Page 70 of Trusting You
“Come on, I’ve got us a table upstairs,” she says. “It’s quieter.”
“Oh, great.” Oh, crap.
I follow her through a tight pathway to the stairs on the other side of the bar, bordered on each side by people and laughter and spilling drinks. The lingering gazes and side-smiles are noted, but like Astor, I beeline for the staircase and ignore every holler. Astor walks like she’s on her own catwalk while I stumble behind.
We take the stairs, and soon we’re at a two-top looking over the bar below. Somehow, Astor’s right and the music is less overbearing at this height.
“Drink?” Astor asks me. She gestures to the server coming our way.
“Yes. Sure. Uh, Jack and Coke.”
She raises a brow in the exact gesture of her brother’s. “Didn’t tag you for a Jack and Coke kinda gal.”
“This bar has that kind of feel,” I admit, resting my forearms on the table, then drawing back when my skin sticks.
She laughs. “You’re right about that. Two Jack and Cokes, please,” she says to the server.
He’s cute, with dark hair and brown eyes, and I squirm when I figure out he’s surveying me, too. Astor’s bright blue eyes slide to me, and she knowingly smiles but says nothing, thank God.
The server departs, and Astor doesn’t waste words. “So, how are you enjoying the city so far?”
“It’s great. Nice,” I say, nodding.
She props her chin in her hands, but the position is anything but blasé. Her gaze, unlike Locke’s, is cutting. She’s like a human x-ray, and I’m not sure about her reading my every twitch. “It’s been pretty isolating, what you and Locke are going through.”
This time, my nod is firm. “Having a baby does that.”
“It’s interesting to me that your friend—Paige?—didn’t say a word to Locke about the pregnancy.”
Astor pretends not to remember Paige’s name, but every instinctual bone tells me she knows exactly who Paige is, who I am, and that the point of having me out with her is to glean as much information as she can since Locke probably isn’t doing much to tap her in.
“What happened between them is their business,” I say. “I really don’t know why she kept it a secret.”
“You never asked her?”
“There wasn’t really any point.”
“You’d think there would be, for something as big as that. Weren’t you curious as to who the father was?”
“Sure, of course. But then Paige was diagnosed with stage four cancer a month after having Lily, so priorities shifted.”
Astor clams up, exactly how I meant her to. I lean back for the server to set down our drinks. At our dismissal of his offer for anything else, I’m left with just Astor again.
“I’m sorry about that. I really am,” Astor finally says.
“A lot of strangers are.”
As Astor’s gaze dims, I amend, “I know you’re sincere. It’s just…a lot of people who don’t know Paige are trying to get to know her really well now, and it’s…it’s pointless. Paige was a wonderful person with human flaws. She didn’t want Locke to know. And believe me, now that I see him with Lily, I wish, so much, I knew why. But I never asked. And maybe that’s my fault, but all I wanted to do was be there for my friend, who was dying. She had a newborn, and she’s given a death sentence.” My voice cracks with broken glass, and I take a quenching, cool sip of my drink.
“Yep, I’m officially an ass.”
I offer a small, kind laugh. “You’re not. You have every right to try and figure me out. This is your secret niece we’re talking about.”
“I’m still a butthole.” She sighs, looking past me. “I’m not exactly trying to see things in your shoes. I’m trying too hard to understand how, how, my brother had a kid. He’s a slut, sure, but he’s always careful, for the sole purpose of not having indiscriminate babies across the state.”
I smile like it’s a joke, but I don’t feel amused. At the fact Locke’s slept with so many women, or the number of unknown babies he could be a father to…it’s enough to make the joke fall flat.
“Locke’s hard to get to know,” I admit. “Then again, he could be keeping walls up with me same as you. I’m a stranger handing him a baby who I could’ve deliberately kept hidden.”