Ursa and Mac hopped down from the bar to dance where people were passing clear plastic balls over their heads in a weirdly chill mosh pit while Rainy, Braithe and Tara stayed at the bar. Rainy wished Tara had gone with them; she was making everything exceptionally tense. Tara knew...something. Rainy could see it in the way Tara looked at her, the wary eyes, the way she sucked in her cheeks whenever Rainy said something, like she was holding back an eye roll. Tara drank her champagne facing the dance floor so she could watch Ursa and Mac, while Braithe angled her seat toward Rainy.

“Steve’s not texting me back. Have you heard anything from Grant?”

Rainy shook her head. Her hair was heavy on her shoulders and she reached behind herself to gather it together and pull it over her shoulder.

“I think it’s going to be like this for the next three weeks,” she admitted, looking at Braithe’s crestfallen face. It was weird: Braithe and Stephen had been together for ten years. Shouldn’t she be comforting Rainy, who was new to these extended work trips? It was sweet how cute Braithe and Stephen were together. She always brought it up to Grant, who said they’d been like that from the beginning.

“You’re right, I’m being silly. I always get anxious when they leave.”

Rainy smiled at her. Maybe that’s why Grant had been so insistent she come with; he’d known how lonely Braithe was when Stephen left and figured they could do the whole lean-on-each-other thing.

“We’re in a club of two now, I guess,” Braithe said, and Rainy saw Tara flinch. In that moment she wanted to hurt Tara for how unnecessarily cruel she was being, for the games she was playing that Rainy didn’t understand.

“Yes, we are,” Rainy said with enthusiasm. She held up her glass and Braithe knocked her own against it.

“Let’s dance,” Braithe said, hopping down from her stool. She was looking at Rainy, avoiding Tara’s eyes. She allowed herself to be led to the dance floor, swallowing the last gulps of her drink as she clutched Braithe’s hand.

She began to wind her hips to the music, all thoughts gone from her head.

13

Then

They waited until everyone was in church to leave, putting most of what they wanted to take into two backpacks and walking up the long road to the guard shed. There they had to pass through the gate, where one of the sisters was on duty.