Everlasting Read Free

wait,” muttered Dhanya. “I wonder if they have front teeth.”
    “You are such a snob, Dhanya!”
    Ivy smiled. “Don’t want to shock you, but I also prefer guys with front teeth.”
    Kelsey snorted. “You need to let go, Ivy. No regrets, over and done—move on! And you, Dhanya, need to close your novels and get real.” Talking with her eyes closed, Kelsey looked like some mythological prophetess spouting advice. “As for missing teeth, you’re way off. College hockey is a sport of skill and discipline, requiring smarts as well as toughness. I’m sure that Bryan’s friends are just like Bryan.”
    “So how can you resist?” a deep voice asked.
    Dhanya turned around and instantly blushed. Kelsey sat up.
    Bryan’s laugh was loud and friendly. “But maybe Max is more your type,” he suggested to Dhanya.
    “I don’t think so,” said Max, having followed Bryan around the side of the inn.
    Max and Bryan, who had become friends at college, were polar opposites. Bryan, with dark hair and green eyes, was medium height, powerfully built, and good-looking; brimming with confidence, his game face was a roguish smile. Max had a leaner build and countered his monochrome looks—light brown hair, light brown eyes, and year-round matching tan—with expensive and tropically colored clothes. Recently, however, after learning that Dhanya found him “tacky,” he’d started sporting more traditional preppy attire.
    “How’d you find us?” Kelsey asked.
    “Beth,” Bryan replied, “though she didn’t exactly volunteer the information. We could hear her in the kitchen. When she didn’t respond to our calling, we invited ourselves in.”
    “She gets like that when she’s writing,” Kelsey said. “Totally spacey.”
    Max and Bryan exchanged glances, then shrugged. Ivy guessed that they saw a strangeness in Beth that Will stubbornly denied and Kelsey conveniently ignored.
    “Is everyone coming to Max’s tonight?” Bryan asked.
    Kelsey started smoothing on more oil, although her body was already glistening with it. “Wouldn’t miss it!”
    “Dhanya?”
    “Yes.”
    Bryan turned to Ivy and she shook her head. “Sorry.”
    His green eyes glinted with mischief. “Does that mean we can call you if Kelsey gets stinking drunk again?”
    That was how it had all started. Three nights after Gregory re-entered the living world through a séance meant to be just a game, Kelsey and Dhanya had gotten drunk at one of Max’s wild parties. On the way to pick up their roommates, Ivy and Beth had been struck by a hit-and-run driver. The paramedics and doctors couldn’t explain how Ivy had survived, but she knew the source of the miracle: Tristan’s kiss.
    Ivy dried the door of her rental car, then straightened up and turned toward Bryan. He talked a big game about drinking, but she had come to realize he drank a lot more caffeine than alcohol. “No, it means you’ll have to help keep that from happening.”
    He smiled. “You mean babysit her?”
    “If that’s what it takes,” Ivy replied. “Aunt Cindy has reached the end of her rope with us.”
    Bryan nodded. “My uncle would have booted you all out by now. Partying, totaling your car, then dating a killer who claims he has amnesia.”
    “He did have amnesia,” Ivy replied.
    “You’re sure?”
    “Positive.” Ivy slopped suds on the trunk of the white VW. She winced every time she thought of Aunt Cindy’sdescription of her: a “good girl” who showed “absolutely no judgment” when it came to people. Ivy wanted to argue that it was perceptiveness and positive instincts rather than lack of judgment that had made her trust a stranger before she knew his story. But Tristan’s safety required her to remain silent; it was impossible to defend herself.
    “Have you heard from Luke?” Max inquired.
    “No.”
    “Do you want to hear from him?” Bryan asked, picking up an extra sponge, washing a patch she had missed.
    Ivy met Bryan’s eyes. She thought she saw