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I mushed my French toast around my plate. Sterling watched.
“Here.” Cye pushed some strawberries onto my toast. “How about this? Yes?”
I flicked some strawberries around and tried to get up the will to put one in my mouth.
Jun watched. “I figured things went pretty well since you guys were gone a few days.”
I ran my hands over my face. I’d lost all my acrylic nails on our little jaunt. I needed to get them replaced, since we had a thing to go to in a few days. Thanksgiving was upon us, and after that, winter holiday season in full effect, and my calendar was a lot of pretty colors. “It was rough.”
“I’m not sure if she’s referring to my mother or the hangover,” Sterling said, giving me a little smirk over his coffee cup. “After we finished snarling at my parents, I took Winter out. Her first human-style night on the town.”
Cye made an ooo noise and Jun turned on his chair. “Yeah? Nice quiet romantic dinner?”
Sterling raised a brow at Jun. “I fed her street tacos with fried plantains—”
“Which I have never had before,” I said, sighing blissfully. Fried plantains were amazing.
“You took her to a food truck? A roach coach?” Jun demanded.
Sterling sipped his coffee.
Jun glared at him. “And how did your arm get bitten up? Did she bite you?”
Sterling glanced at the healing wounds on his forearm. “Maybe.”
We had enough lies to keep track of. No point getting to where I needed a wall, pushpins, and a bunch of string to keep track of them all. “We had to go to Montana. Jerron showed up.”
Sterling raised a brow. “Why deny me my fantasies?”
Jun choked on his toast.
I pointed my fork at Sterling. “I’ll bite you any way you like later. Right now, we’re going to tell them about how Chronicler Anais was cleaning out my father’s records. She found something my mother left for me. It was the key to a safe deposit box. We went to SilverPaw territory, and Jerron got salty.”
“What was in the box?” Cye asked before Jun or Burian could get angry.
“Nothing. She took it out after her cancer diagnosis—which was terminal—and put in a bunch of our old schoolwork and some pictures. Then she prepaid ten years on it and never went back.”
Cye put a few more sliced strawberries on my toast. “That’s very sad.”
Strange was more like it, but they could think it was sad.
My phone rattled.
[Gazelle] >> I’m back! Let’s do something.
What a coincidence, I was back too.
“Winter?” Sterling asked.
“It’s Gazelle.” I must have gone pale if he had gone from fantasizing about me biting him to that worried tone. “She wants to do something. I’m trying to figure out how to put her off.”
“Don’t,” Sterling said.
“What?” I demanded. “You said you were going to cut Ronald loose!”
“I am not just going to cut bait unless I have to. We don’t need the damage. Ronald’s going to sell those mineral rights to the highest bidder, not the most ethical one, and that might make our situation worse.”
My fingers curled around my phone. “Those mineral rights aren’t worth a damn thing compared to the current market. I’ve been reading the prospectus.”
