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"It's not a competition for me, I promise," he murmured as she passed.
"I'm glad," she said, slightly stunned as she opened the car door. "But I hope you know that you can say something to me if something does bother you. I won't kill you for complaining."
Caspar set his crutches in the backseat of the car before he climbed inside the passenger side, giving her a lopsided grin.
"I'm hoping not to give you a reason to kill me at all, Angel."
His name for her only made her feel guilty as she started the car and reversed in the driveway.
"I'm really sorry I've been running around so much and not talking to you. You're supposed to be in the know, yet I've kept you in the dark like everyone else."
Caspar leaned on his hand against the door as he pinched at the thigh of his jeans with the other. "I want to be able to tell you that I understand leaving me out, but I’ve seen you kill someone and stab another person before. I didn't tell anyone, either. How can you not keep me in the loop after that?"
"I've just been really busy after the fallout from that day. The man I stabbed was Renly's dad, a day before I was supposed to convince him to work with Chance and me. Then, Chance is insisting that I need to lay on the charm and get this deal by any means necessary, even knowing that the Vultures are working just as hard for the deal. Then, I've been reworking everything for the Cantil now that Jez's dad was killed by mine—"
"Woah, Mykie," Caspar murmured, laying a hand on her thigh, and effectively stopping her from continuing. "That's a lot to be handling alone. Why didn't you come to me? Aren't we supposed to be partners in this?"
Mykie bit her lip. "We are partners, but I thought Renly would be mad at me if he ever found any of this out, and I didn't want that to affect your friendship. He's even mad at me now because of his brother working with me."
"Does he have a reason to be mad?"
Mykie looked at him out of the corner of her eye. "What? What do you mean?"
"I mean, you've been dealing with a lot in the last week or so. You didn't…you know…find comfort in his brother instead of him, right?"
Caspar was staring at her now, leaving her with no choice but to answer.
"It wasn't like that. There are things Renly doesn't and can't understand about the situation."
Caspar snorted.
"It wasn't like you're thinking! I didn't intentionally hook up with his brother or something because I was avoiding him. It wasn't out of revenge. His brother was just…"
"Just there at the right time?" Caspar supplied.
Mykie sighed. Damn it. It was exactly like he was thinking.
"It had nothing to do with him being Renly's brother. I knew him already… sort of. I don't know if I can explain."
"So, you're telling me that you hooked up with a guy, cheating on the relationship we're building together with the other guys, but you can't explain?"
Mykie was so stunned, that she fully took her eyes off the road.
"Cheat-I wasn't cheating. Nothing was established and no conversations about a relationship all together came up before."
Caspar shrugged. "Cheating on me, then. We have something established. You were sharing things with him that you aren't sharing with me. Sounds like cheating to me."
Mykie looked at the road again. "I wasn't thinking about it like that."
Caspar was quiet for a moment.
"So, you don't deny it. You were talking to him about things instead of me," he said quietly.
She tightened her grip on the steering wheel. "Okay, what I'm going to tell you seriously needs to stay between us. Knowing about me, while dangerous, is one thing. The fact that I'm going to tell you this without asking him first could even get me killed, all right?"
She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye.
"Ryker is a part of the Cantil. He knew about me, but I didn't know about him until the first meeting I had with their father because Ryker is one of the guys that gave the Cantil the reputation it has. He's dangerous and he has no moral qualms about killing someone. There're no second chances or second meetings with him. You either agree with his terms, or you disappear. I don't even have access to the files of the things he's done, and I'm second in command now. He knows things I couldn’t possibly know, either."
