Page 14 of Deacon

Evan naturally managed to horrify and delight both of us by reenacting his performance in the employee parking lot as Blue’s fake baby daddy, complete with a lowered voice and swagger so ridiculous that laughter tore out of me before I could stop it.

Blue folded forward beside me, wheezing into the blanket. I tried to tell him to stop, but the words dissolved, and soon my chest hurt while tears gathered in the corners of my eyes for a reason I could survive explaining.

It felt good.

That was the strange part. It felt good in a way almost nothing had all day. My ribs ached and my face hurt, but for a few minutes the fear loosened enough to allow something warmer inside.

Eventually, the laughter faded, leaving us pressed together beneath the blanket while quiet settled across the room.

The conversation was always going to circle back.

Blue looked at me. “Did you see him before you came here?”

I stared at our joined hands. “Yeah.”

Neither of them pushed immediately. That was one of the reasons I loved them. They understood how to let silence do its work.

Evan was the one who finally asked, his voice softer than usual. “How was it?”

I breathed out through my nose and leaned into the couch. “Awful. And somehow not awful.” My throat tightened, forcing me to pause. “I don’t know. He looked so still. I kept waiting for him to do something. Open his eyes. Move. Scowl at me. Anything.”

Blue’s thumb moved across the back of my hand.

“I talked to him,” I admitted.

Evan tilted his head. “What did you say?”

The ceiling was easier to look at than either of them. “I told him he was stubborn. That he didn’t get to come back like this.” My voice caught, but I tightened my grip around Blue’s hand and continued. “And that if he doesn’t know certain things, that isn’t on me.”

Neither of them asked what I meant by certain things.

They weren’t stupid.

They also loved me enough to leave the word buried until I was ready to dig it out myself.

The room grew quiet again. Blue rested her head against the back cushion; exhaustion stamped into the set of her mouth. Evan reached across us and pulled the blanket higher with all the fussy determination of an overdramatic mother hen wearing expensive moisturizer.

Then a motorcycle rumbled outside.

The sound cut through the apartment so distinctly that all of us heard it at once.

Blue went still beside me.

Evan, a man born without the smallest instinct for self-preservation, looked delighted and alarmed in equal measure.

We crossed the room together.

Beneath the streetlight, a black motorcycle idled near the curb with its helmet hanging from the handlebar. Priest leaned against the bike, his broad body held unnaturally still, as though patience and threat had joined forces and built themselves into a man.

Blue muttered something I couldn’t make out.

I studied him through the glass, then caught her reflection. One of her hands had settled protectively over the curve of her stomach without her appearing to realize she had placed it there.

“He found you,” I said.

Blue stepped away from the window.

Evan exhaled like he had reached the final scene of a movie he intended to dissect in exhausting detail later. “Wow. That is unsettlingly hot.”