Cora, who would be going to this Orion place with all the other empaths. Reece swallowed. “Really?”
“Yeah.” Even through the speakerphone, Diesel’s voice seemed full of emotion. “Without Cora, I might not have made it, you know what I’m saying? And maybe I won’t be able to help her in return, but I can try. I’m going to Orion with Aisha.”
“You two can’t go without saying goodbye,” Jamey said. “Where are you going from the hospital? Your place? Aisha’s? We can meet you there.”
“You’ll probably think we’re nuts,” Diesel said ruefully, “but we need food and a sanity check. And the best place I know to work through your shit is McFeely’s.”
Jamey barked out a laugh. “You know what?” she said. “That sounds perfect.” She hung up the phone and wrapped her arm around Reece’s shoulders. “You too,” she said. “I missed your stupid lectures. Come tell me and everyone else not to drink our way through McFeely’s bar.”
Reece furrowed his brow. “I can leave?”
“We just got you back. We’re not giving you up,” Jamey said firmly. “If anyone wants to stop you, they’ll have to go through me and Liam.”
Reece swallowed, throat thick again. “What about Evan?”
“I’ll tell him to meet us there,” Jamey said. “It’s close enough to walk.”
Walk. Wait. “Where’s my car?” Reece said.
“Um.” Jamey cleared her throat. “Port Angeles.”
Reece frowned. “What about Evan’s truck?”
“Towed off the Bremerton ferry,” said Liam.
“Buthow—”
“Stop asking questions.” Jamey prodded him in the back. “Move your feet, Reece.”
It was still on the early side of night when they arrived at McFeely’s, but the club was already crowded and rowdy, people dancing and laughing with giddy relief.
Ben took one look at Reece’s face and dragged him to a small, two-person booth at the back. “I don’t know what you just went through, but one Shirley Temple, coming up. On me. Unless you wanted to make it yourself?” he added with a grin.
Reece furrowed his brow. “But I’m not a bartender.”
“Oh, right! Diesel said you’d had something like a concussion, and your memory might be spotty.” Ben held up a hand. “Don’t you worry about a thing. I’ll get your drink.”
Reece’s lips curled up at the corner, a helpless sort of smile born of confusion but more so of gratitude. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
A few minutes later, he sat alone at his booth, sipping the Shirley Temple and letting the sweetness of the cherries bloom over his tongue as his gaze roamed the club. Jamey and Liam were slow-dancing to a fast song, arms locked around each other. Diesel had arrived with Aisha, a kind-faced woman Reece instantly liked. They were now at a table, Aisha’s right leg in a cast and propped up on a chair, as short fake empaths fussed over her and hugged the much taller Diesel around his ribs.
A tall presence suddenly loomed over the table. “This seat taken?”
Reece broke into a giant smile at the voice. He looked up, meeting Grayson’s eyes. “Sorry, yes,” he said, deadpan. “My hot, scary boyfriend is sitting there.”
He paused.
A tiny smile curled up the corner of Grayson’s lips, shy and rusty. “That wasn’t a lie?”
Reece’s gaze was entirely fixed on Grayson’s mouth. A smile. He smiled now. He was happy. “Not a lie,” Reece said, “but I was thinking of you as I said it.”
The small, rusty smile got just a little bigger. As Grayson sat down, Reece leaned forward. “How are you holding up?”
Grayson considered the question for a long moment. “It’s a lot to take in,” he finally admitted. “A lot of...” He gestured helplessly at himself. “Feelings. And I’ve kind of... forgotten, you know? How to feel things. What things I’m feeling. And I’m not sure—I don’t—well.”
Grayson stuck his arm out, resting his hand on the table, palm up.
Reece furrowed his brow, gaze going from the hand to Grayson’s eyes. He was looking at Reece, and now those hazel eyes weren’t a vault at all. Instead, they were a novel, so many words filling the pages that Reece could have read for days.
