Текст книги "The Forgotten Girl"
Автор книги: Jessica Sorensen
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 15 страниц)
“She’s always quiet when I’m with you,” I divulge more of myself. “Lily. She hardly ever says anything to me. I think it’s because she likes you… she doesn’t like anyone but you.”
“And that’s a good thing, right?” he asks. “I mean, not the not liking me part, but that she’s quiet?”
I want to say yes, but I can’t find my voice at the moment. Yes, Lily drives me crazy, makes me feel like I’m crazy, but at the same time, I feel lost without her. Like a part of me dies when she’s quiet. I hate the feeling; that I’m drifting away from reality when I’m not insane. Honestly, it makes no sense, yet it does. Even though I hate to admit it, Lily is a part of me. And no matter how much I despise her, she might always be.
Chapter 5
Maddie
I leave the cabin and Ryland about an hour later, not to the bank to cash the check, not to the library where my mom thinks I work. I go to my real, Lily approved job down at the Devil & Angels Bar. I applied there about five months ago while I was working nights at the library. I was becoming so distracted by the idea of actually stabbing someone that I feared an impulsive murder was in the making. That’s when Lily arose and enticed me to go down to the bar and do something more reckless and worth my time. I filled out an application for a dancer/bartender. Even though I had no experience, the owner took one look at my curves and said I had the ideal look for the thirty to forty year-olds that generally migrated there. I was hired on the spot and I quit my library job an hour after the interview zealously with a bow as I walked out of the door. I blame the latter on Lily because Maddie felt furious and somewhat embarrassed like she does now in this slutty outfit. She even tried to convince me to tell my mother or therapist what was going on inside my head, but it never happened, and so my double life began.
I enter the bar where I’m greeted by Bella Anderfells, one of the waitresses/bartenders who I converse with a lot and who started working here a couple of months after I did. I’m actually not positive what our title is. Friendships baffle me and don’t seem possible, except for maybe with Ryland and Bella. They are my two exceptions in this world where they are more than just a face and a name, who I don’t feel like some strange alien creature around.
“Hey Maddie,” Bella says. She smiles as she strolls out from behind the bar, her cheeks rosy, her blond hair pinned up, her bangs framing her face. She’s about twenty years older than me, but looks like she’s in her thirties and dresses and acts like she’s in her twenties. She told me once she has some sort of disorder that the doctors say make her act younger than she is, because she’s trying to grasp onto something she lost when she was younger; her son and the man she was dating died in a fire. She said it so forwardly, so openly and in a way I envy her for it. To not fear the fact that she might be a little off. Maybe that’s why I like her.
“How’s it going Sweetie?” she asks. She kind of reminds me of a Barbie doll and I could see her going well with Preston, arms linked, head’s on of course. She exchanges kisses on the cheeks with me, a ritual she does with everyone she likes. Then she backs up and adjusts her red tank top, rearranging it to show more of her cleavage.
“I’m fantastic.” And at the moment I do feel fantastic, like myself—Maddie and Lily are subdued and conjoined into one single person. Serenity. No extra voices. No feeling like I’m being pulled in two directions. Like I have control over myself, a feeling leftover from my visit with Ryland. I know from past experience that the sensation will linger for another hour or so, and then the real world will catch up with me and poof, I’ll be crazy Maddie/Lily again.
Bella picks up a rag and begins wiping the barstools down. “Did you hear about the party going on after hours tonight?” she asks.
“I didn’t hear about it.” I drop my bag behind the counter and then kick it into one of the bottom cubbies. “Who’s having it? Glen or River?” Glen’s the owner of the place and River is the manager, although it’s just a side job for him until he gets out of grad school.
“River? Seriously?” She gapes at me because River hates parties and drinking. He’s a recovering alcoholic, something I discovered by accident one day when I crossed paths with him coming out of an AA meeting down on Broadway. At the time I was coming out of my support group meeting, which was coincidently next door. He was extremely nervous and somewhat agitated that I suddenly knew something about him that he kept from almost everyone except his brother. He told me to please not tell anyone at the bar. When I asked how he even was able to work at a bar without melting from his addiction, he simply said that some stuff had happened that made it nearly impossible for him to drink again. That’s what they all say, I’d thought, but on the outside simply smiled and I’d kept his secret just like he’d asked. After that, he started talking to me all the time during work hours, calling me up to his office for the vaguest reason, like to find out if we needed to order soap. I wasn’t stupid. I could see the way that he looked at me. He wanted to fuck me and eventually he put a move on me. Even though we haven’t screwed yet, we still fool around all the time and I know he’s waiting for me to give it up, which makes me never want to give it up.
“Maybe River decided to step out of his comfort zone,” I say as she shakes her head, giving me a dirty look. “Oh fine. No more jokes. Who’s party is it?”
She continues to wipe the sticky residue that we all pretend is alcohol, when really it’s a mixture of that and the residue leftover from sex encounters that go on after hours at the bar. It’s what made this place so intriguing to me in the first place. Dancing/bar until midnight then it shifts to a whorehouse. There are two sides to this place, just like there are two sides to me, and sometimes I wonder if there are two sides to everything.
“It’s one of Glen’s acquaintances,” she says, making air quotes, because acquaintance means some rich guy who comes here to fuck around with women, do drugs, and pretty much everything that’s illegal. She tosses the rag onto the countertop and turns to face me. “His name’s Leon. I actually new him in high school. He was arrested for drug trafficking or something, but he pretty much paid everyone off so he could get out of it.”
“Leon…that name sounds familiar. Has he been here before?” I ask, slipping my jacket off and shoving that into the cubby with my bag.
“Not since either one of us started working here.” She shakes her head as she plops down onto the stool, props her elbow on the counter, and rests her chin on her hand. “I did hear that he just got acquitted for trafficking.”
I try to shake off the unsettling feeling that’s rising in my body. A feeling like something’s set off a trigger in me, the hairs on my arms and neck standing on end. It happens sometimes, usually when I’m being reintroduced to something from my past and I glance around the bar to see if there’s anything out of the ordinary. There’s a guy in the back corner working on the ice machine, but he doesn’t look familiar. Other than that, everything looks normal, yet I feel like it’s not, like there’s something else here I haven’t seen before and it’s seeing me. What is your problem?
“So he’s innocent, then… if he got acquitted?” I wiggle my neck and then pop my knuckles, trying to get myself… Lily… I can’t tell who, to settle the fuck down. “I mean, no cops are going to show up and take this place down, right?” I’m hoping not because I need this place.
“Yeah, he’s innocent according to the trial.” She pats my arm, like she can sense I’m getting worked up. “Don’t worry, Maddie. Everything’s going to be okay. Just another day at the bar.”
“I know… I just… I just need this job and I don’t want anything to ruin it,” I say, reaching for two shot glasses.
“The bar will be fine.” She glances around, then leans over the counter, lowering her voice. “But just to let you know, I’ve heard rumors that he got in pretty deep with trafficking and that someone tried to kill him and everything. The guy is super hardcore.”
“Sounds dangerous and kind of mobsterish,” I joke, trying to make myself feel less like I’m about to slip out of my skin, but it’s not working.
“Yeah, it does,” she says, biting her lip as she deliberates something then mutters, “Although, I do find it really weird that he got mixed up in it at all.”
“Why?” I ask. She taps her fingers against the countertop, dazing off at something behind my shoulder and I wave my hand in front of her face. “Earth to Bella.”
She blinks out of her trance and then laughs. “Sorry, I was just zoning off, thinking.”
“About what?” I grab a bottle of vodka and unscrew the cap.
She shrugs. “High School and stuff. I used to know Leon back then and he never did seem like the type to turn into a criminal.” She tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear. “In fact, he was sort of a nerd, even through college.”
“So you know him, then?”
“Kind of. I mean we went to school together, but didn’t run in the same group or anything. This will be our first time seeing each other in about ten years.”
“Well, maybe his being a nerd was just a facade.” It makes me wonder what I was in high school—a good girl like my mom says I was, or maybe that was my facade. “Sometimes people aren’t what they seem on the outside. Plus, that was over twenty years ago. A lot can change over a couple of decades.”
“Yeah, I guess, but still. It’s so weird. Like he completely changed into a different person. Like he had this dark side and suddenly it came out of him.”
She’s making me feel really uncomfortable, to the point that I’m starting to sweat. I feel like I have this giant crazy sign flashing above my head. I’m about to change the subject when she does it for me.
“Alright enough reminiscing,” she says, her upbeat personality returning. “Pour me a drink.”
“Okay, what do you want to start off with today?” I ask, setting the glasses down on the bar. The disconcerting feeling inside me, thank God, is cooling down. “Vodka? Whiskey? Tequila?”
“Just water,” she replies, tucking a strand of her blond hair behind her ear. “I’m getting burnt out. In fact, I actually went to an AA meeting down on Broadway the other day to confess my sins about how much I’ve been drinking.” She thrums her finger on her bottom lip. “Strangely, they were very unsympathetic.”
“That’s because AA is a recovery group.” I shake my head, reaching for the Vodka. “Not a church.”
She rolls her eyes. “You say potato. I say potato. Besides, I needed my support group fix.”
“You need to stop doing that.” I pour two shots of vodka, licking off a few drops that spill onto my hand. “People are really serious about that shit. Trust me. I used to go to one.”
“To an AA meeting?”
“To a support group.”
“For?”
I tap the side of my head and she nods, getting it. For my amnesia, although I think I could go to a Potential Killers Anonymous if one existed. Maybe there I could finally express what I was carrying around inside me. Maybe I could finally let Lily out for a moment and be okay with it.
“I sometimes forget that you’ve forgotten.” She grins then scoops up the shot glass like she’s going to make a toast. “And just so you know, I’m still going to go to the AA meetings. I met a hot guy there and now we’re dating. And let me tell ya, the sex is amazing.”
“Does he know you’re not a recovering alcoholic?”
She bites her lip guiltily. “I haven’t had the chance to mention it yet.”
“Sure you haven’t.” I collect the other shot glass, spilling a little of the liquid. “You’re so manipulative.” Isn’t that the pot calling the kettle black?
“So are you.” She grins before downing her shot. Then she puts the glass down and goes over to the table area and begins putting down the chairs. I slam my warm-up shot back, then begin to get ready to open up the bar, checking the glasses and alcohol bottles to see what all I need to get from the store. Glen usually doesn’t show up until the after hours, if at all, and River is always fashionably late, something he gets away with because he’s Glen’s baby brother by about twenty years.
After Bella and I get everything set up I turn the lights and music on, while three of the other waitresses/dancers—Mindy, Sydney, and I think the other’s name is Marilynn—get ready to open up. I try to remember names, but waitresses come and go here about as frequently as internet trends. I blame it on the high amount of males touching themselves at the tables and how the waitresses and dancers are just supposed to overlook it and “do our thing.”
Sydney is the only waitress that’s worked here for over two weeks. She’s tall, leggy, and has a heart tattoo on her ankle that matches the little heart buttons on her shirt, that are actually kind of pretty and for a stupid moment I picture myself plucking them off her shirt. She also doesn’t like me at all. No surprise since most women tend to not like my blunt and bold personality. Plus, I think she has a thing for River. Honestly, I’m not even sure what the real foundation of this dislike is for me, other than her first day working here, she took one look at me and made this noise in the back of her throat that sounded an awful lot like disgust. Then she walked away, shaking her head, and that was that. She hated me and has acted upon the loathing several times over the last couple of weeks, including one very intense fight where I discovered that I don’t fight like a girl. I kick and punch and can throw down like a guy, something Sydney and her nose didn’t appreciate when I crashed my knuckles against it. She actually tried to get me fired, but luckily Glen likes me.
As Sydney strolls by me today, she mutters under her breath, “Fucking slut. I know what you did the other night.”
The other night? I have to think about what I did… Oh, that was the night she caught me and River in his office making out. But I don’t say anything to her because there’s nothing to say.
“You know, you can be such a bitch,” she says, picking up the pace just a little as she looks at me from over her shoulder. “I have no idea how River can even touch you. You’re fucking pathetic and disgusting. You probably have herpes with how much of a whore you are. You’ve practically slept with everyone in this town.”
I’m not a whore. Yes, I have sex, but not that much, and not with just anyone. It’s all very high schoolish and I really just want to walk away, but I find myself standing there. The word whore has triggered an unexplainable rage within me. One that’s so overpowering it drowns everything else around me out. My vision blurs. My hearing pops. My pulse hammers and a figure appears behind Sydney. He’s not real—I’ve seen him before and know he’s just an illusion. But every time it happens, it makes me sick to my stomach.
You’re a whore!
You’re a whore!
You’re a whore!
It’s not my voice inside my head. Not Lily’s. It’s male. Baritone. Angry. I’ve heard it before. These episodes aren’t new to me at all. I sometimes wonder if something from my past sets them off, but since I can’t remember anything, I just get angry. Enraged. It’s so thick I can’t see. I’m not mad over the insult at this moment, but some time in my life, I have been. And sometime in my life, I’ve cowered like a child from the sound of it. I want to do it now, especially with the man there, staring at me, eyes I can’t see, face a shadow. I want to look away. Wrap my arms around myself and pretend to be somewhere else. Surrender and give up.
You will not. You can’t just stand around and let this go on. Take her out. Stop being Maddie.
“I don’t know how,” I whisper, my body starting to tremble as I grip onto the chair for support because my knees are about to buckle. The man fades in and out of focus.
You’re a whore!
Make her hurt. Like you’re hurting. Don’t be weak. Make her suffer.
Chapter 6
Lily
As soon as I get control, the imaginary man vanishes¸ because I have more power over the mind then to let the ghost memory remain there, attempting to torment me.
“I’m not a fucking whore,” I say in level voice. Sydney’s lucky we’re in a crowded place, otherwise this would all be over with in the snap of a finger. “And if you call me that again, you won’t be walking away from me.” My hands are calmly at my sides, my posture straight, my gaze unwavering. I’m in more control than I’ve ever been, which is good. Maddie is weak and the most undecided person I’ve ever known. It’s no wonder she needs me.
“Excuse me,” Sydney says, inching toward me, but then rethinks it and retreats. “What’s y-your deal,” she stammers, bumping her hip against a chair.
“What’s my deal?” I press my lips together, deciding how to go about this. If Maddie were completely silent, I’d probably knock her out and walk away from it. Suffer the consequences. It’s not like I haven’t done that before—suffered. And I can sure as hell do it again. I take a few calculated steps toward her and slant my head to the side, inspecting blondie. “You really want to know what my deal is? Really?” My voice drips with sarcasm.
Sydney’s lips part as if she’s going to say something, but then she gets this frightened look and starts moving around quickly, practically jogging around the tables, ramming into some of them. All I can think is tackle her down and enfold my fingers around her neck. Strangle her, like I did to the man in the road. I want to so badly but I know I can’t, not with four sets of eyes on me. I have to ball my hands into fists and stab my nails into my palms to contain my inner desires that I don’t understand. I draw blood. Cut skin. It feels good, so I plunge my nails deeper into my skin I don’t move even when Sydney disappears into the back room. It’s the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do—not following after her.
You’re a whore!
The voice is right—I am a whore. That among other things. I’m a sinner. A rebel. A punk. A psychopath, at least according to the voice. It’s not like I chose to be this way. Shit has happened that created me. Shit I don’t understand and don’t really care to understand. All I care about at the moment is chasing after Sydney, pulling her hair out, making her bleed. Watching her veins pop open. Spilling blood. Making her pay for saying those things to me. Not being weak and letting myself get walked all over. That’s Maddie’s thing. I’m alive just thinking about it and finally I decide to give into it and let Maddie deal with it later. I step forward, ready to go through with it—rip her to shreds.
“You okay?” Bella touches my shoulder and I whirl around, almost hitting her in the face.
She blinks, stunned, surrendering her hands in front of her and I blink, nearly falling to the floor as it feels like a ghost rushes from my body and I’m gone back into my hiding place, where I can’t be seen. Locked up, just like always.
Story of my life for the last six years, ever since I lost control.
Chapter 7
Maddie
“Relax, Maddie.” Bella lowers her hands only when I’ve took a few breaths and calmed down. “Jesus, you really shouldn’t let Sydney get to you. Trust me. It’s her mission in life to get a rise out of people.”
I nod, still unable to speak, fearing what my voice will sound like—fearing she’ll hear Lily in me. Worried that whatever just happened, will happen again. I feel a lot of fear at the moment. What just happened?
The man is gone. Sydney is gone. I’m shaking, beads of sweat covering my skin, my palms cut open, my mind racing from the lingering sensation of the voice, from Lily’s overwhelming control, from homicidal thoughts, from this crazy feeling of lost time. But I manage to shake it off before I return to the bar with Bella and begin checking the alcohol glasses to see what needs to be refilled, anything to ignore what just happened, because it’s all I can do at the moment, otherwise it’ll get even harder to breathe.
After making a trip back to the storage room, I go to the front counter where Bella is standing in front of the register, filing her nails, eyeing Sydney down, who’s staring, as she flips over a chair from the table and sets it down on the floor. I can’t even remember what I said to her to piss her off so bad. She was insulting me, then I got mad… then I…
“You know, I’m really starting to wonder if she has some sort of underlying grudge toward you,” Bella remarks as she moves the nail file back and forth across her fingertips. “Like maybe she knew you pre-amnesia and is holding a grudge.”
“Yeah, maybe... But why would she know me and not say anything for the last month?” I stare at Sydney trying to will my mind to make a connection. Do I know her from somewhere? I don’t think so... but then again how can I know? How can I know anything about the past unless someone tells me it?
Maybe she’s just not a good person. Did you ever think of that? That some people aren’t good.
“Then again it could just be because you kicked her ass the first week working here.” Bella looks away from Sydney and shakes her head. She reaches for a glass beside the register and takes a long drink. I don’t even bother asking what’s in it. I already know it’s something strong by the way her face twists as she swallows the liquid. Bella is great at pretending to be good, too, when really at heart she’s probably almost as equally as bad as me, well close anyway. “I should probably unlock the front door, huh?” She changes the subject off Sydney, glancing at the clock on the wall and then at the front door.
“Isn’t River supposed to be the one who actually unlocks the place?” I ask, looking up at the picture window above me where River’s office is. “I mean, I know he’s usually late, but he always gets here in time to unlock.”
“Actually River’s up in his office, “ she says as she rounds the counter and heads to the front door, twirling the keys around on her finger. “He came in early today.”
“Really? What’s the occasion?” I ask as she flips on the neon open sign. I feel exhausted, on the verge of passing out. Today’s been a rough day mentally and I’m not sure how much more I can take. I really should have just skipped out on work and stayed with Ryland.
Bella shrugs, unlocking the door with the key then returning to the bar area to put the keys in the drawer just below the register. “Who knows?" Her eyes sparkle mischievously as she winds around the counter and behind the bar. “Maybe he’s excited to see you after your hook-up last night.”
I adjust the bottom of my shirt higher as a bald guy comes roaming in the front door. “We didn’t hook up last night.”
She eyes me over suspiciously as she reaches down the front of her top and rearranges her cleavage so it’s pretty much busting out of the shirt. “I know there’s something going on between you two and I wish you’d just fess up so you can give me the juicy details.”
“Nothing is going on between us.” It’s not a lie. Nothing really is going on, at least not to me. Fun. That’s what I consider it. Pure and simple fun because anything else would be wrong. River’s a nice guy but I don’t feel nearly as comfortable around him as I do with Ryland. That steady peace I feel up in the cabin is more like unsteady nervous energy when I’m near River, mainly caused by Lily because she doesn’t like him very much. “And maybe he just got here early because he wanted to get a jump on things so he could actually come down and hang out tonight ”
She laughs, shaking her head. “You actually think he finally decided after all that studying of people or whatever the hell he does,” she says. “That he actually wanted to be part of society and enter the real world?”
“He studies sociology,” I correct her, grabbing my drink and moving for the doorway that leads to the stairway. “Which is the study of human social behavior.”
“Wow, brainiac,” she teases me then turns around as the bald guy strolls up to the counter, asking for a lap dance, laying down a twenty on the countertop. Bella obliges without her cheery mood deflating. She’s good at that. Either not caring or concealing her emotions—I can’t tell for certain which one it is. I flinch a lot and cry about what I do later in the bathroom, that is when I’m Maddie. Lily owns it.
Turning away from them, I climb up the stairway to the office to see what River’s doing, even though I shouldn’t. Lily always tells me to stay away from him, that he sees too much in people, and if he looks hard enough, he’ll probably see her. She doesn’t like him at all, which is part of the reason why I think I haven’t had sex with him. But I can’t help but go see him. I’m drawn to him like all the sweaty, beer-gutted men that show up here every night, drawn to half-dressed women they can’t touch and booze.
When I get to the top of the stairs, the door is wide open. River is sitting behind the desk his head tipped down as he sorts through the papers. He’s the mere opposite of a Ken doll, but in a good way. I find his floppy brown hair, tattoos, and his hipster style, appealing enough that I keep coming back for more. Honestly, I can’t really explain what my attraction is to him. It’s not usually like me to continue to hook up with the same guy for a month straight. I usually have one-nighters, even though I feel guilty about it—Lily loves them—because I know there’s no way I can have a relationship with someone, without them eventually stumbling across the madness inside me.
“Knock, knock, knock,” I say as I rap my hand on the doorframe, entering the small, very disorganized room that is supposed to be an office but looks more like a storage room. The window to my right gives an open view of the entire bar and stage area where there’s a shiny pole waiting to be danced around.
River quickly glances up, startled by my appearance. “Fuck, you scared the shit out of me.” He’s wearing a pair of square framed glasses and takes them off to rub his blue eyes. “You have a knack for that. You know that?”
“Sorry,” I apologize, wandering into his office that has crooked pictures hanging on the walls, stacks of papers on the desks and overflowing filing cabinets, and the empty energy drink cans and candy wrappers falling out of the overly full garbage can. “So I thought you guys were going to hire a maid?” I plaster on a playful smile because that’s who I have to be around River—playful and flirty. Fun, fake Maddie. “You know, one of those naughty one’s that flashes her ass while she cleans it then gives you a happy ending.”
He looks around the room with his forehead furrowed, like he’s just noticed the mess. “Oh yeah. I think Glen is working on it or something.” He blinks then focuses on me, his gaze slowly drinking me in. “I mean, not the naughty maid part. Just a normal maid.”
“Sure, if you say so.” I press back a smile. “You know Glen is never going to higher anyone right?” I ask, plopping down in the chair in front of the desk and setting my drink on the desk. I cross my legs and tap my fingers on my knee. “He’s been saying forever that he’s going to higher someone to fix the handle on the freezer door, yet it’s been broken longer than I’ve worked here.”
“I’ll talk to him,” River says. “I think he’s just got a lot of other important stuff he’s been trying to take care of.”
“You know Bella almost got locked in there, right? She was in there for like an hour or something before anyone heard her. The thing is sound proof. Seriously, she could have died and no one would have known.” And the cold air would have preserved her body. We would have never smelled the death in the air, breathing it in unknowingly. Vile burns at the back of my throat. God, I wish I could stop.
“Bella’s over dramatic,” he says, relaxing back in the chair. “Almost means she walked in, the door shut, and then she actually had to open it to walk out.”
“Wow, hater,” I tell him, biting my lip as Lily gets aggravated by the fact that I’m flirting with him—she always does. In fact, she always tunes out whenever River and I are fooling around, which means that anything I do in those moments is clearly under the will of my own—no excuses. Which makes Maddie kind of slutty and more and more like Lily everyday. “And here I thought you were all about the love.”
“No you didn’t.” He says amusedly as he leans forward and crosses his arms on his desk. “You’re too smart to think I’m that nice.”
“Everyone else does,” I tell him, relieved to be up here playfully bantering with him for the moment and getting a break from the voices and ghosts that haunt me. “It might have to do with the fact that you blush when I say ‘naughty maid.’”
“I don’t blush.” He rolls his eyes and gives me a look like I’m the most absurd person in the world. “And I really don’t believe that you think I’m nice,” he says. “And if everyone else does, then everyone else is stupid in my opinion, at least around here.”
“Maybe I’m really stupid too.” I say lightly. “You know, you don’t even know me. And for all you know, all our conversations have been centered around me memorizing facts on the internet right before we meet up.”
“You think you’re more mysterious than you are, Maddie, because I do know you,” he says, watching my reaction closely, like he does whenever he’s associating with anyone. “Your a girl who has a very twisted sense of humor. That is hard to faze. That has a lot of secrets. That doesn’t seem to mind giving guys personal dances when a lot of the girls get emotional and complain about it later. That dresses like a different character almost every single day.” He relaxes back in his chair again as Lily squirms inside me and starts clawing her way under my skin. He sees too much. You need to shut him up. “Tell me, who are you today?”
I glance down at my outfit. “I think I was going for badass biker chick.” I elevate my gaze back up at him and force my tone to be upbeat. “Using those stellar sociology skills, are you?”
He shrugs, the corners of his lips quirking. “Perhaps.”
