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talk to Tom without buying a ticket, and he wasn’t answering her texts. Lady, why was she so stupid? He probably wasn’t allowed to be on his phone at work. She should have thought of that.
    Well, she could at least ask someone, and then hang around in case Tom walked by within hailing distance on the other side of the rope. Felicia selected the employee on the right, a bleached blond woman only a few years older than her. She looked like she might be sympathetic to Felicia searching for a friend.
    The woman proved indifferent rather than sympathetic, but she did get on her walkie-talkie and ask for Tom. Felicia edged off to the side when the woman gestured, so a loud family with tickets could get past.
    Tom appeared from an employees-only door down the hallway and stopped abruptly when he saw her. With a sinking feeling in her stomach, Felicia wondered if he had been actively ignoring her texts. Was he still angry? She clenched her hands into tight fists in her jeans pockets. If he was, what could she do to make it up to him?
    After that hesitation, he did come over, though. He stepped over the velvet rope and brushed his hair out of his eyes. “Felicia, I’m at work.”
    “I know, I—” Felicia bit her lip. The feeling of doing something that smacked of groveling made her grit her teeth, but she did deserve his anger. “I’m sorry—”
    Tom waved away the apology with a half smile that made him look much more like his usual self, too mellow to maintain anger for very long. He sobered quickly, however. “It’s not that. Your father wants me to stay away from you for a few years.”
    A flash of anger tightened Felicia’s chest all at once. She knew her father would interfere. “He can’t—”
    “No, he’s right, we’re young. A year isn’t forever. And we can still be friends, okay?” Tom looked away, body language drooping. “Just not right now. It’s too easy to fall into other stuff again. So we should keep some space for a while.”
    Felicia stepped back and crossed her arms. Fine. If he didn’t care enough about her to defy her father, she didn’t want him anyway. Coward. “I didn’t come about that. I wanted to get your advice on what kind of job to look for.” Her accent was getting worse and she couldn’t do a thing about it. She hated the way it underlined the scent of her mood, so she pressed her lips together and didn’t say anything more.
    Tom hesitated, then waved to the blonde taking tickets. “I’ll take my break.” She nodded absently. Tom put his hand just behind Felicia’s shoulder, refusing to quite touch it as he directed her toward the large glass panels of the front wall and doors. Once she figured out what he was doing, Felicia lengthened her stride to get ahead so he couldn’t have touched her if he’d wanted to. She shoved the door open with more force than necessary.
    “So you’ve decided not to go roaming?” Tom stuffed his hands into the pockets of his black work slacks as they followed the sidewalk along the building to an empty wing of the parking lot.
    “If Dad wants me gone, he’ll have to kick me out. I’m not going to go roaming when everyone will be suspicious because I’m a European.” Felicia crossed her arms again until she realized it probably made her look sulky. That wasn’t sulking; that was the truth. Better to admit it and deal with it.
    “It’s not like that.” Tom looked at his feet and his bangs flopped forward into his eyes. “You’ve been here three years, and anyway, roamers are roamers. Everyone expects you to be a little bit of a dumbass. People are used to it. Just don’t go around killing people’s pets or getting photographed. And there’s plenty of land all over the West to run around in, without encountering a pack’s patrols for days.”
    “I’m not a lone, though.” Felicia kicked a piece of ornamental gravel that had escaped from the base of a tree along the sidewalk. “That’s what I don’t get about all