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She nodded.
So did he. He thought for a minute, took a bite of apple-butter-slathered muffin, had a sip of tea. “How about this: I’m not gonna rent a place for a while, because I’m comin’ with you when you’re ready to travel for your research, and we’ll probably be gone for a chunk of time, right?”
“Several weeks, a couple of months, yeah.” That was a whole other problem. She hadn’t given her parents the full picture of her research plans, mainly because she didn’t know the whole picture quite yet, but she did know they’d hate it. Hopefully they would be assuaged by Zaxx joining her as, like, personal security. Not that she needed it.
“So let’s say we don’t talk about future living arrangements until we get back from that trip. Then we’ll know a lot more about each other, and what we want, and you’ll be a lot closer to finishing your diss, so we’ll have a better idea what your future looks like, and where I fit in it.”
“And where I fit in yours.”
Again, he gave her that wry, sweet smirk. “You already fit in my future, G. My future looks exactly like my present, except where it intersects with you. I know you’re probably not staying permanently in Signal Bend. When that time comes, we’ll decide whether I go with you. I can be a carpenter anywhere.”
“You can’t be Horde anywhere, though.”
He shrugged. “Maybe not. But I don’t want to take that question off the shelf yet. We don’t know enough to worry about that.”
“Are you sure? You don’t think it’s weird that I need my own space—it doesn’t hurt your feelings?”
Now he took both her hands. “Gia. I don’t give a fuck what people think is normal or weird. I only care what works for us. It would have hurt my feelings if you’d held this back until you hated me because of it. Instead, we’re ahead of it, so we’ll build what works for us. I’m damn sure I want to do that.”
“Holy shit, I really do love you.”
Grinning, he stood and came around the table. Framing her face in his rough hands, he said, “I really do love you, too.”
Zaxx ended up being very late for work.
~oOo~
Nolan grabbed the pitcher and topped off everybody’s beer. “It was way more complicated than that. Bart’s just still pissed off. He’s still gonna be pissed off until he croaks, and when I get to the other side and meet up again, he’s still gonna give me shit about it.”
Bart’s expression twisted up a bit, and he rolled his eyes. “I’m not still pissed off. I get pissed again when I’m reminded about it. Like now.”
Nolan turned to Gia and smirked. “See? Grudge.”
Gia smiled but kept her reaction as neutral as possible. “As an experienced grudge-holder, I have to say I get it.”
The three of them sat at a Mexican restaurant near Sullivan. They’d ridden out miles from town to have this conversation because Bart didn’t want to talk about it anywhere there was a chance they’d be overheard by literally anyone else they knew. That ruled out everything in Signal Bend, including their own homes.
“You say it was a lot more complicated. How?” Gia asked Nolan.
Nolan turned to Bart before he answered. Bart, who’d just spent five minutes on a tirade about how Nolan’s recklessness had put the whole town at risk, now made a yes, let’s hear it gesture.
“It’s easy to write it off as me having a hard-on for revenge and not giving a shit about anything or anybody else,” Nolan countered. “For years now, I’ve been hearing that old chant, and I try to let it roll off my back. I get that perspective, and I don’t disagree. But it’s reductive and”—he gestured at the phone and paper notepad on the table before Gia—“you’re doing something, like, official. Something important. I want you to have the whole story, not just the obvious parts.”
Bart interrupted to say, yet again, “Damn, Gia, you’d better be careful, state-secrets careful, with the shit you’re recording and writing down. I know you’re gonna change names and places, but I’m more worried about that right there.” He nodded at her research tools. “The wrong folks get that shit, and the whole club goes down.”
“I know. I’m careful. I transcribe after every interview, encrypting all identifying details, and then I delete the raw files.”
He considered for a minute. “Will you let me help you with that—making sure everything’s unbreachable, I mean.”
She didn’t hesitate; Bart was vastly more tech savvy than almost anybody, and she trusted him completely. “Sure. That would actually be great.”
Eased by her agreement, Bart took a long pull from his glass, grabbed a handful of corn chips, and relaxed back in his chair.
Gia got the conversation back on track. “So going after that man was more than revenge for Havoc.”
Nolan nodded emphatically. “Yes. Did I want the man who killed my father dead? Of course I did. But I was more worried about what he was up to, what danger he might be to us in that moment. Or ...” He sighed and looked away, toward the front windows of the restaurant. “I guess Bart’s partly right. I told myself I wanted him dead before he could hurt us again, and it’s true. But when I found him, it got a lot more complicated.”
“That’s the second time you’ve said it was complicated, but it seems you mean something different this time. You’re framing it differently now.”
