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Chapter Nineteen: Part 3

            “Who’s this Jason guy?” he asked mockingly. Alice shoved the phone back in her pocket, annoyed.  It continued to vibrate in an irritating fashion against her left hip.

“It’s nobody I want to talk to.”

            “Her ex,” Gabriel said, waggling his brows. “He must be simply heart sick because he keeps calling.”

            “And I keep on not answering,” Alice said sourly, “So I don’t understand what’s encouraging it.”

            “Here, let me talk to him.” To her horror Altair leaned over and grabbed at her sweater pocket, trying to snatch the phone out of it.

            “No! Don’t you dare!” Alice batted at his arm. “What do you think you’re going to say? Quit that!”

            “I’m going to tell him to stop calling, or I’ll send a horrible Witch after him.”

            “What Witch…hey!” Alice punched his arm as he was still trying to get to her phone, and he drew back, rubbing his bicep, pretending to be terribly wounded.

            “Owch…how could you? I’ll never play the violin again!”

            “You mean you’ll never jack another car again,” Gabriel said snidely.

            “I resent that.”

            “You resemble that.”

            “Boys,” Azura said firmly, “Don’t make me clonk your heads together, because I will.”

            “She will,” Alice confirmed. “And I’d love to see it, so carry on.”   Both Altair and Gabriel fell silent, Altair pointedly scooting his chair away from where Azura sat.

            Later that evening Alice was puttering around her apartment, tiding dishes and packaging up leftover food.  Emmy was curled up on one of the blue couches, having ventured upstairs and made it clear she wanted in with a great deal of loud mewing.

             “I think this whole thing with Ambrose is just going to die down,” she told the cat.  “I was worried it might escalate…” She paused, watching Emmy clean herself, one leg stuck up in the air like a contortionist. “Anyways, I think we’re okay now, Ambrose and I. Now that Allira is out of the picture I do think it’s safer. And I think it’s time to move on to the next big city. I’ll send him a note thanking him for all his lovely parties, and I’ll see him next time I’m in town, blah, blah, blah and then I’ll move the shop and be on my way. Maybe I was wrong, maybe he doesn’t want anything from me and he’s just bored or something.”

Emmy paused her cleaning and gave her what might have been a critical look, if cats were capable of such things.  

“I think I’ll move the shop at the end of this week,” Alice continued to herself. “Saturday. Yes, that’s perfect.” She put the last plate in the sink and turned the lights out in the living room.

“Well goodnight, Emmy. You can stay here if you like and sleep wherever.”

            There was no reply, of course, only a pair of gleaming eyes in the dark that stared at the closed door of Alice’s bedroom long after she was asleep and dreaming.

            A week later, on a Friday night, Altair came knocking on her door. Alice was already wearing a pair of pyjamas with a zebra pattern, and when she answered she nearly shut it right in his face.