Free In Place of Never by Julie Anne Lindsey Page A

was her boyfriend?”
    The guilt in Anton’s eyes worried me.
    Cross shifted on the bench beside me. He tipped his coffee toward Anton. “Tell them what you told me.”
    Anton looked across the field to the cemetery. His all-black ensemble reflected his mood. He folded his hands on the table and wet his lips. “We came to town a few days early for our performances at the River Festival that year. I met Faith and some of her friends at the Festival one night. We hit it off.”
    Pru interrupted. “She had a boyfriend.”
    “Had.”
    “That’s what I said.”
    “No.” Anton squirmed. “Faith said they broke up the weekend before. She said he’d had enough waiting.” Heavy emphasis on his final word.
    A long beat of silence followed the statement.
    Pru’s eyebrows tented up. “For sex?”
    Anton averted eye contact with everyone. No big guy on earth ever looked more uncomfortable. “Yeah. I’d just lost another girlfriend, so we were pity partners.”
    Pru raised her hand. “When you say you lost another girlfriend…”
    Cross snickered. “She left the show a couple towns before yours. It happens. The kind of people who join traveling sideshows aren’t always cut out for long-term commitments. He didn’t, you know…hurt her or anything.”
    Pru nodded and raised her hand again. “And when you say pity partners…”
    “Pru!” I kicked her under the table.
    “Well.”
    Anton’s face pinked. “We complained to one another and shared a bottle of homemade wine. That’s it.”
    Cross stretched his neck and sighed. “They shared it in his camper. Alone.”
    “When you say it …”
    I lifted my hand to Pru. “Stop.” I walked around the tables to clear my head. “You were the last one to see her alive?”
    Anton shrugged. “Maybe.”
    My lungs flattened. “What maybe? Did you walk her home?”
    “No. I fell asleep.”
    Cross met me across the pavilion. “He passed out. It wasn’t his first bottle of wine that night.”
    Pru laid her hand on Anton’s arm. “You’re sad? Is it because Faith never made it home? Do you think you could’ve changed that?”
    “Yeah, but I didn’t know anything happened to her until last night. Mom woke us all at four, ready to hit the road by dawn. She gets these feelings sometimes, and we honor them, no matter the request. That was one of those nights.”
    Pru plucked the material of his shirtsleeve. “What kind of feeling?”
    My breathing stopped. His face twisted with emotion I couldn’t name.
    “Well?” Pru pressed.
    Anton looked at Cross before answering. “Mom gets weird sometimes. She gets happy out of the blue and something good will happen, or she gets sick and withdrawn or she aches. At times like those, we pull up camp and leave.”
    “Is she psychic?”
    “Pru!” The venomous look on Anton’s brother’s face at the campfire rushed into my mind. He’d been livid, convinced I’d come to ask them about Gypsy curses or something. “Stop.” Maybe there was a reason to ask.
    Pru jerked her hand from Anton’s arm and grabbed her cell phone. “Dad’s calling. What do I do?”
    Anton, Cross, and I responded in sync. “Answer it.”
    She walked a few paces away and answered.
    I caught Anton’s attention. “Sorry. She doesn’t know not to ask.” Not that it would stop her.
    Anton examined his pant leg, smoothing his palms over the material. “It’s okay. Tom’s the one who gets bent about our ancestry. I know it’s weird we travel and live privately in a world where the population shares its collective breath online. We’re a dying breed.”
    My cheeks heated. Cross had asked me to be his friend so he’d know someone in town, but I hadn’t understood the stakes. My gaze drifted to Cross’s careful stare. A month must feel like a lifetime to people without roots. I was certain in that moment. I wanted to be Cross’s friend.
    “I think it’s honorable your family carries on the traditions of your lineage. I barely know my family