Page 82 of Dark Notes

After Ivory’s private lessons, we return to her house. The starless sky and absence of light casts her street in a smudge of shadows.

Tucking the GTO into the same spot I used this morning, I take in the blackness beyond her windows. “No one’s home.”

“Guess not.” She opens the car door. “I’ll be quick.”

I turn off the engine and join her on the street.

She shakes her head and points back at the car. “Stay here. Someone might come home.”

It’s risky, but she’s not going into a dark house alone at night. Nor is she going to carry out a cat and all her belongings by herself. But in case her brother shows up, I need to prepare her for an unpleasant reintroduction.

I grab her hand and lead her to the front porch. “I met Shane a while back.”

“What?” She stops on the sidewalk and stares up at me with wide eyes. “When?”

I pull on her squeezing fingers, forcing her feet to follow me up the stairs. “He doesn’t know who I am, and sadly, he doesn’t know why I broke his nose.”

She gasps, her steps faltering, but I keep her moving.

“That was you?” Her brow draws down as she unlocks the door. A sigh billows past her lips. “Because of the cut on my lip.”

“No one hurts my girl.”

“I love when you say that,” she whispers softly.

With gentle hands, she straightens my tie, her fingers drifting down the silk before she turns away.

When she opens the door, the scent of stale cigarette smoke floods my nose.

A second later, an orange tabby races out of the dark depths and slows at her feet, purring like a motor and rubbing against her ankles.

She scoops him up, nuzzling his round head against her neck like he’s the most vital thing in the world.

I tuck my hands in my pockets and try to restrain my jealousy over a damn cat. “Are you going to let me in sometime tonight?”

“So impatient.” She flicks the wall switch and floods the small room with light. Then she holds the cat out to me and drops him in my arms, forcing me to take him. “I just need to grab his stuff.”

As she races through the line of doorways toward the back of the house, the fur ball in my hands sheds no less than a thousand orange hairs all over my suede jacket.

I step inside, glaring down at him. “Are you going to piss on my rugs?”

Round gold eyes blink lazily. Then he drags his hairy cheek across my chest, burrowing in.

I’ve never lived with a pet, but he seems friendly enough. The shedding, though…

“Can we shave this thing?” I shout toward the back room.

The creak of her footsteps pauses. “I thought you didn’t like shaved pussies.”

A grin stretches my face. Touché, my beautiful girl.

I carry Schubert through a tidy living room. It’s clean because there’s not a damn thing here but a cardboard box of clothes in the corner, a small end table, and a couch with sagging cushions. Continuing toward the back, I pass a bedroom, then another bedroom, both barely big enough to accommodate the mattresses on the floor and the mess of laundry and ashtrays.

Neither bedroom offers a hint of the girl I know. Ivory is organized, her clothes are simple and few, and she doesn’t smoke. Realization tightens my chest and quickens my steps.

I reach the last room, the kitchen, and find her lifting a pan of litter by the back door. “Where do you sleep?”

She grabs a few cans of cat food from the cluttered counter and walks past me into the closest bedroom. “This is my mom’s room.”

I trail behind her, stroking the cat and stirring up more loose hairs. My heart slams against my chest as I absorb the impoverished conditions she’s lived in. When she reaches the second bedroom, I know what she’s going to say, and I don’t want to hear it.

“Shane’s room.” She stares blankly at the piles of dirty clothes. “It used to be mine, but when my dad died, Shane moved back in. So…”

She continues forward, returning to the front room. My stomach caves in as I glare at the droopy sofa with new eyes.

“This is where I sleep.” She looks up at me expectedly. “Ready to go?”

I swallow down my anger with the reminder that she will never sleep on a goddamn couch again.

“That’s all you’re bringing?” I nod at the litter pan and cans of chow in her arms.

Her eyes lower to the cat purring against my chest, and she smiles warmly. “He’s all I have left here.”

As I drive out of her neighborhood, the tension in my muscles loosens with each block I put between her and that house. I’ve never felt more right about a decision than I do about this one.