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“Oof,” I said as the waitress returned. “Not good. Not any of it.” I ordered a waffle with two sides of bacon and one side of sausage. Bran ordered the same, and Daisy ordered a Danish and coffee to go.
“The doctors haven’t decided whether she’s mentally stable enough to be extradited yet, but they’ll keep her locked up in the wing for criminals until she’s either deemed too ill to stand trial, or she’s deemed fit and then she’ll go on to face her crimes in France after that.” Daisy shook her head. “They may want to talk to you, Bran. To ask what she was like when the two of you were in Europe.”
“She wasn’t unstable, but she did seem to be spiraling out of control,” he said. “I can tell them that. She was using Methexa, I think—I thought I spotted a bottle in her purse with that label on it.”
Methexa was the Otherkin version of Oxycontin. It was extra strong, for those who were witchblood, and it was extremely addictive.
“Oh man, if she was on that, no wonder she was spiraling. Who gave it to her?”
“If anybody did, it was an old frenemy of mine,” Bran said. “Lister. He was always jealous that Gloria chose me over him, so he cozied up to her, trying to buddy-buddy with her. I told her he was trouble, and from what I hear, he is.”
“Lister Cravitz? Yeah, he’s in jail every couple weeks for one thing or another. He’s a bare inch from getting nailed as a repeat offender and the judge will toss him away for a few years because of that.” Daisy shrugged. “His whole family are a bunch of trouble makers.” She glanced at her watch as the waitress brought our breakfasts, and her to-go order. “All right, I need to run. I’ll call you in later, as soon as the doctors contact me. I know they’ll want to talk to you, Bran. I’ll let them know you’re available.”
As she headed toward the door, I turned to Bran and gave him a tentative smile. “Well, it’s over. I had no idea it was going to turn out this way, but it is what it is.” I cut into my waffle after drowning it in syrup.
Bran stared at his plate, playing with the bacon. “Yeah, I didn’t either. You know, when I first met her, I wondered whether I’d ever be able to fully trust her. It wasn’t that she seemed too good for me, or too wild. She just seemed to walk in a different world than I did.”
“Well, you and I have a lot to discuss, I guess.” I wasn’t sure where to go from here. Things like this could bond people, or it could tear them apart. I hoped we’d be one of the former, but there was no way to predict how Bran would react in the coming days.
He leaned across the table and took my hands in his. “You have such soft skin,” he whispered. “Has this put you off me?”
Startled, I almost leaned into my waffle with cream and syrup. “Put me off you? No. I thought, though, maybe you’d feel guilty over Gloria and her situation, and decide that you needed to spend some time helping her through this.”
Bran’s eyes widened. “Not a chance in hell. I didn’t take Methexa. I didn’t cheat on her. And I didn’t go off rail and kill my lover when my fiancée found out. No, I’m done. I’ll cut a clean cord with her—that would be best for us both.”
“Someday, she may get free from prison and start after us again.” I was coming up with every potential block I could think of, to spare it erupting out of nowhere in the future.
“Then, we deal with that when it comes. For now, please say we’re still good. I’ll help you rebuild your shop?—”
“And I’ll help you rebuild your barn,” I said, leaning across the table to kiss those full, luscious lips of his.
At that moment, my phone jangled. I pulled it out and glanced at my texts. It was from Kyle.
elphyra—wonderful news! faron woke up. he’s not ready to see people yet, the doctors are with him, but he’s awake, and they say he’s out of danger. i’ll let you know when you can come visit. isn’t this just the best news?
“Is something wrong? The look on your face—” Bran started to say, but I cut him off.
I couldn’t tell him. Not just yet. There wasn’t anything I could say, anyway, until we knew how Faron was doing, and what he remembered. The future could lead us in so many different directions, but for now, all I could do was speculate.
“Nothing important,” I said, stifling my desire to blurt out the truth. I’d tell Bran later—maybe this afternoon, maybe tonight. I wouldn’t wait long, but for now, we needed a moment—just to sit in peace and breathe. Because while one storm had just ended, there was another looming, and who knew how it was going to go?
All I knew was that, sitting in front of me was a man I loved. And somewhere near, in a hospital bed, another man I loved had fought his way back to consciousness. And now, in the depths of my heart, I knew that I couldn’t choose between them.
As lightning lit up the sky, I went back to eating my waffle, listening to Bran discuss rebuilding his barn, but inside, the storm brewing in my heart was drowning out the one outside the diner.
* * *
