The word sits there for a second.
Then I add, quieter, “My husband?—”
Sonny freezes. It’s not dramatically obvious, not in a way Jack would clock, but I see it. Because I remember the warehouse. The first time we met. Me furious, barely holding it together after punching Varek and telling anyone who’d listen that he’d killed my husband.
That I’d been married.
That it wasn’t simple.
I catch Sonny’s eye.
There’s no pity there. Just understanding and something steady.
Jack, on the other hand, goes wide-eyed. “Fuck, man,” he says immediately. “Sorry. I didn’t?—”
I shake my head, cutting him off. “It’s fine.”
Because it is. Or at least, it’s as close to fine as it’s going to get.
“He had a drinking problem,” I add, more matter-of-fact than anything else. “Made it… complicated.”
That’s one way of putting it.
Jack exhales slowly. “Right.”
There’s no follow-up questions or digging. I appreciate that more than I can say.
“It was a lifetime ago,” I finish, shrugging slightly. “Hell, a whole other world, literally.”
The words land, and for a moment, the three of us just… stand here in it.
Then Sonny shifts, just enough to break the weight of it. “Well,” he says lightly, “on the upside, you’re not missing much with my experimental disaster brew.”
I snort. “Good. I’d hate to feel left out.”
“Trust me,” he says, dead serious now, “you’re better off.”
Jack huffs a quiet laugh. “First sensible thing you’ve said all day.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
I push myself a little more upright, rolling my shoulder carefully as I glance between them. “All right,” I say. “Now that we’ve established you’re both terrible influences and questionable conversationalists?—”
“Rude,” Sonny mutters.
“—we’re circling back.”
Their attention focuses because we all know what I mean.
“Aelith,” I say.
And just like that, the humour fades, and the real conversation begins.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
“Kael will probably go all growlyand threaten to spank me or something for sharing all this shit with you all, but honestly, if that’s the punishment on offer, I’m all in.” Sonny bounces his eyebrows up and down like he’s just delivered the line of the century.
