls her eyes. And yeah, I definitely want to kick her.

Aaron pulls a card from the deck and turns it over. He and Leo both wince.

“What?” I ask them. “What does it mean?” It’s an ominous-looking card for sure—a guy face-down on the beach with a bunch of swords stuck in his back.

Aaron says, “That’s a pretty definitive no .”

I shrug, unbothered. I don’t expect to be rich. If I cared about making lots of money, I wouldn’t be an English major. “Let me try again.”

Avery turns to me, her eyes full of disdain. “How about asking something original this time?”

I shoot Leo a look. Shouldn’t he referee? He was so sure I’d have fun with his friends. Is he a poor judge of character, or is there something wrong with me? It feels like I’m on trial, and I’m failing miserably.

“What should I ask?” I direct my question to him, and only him.

A dare flickers in his eyes. “Ask whatever you honestly want to know.”

I take his encouragement for what it is—an opportunity to prove I have some spunk. After all, what do I have to lose? Avery sits across from me, arms crossed and lips twisted into a frown. She seems to hate me as much as the KPT girls revered me. Neither is willing to get to know who I really am.

“Something original, hmm?” I mirror her posture and return her stare. When she retaliates with a raised brow, I imagine a tumbleweed blowing across a dirt path between us while a Western theme plays in the background.

“Oookaaay,” I say. “How about…if I start a fistfight with Avery, will I win?”

Leo does a spit-take and Aaron hoots and falls back on the couch cushions, laughing. “Damn!” He elbows Avery. “She just burned your ass.”

Avery pouts, but her mouth is tugging up at the corners. Like an exasperated mom, she lets out a breath and shakes her head.

Gotcha.

Leo’s shoulders shake as he alternates between laughing and coughing. Aaron fist bumps me.

Once Leo gets his throat cleared, he scoops up the Tarot deck and presents it to me. “Pick one.”

“Shouldn’t I ask a different question?”

“Hell no.” Aaron grins, gaze cutting to Avery. “I wanna see what the cards say.”

I hesitate, momentarily mesmerized by the way Leo’s dark brown eyes are dancing. When I start to slide the top card off the deck, he snatches it back. “Not so fast.” He fans the deck face-down and holds it out in front of me. “Close your eyes.”

“What?”

“Close your eyes.”

I do as he says and reach until my fingers jab the edges of the cards. “Now what?”

“Concentrate.”

I feel ridiculous. Concentrate on what? The fact that everyone is watching me? That Avery probably hates me now more than she did ten minutes ago ?

The cards on the bottom of the stack, where the fan is thinnest, feel oddly warm.

I run my index finger along them, waiting not-so-patiently for…

what? It’s not until a distinct feeling of relief shoots through me that I realize my hand has frozen midair.

I try to resume my trailing, but my fingers are reluctant to move, like they’re leaving behind a long-lost loved-one.

I bring them back to the place where I felt that wave of peacefulness, and I choose that card.

Silently I hand it, still face-down, to Leo. His little half-smile says, Yes, that’s what I mean by concentrate .

“So, what’s the answer?” Aaron asks.

Leo places the card face-up on the coffee table. On it, three men in medieval dress stand under a vaulted church archway. “Three of Pentacles.”

Avery’s scowl melts before my eyes. “Well, damn.”

“You’d better surrender,” Aaron tells her.

Surrender? So the card is saying I’d win the fight? “What does it mean?”

Leo slides the card a little closer to me. “See how the men are working together? This card is all about cooperation and teamwork.”

I pick it up and study it closely. One man, presumably a laborer, stands on a bench as he converses with a friar and a nobleman.

Three men of three different social classes, having a consultation.

The friar’s expression is open and expectant as he looks up at the worker.

None of them appears to be judging or lording their status over the others.

A chill tickles my spine. I couldn’t have gotten a more fitting answer to my question if I’d consulted a professional counselor. Or a wise old shaman on a mountaintop.

Is this fortune-telling thing legit? I stare at the card like it’s a living thing. No. It’s a piece of cardstock chosen at random. Hastily, I thrust it back at Leo.

Avery leans closer to me. “Why’d you pick that card?”

I hold up my hands. “I didn’t know what it was. ”

I’m shocked to see her smiling. “Duh. I mean, what told you to pull that one card out of the whole deck?”

“Oh, um—” I glance nervously at Leo, but he looks just as interested in hearing my answer as Avery is. “I know this is gonna sound dumb, but…but it felt like it wanted me to pick it.”

“Felt?” Leo asks, and I realize this is almost, to the letter, the same response I gave him when he asked how I’d known about Jason before anyone else did.

Avery’s dark, penciled eyebrows shoot up as if my answer makes perfect sense. “Did it tickle you?”

I let out an awkward giggle. “Did the card tickle me?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

“Oh.” She shrugs. “The card I’m supposed to pull usually tickles me or tingles or something like that.”

Aaron interjects, “They whisper to me.”

What the hell? Are these people serious? Nervous laughter lodges itself in my throat. Is this some sort of parlor trick? Have I been invited to hang out with the David Blaine club?

“How about you?” I ask Leo, my mouth going dry. “What do the cards do to you?”

He smiles apologetically. “None of the above.”

“So if they don’t tickle you, then what do you mean by felt?” Avery asks. She may be acting delusional, but at least she’s not being mean to me. In fact, all her hostility is gone. Too bad I’m too spooked to answer.

Leo abruptly stands. “Avery, where’d you put the crackers?”

“Yeah, where are they?” Aaron echoes. “I’m hungry.”

Avery sighs and rises from the couch. “Hold on. I bought some Swiss cake rolls, too.”

“Yes!” Aaron fist-pumps and points at me. “You like Swiss cake rolls?”

“Uh, sure. Who doesn’t?”

“Then come on.” He hops up and shoos me after Leo and Avery .

Somehow, the four of us squeeze comfortably in the narrow galley kitchen.

It’s windowless, but it’s a quaint little space.

Everything is half-sized, including the stove, fridge, and dishwasher.

I want to ask Avery how she affords this place, because I know the rent has to be steep.

My guess? She comes from money, but she doesn’t want anybody to acknowledge it.

As I study her in the better light, I notice how pretty she is. She has a heart-shaped face and hazel eyes. She also has a pin-up girl figure. Next to her, I look like an underfed, pre-teen boy.

Leo presents me with an open snack bag. Blindly, I reach in, and to my shock, pull out a dark pink blob. With sprinkles. I must be giving Leo a what-the-heck-is-this face because he chuckles and shows me the label.

“Iced animal crackers,” he says, grinning like a little boy. “You’ve never had them?”

I shake my head and Avery laughs.

“Leo’s addicted to them. Watch him. He’ll eat the entire bag.”

Aaron grabs a blob and tosses it into his mouth. “They’re good.”

I follow suit, figuring they have to be better than the stale pizza crust I could be snacking on right now.

As I bite through the silky frosting, it occurs to me that this is the first time since I got here that I’ve thought about O-Chi and Zander.

Guilt and fear do a little dance in my belly.

I reassure myself that I’m not doing anything wrong—well, other than lying about not feeling well.

But as I look around at the three people I’ve chosen to spend the evening with, I get the sudden feeling I’ve gone out to sea on a boat with no sails and no rudder.

I might land in a tropical paradise, or I might end up dashed to pieces on the rocks.

Mindlessly, I munch on crackers while we talk. I learn Avery is a junior majoring in art history and Aaron is a senior double-majoring in music and computer science. Avery surprises me by showing me some drawings in her sketchbook. I guess she’s decided I’m a potential friend.

“This is what I really want to do,” she tells me as she flips through pages and pages of beautiful drawings—beautiful in a startling, macabre sort of way. “But my parents wouldn’t foot the bill for a studio art degree.”

Aaron peers over my shoulder at her sketches. “I keep telling her she needs to illustrate album covers. Her drawings are so Metal.”

“And you are so not.” She sticks her tongue out at him, 80s hair-band style, and makes devil horns with her fingers. There’s a silver stud right through the middle of her tongue that looks kinda awesome. But god, if I did that, my parents would flip.

“Do you have any tattoos?” I ask her.

She looks impressed and pleased. “Two. But I can’t show you with these two losers around.”

“We know where they are,” Aaron admits.

Leo looks up from the dying plant he’s talking to. “And what they are.”

Avery winks at me. “I’ll show you some other time.”

Some other time. Like she expects to see me again.

I’ve gotten past her initiation, it seems, and seeing as neither of the guys object, I’ve gotten past theirs too.

I’m surprised at the relief and pleasure this gives me.

KPT welcomed me with open arms, yet all I wanted was to get away from them.

But Aaron, Avery, and Leo? I’m actually enjoying my time with them.

We take our snacks and drinks back into the living room and spend the rest of the evening playing poker, of all things.

“We don’t play for money,” Aaron reassures me.

Avery laughs, “Because Leo’s always broke.”

“Not always,” he protests. “Just most of the time.”

Aaron leans in to tell me, “He blew all his money at Oxford last year.”

“Oxford?” I blurt. “As in England, Oxford?”

Leo nods. I want to ask him a zillion questions, but Aaron has dealt the cards and everyone else is already assessing their hand. I set aside my curiosity and trade in my two of clubs and seven of diamonds .

Thanks to all the practice I’ve gotten at O-Chi, I’m a decent poker player.

The others, not so much. Aaron is too cautious and Avery too reckless.

Leo has a great poker face, but tonight the luck of the deal isn’t on his side.

By the end of the evening, the biggest stack of animal crackers is at my elbow.

“Here.” I slide half the pile over to Leo. “I’ll share with you.”

“Thank you.” As he smiles, he lazily blinks, giving me plenty of time to admire those thick, black lashes.

Good lord.

I bite my lip and look away, hoping no one caught me staring.

Yep. Time for this girl to go home.