Cellie's POV
I was going to walk around them. I had the plant in my arms and the shoe bag in my hand and I had a bus to catch and I was going to walk around them and continue with my day.
Valentina stepped into my path.
"We just ran into each other," she said, with the performance of someone who had not been placed exactly where I would be by some mechanism I did not want to identify. "Stay for a moment."
"I have somewhere to be," I said.
Her companion, Elena, produced the snicker I had been expecting. I had been in this situation enough times now to know the choreography.
"We'd be family soon," Valentina said. "We could at least have a conversation."
"We could," I said. "And then I could also not do that. Goodbye, Valentina."
I moved around them and she grabbed my arm. Lightly, specifically, the grip that was not quite aggressive enough to be called a threat and was precisely calculated to be exactly what it was.
I looked down at her hand on my arm and then up at her face.
