Bad Influence (Seven Deadly Sins #2) ✅ Completed

Chapter Thirty-Three: Counting Stars

Chase stepped inside the shop and I quickly shut the door behind him, but not before I peeked up and down the street to see if anyone else might be lurking about. Ever since he’d told me about the sheriff’s plan to get a search warrant for the shop, I’d been a little more paranoid than usual.

And that was really saying something.  

Satisfied there weren’t any special guests waiting to jump out at me, I turned back to face Chase and did a quick once over.

He looked good – like he’d finally gotten a decent night’s sleep. His skin color was close to normal and his eyes were aware and alert. His clothes were clean, a simple white t-shirt and jeans that hung low on his hips. Freshly showered, I could still smell the scent of the soap he’d used. It was crisp and lemony.

All in all, a major improvement from the day before.  

He ran a quick hand through his damp hair, making it just the right kind of unruly and the action seemed so familiar. I felt a small twinge inside. I’d watched him do the same thing over a hundred times during the last few weeks and I was struck again by how much I’d missed him. I was so not the kind of person who just picked up friends throughout my day. I didn’t trust people, which sort of made it hard for anyone to get too close. Needless to say I would never be a contender for having the most followers on Instagram.

But Chase was different.

He was the first real person I’d met in town. I’d been sad and lonely on the bus ride carrying me thousands of miles away from all that I knew, from the only place I’d called home. I refused to admit it to myself at the time, but deep down, underneath the hurt of being cast out, I’d been terrified. I’d been shipped off to a place where I knew nothing and nobody. It wasn’t until the moment I’d stepped foot inside Crawford’s Hardware and met the friendly boy behind the counter that I’d felt a small seed of hope germinate inside me, that maybe this new life in this unfamiliar place wouldn’t be so bad.

At least until I’d found out about Celeste’s whole secret-life-of-evil. That sort of put the big stamp of bummer over everything.   

Still, Chase had been genuinely interested in me, in being my friend. How could I not care about what happened to him? What he was going through? I’d been so focused on Andy, Dante, the Sheriff and everything else.

Chase deserved better from me.  

Whatever Dante thought, I was happy he was back.   

“Hey,” I said, stepping around him. Earlier, while Dante and I had been moving stuff around to get the statues out, we’d unearthed several half decent end tables and a small, plush loveseat. It was cream with large pink and red flowers, a little too shabby chic for my taste but it was comfortable. We’d moved some of the better furniture around, specifically the longer couch, a wooden coffee table, and a few of the mismatched end tables and made a real seating area at the front of the store.

The furniture move helped to bring the store back to some semblance of order but it also served a covert purpose. It functioned as a discreet barrier in case we needed to keep people from getting too far inside. I’d decided since we couldn’t really get rid of all the junk because of the residual magic still left in everything, we could at least separate the store into two parts.

We’d keep the innocuous, everyday stuff people could buy in the front and place the more dangerous objects in the back, fitting the worst of the lot in the back storeroom under lock and key. The second floor was my floor and I didn’t want anything of my aunt’s up there with me and I really didn’t want to put anything within spitting distance of the Monet painting hanging in the attic. This was the best we could come up with until we figured out what to do with everything once and for all.