Page 68 of Death is Familiar

But I’d cross that bridge when I came to it.

Okay, more like when I forced myself in front of it.

“Delilah.” Todd opened the motel room door, skin glistening like he just stepped out of the shower. It didn’t look like he was expecting me.

I don’t know why he was so surprised. It wasn’t hard to figure out which room the agents occupied. Not when I spotted a rental car sporting fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror.

“Can I come in?” I asked, hoping the ‘gifts’ I bought were enough to support my apology and soften the eventual blow.

Todd widened the door and I stepped in under his arm, ignoring his clean pine and cedar scent. Yeah, he definitely showered.

“Delilah.” Jack jumped to his feet, ditching his laptop. “Here, I’ll grab you your room key. We can leave the adjoining doors closed to give you some space.”

“As much fun as it is to have you both walking on eggshells around me, I came to,” I riffled through the grocery bag I was carrying to pull out my first item, “give you this.”

“Is that⁠—”

“Apology ginger ale?” Todd’s too warm fingers wrapped around mine to take a hold of the bottle.

“And a bag of powdered donuts.”

Jack and Todd shared a look. It was fast and not easy to decipher. It wasn’t anger, or shock it was⁠—

And now they were laughing. Not a low and slow chuckle either, it was full-on creasing-around-the-eyes laughter.

The edges of my mouth pulled upward. Their laughter was contagious, even if it was at my expense. “What, what’s so funny?”

Todd stepped around me, placing a palm between my shoulder blades as he opened the mini-fridge, pulling out a second bottle of ginger ale and offering it to me.

I palmed my face.

“Oh my god.” This apology was off to a better start than I anticipated. Still, it didn’t mean that they were going to like what I had planned. “We need some time apart.”

Jack crossed the room in three ground-eating strides, accepting the donuts. “That won’t be happening any time soon.” He flipped open the top and brought a powdered circle to his lips. “You’re stuck with us.”

“For a long long time.”

“So comforting.” The fizz of the ginger ale tickled my nose as I sat on the foot of the nearest bed. The apology ginger ale and donuts were meant to warm the waters a bit, but weren’t enough on their own. “But as you might have guessed, I came here to apologize.”

“You don’t need to⁠—”

“Yes, I do.” Both agents quieted themselves and gave me their full attention. “I’m fully aware I’ve been more of a pain-in-the-ass than usual. That I’ve been acting out.”

“No… really?”

“Oh, shut up, Todd, I’m trying to apologize.” He raised his hands in defense, a glimmer of a smile on his lips. When I felt confident he wasn’t going to interject again, I continued, “I’ve been acting out, I’ve been making your jobs more difficult. I know that. Since we got back from the Almeidas…” I stopped, maybe I should have thought the words through more. Ugh. Why couldn’t I have just handed them their goodies and left it at that? “When my life is in chaos, when decisions are being made for me, or I have no say, I need a semblance of control. So, I go out of my way to make situations where I hold power over the outcome.”

“Like pickpocketing a room full of FBI agents?”

“Or breaking into a private mausoleum before sunrise?”

I didn’t know apologizing was a group activity. “Do you want the rest of the apology or not?”

“…We do.”

I took another sip of ginger ale, before setting it down, squaring my shoulders. “I fully realize that my need for control has caused some headaches. I also know it’s not an excuse for how I’ve acted.” I started tracing the lines of my left hand. “I’m sorry for how I handled earlier. Everything in that room, in that police station, it was all hitting too close to home. And it made me feel…. stuck.”

“Stuck?”