I can’t help but smirk at her, knowing if I keep this up, it’s the only thing we’re gonna talk about, glancing over at the table next to us. She nods before we both sit down.
“You have nothing to be sorry about.” I look over at her, speaking low enough that only the three of us can hear. “This was part of it. I knew sooner or later I would wind up back here.”
“Zane.” She gives me a look that makes me laugh, shaking my head again.
“It’s true.”
“You don’t think I knew what was at stake when I watched you thr — erg — protect me…” she quickly corrects herself, looking around to see if anyone noticed. “Or better yet, you don’t think in the first 5 minutes that I knew you, I didn’t know what was possible. If I was worried about haivng to deal with any of this, would I have kept coming back?” She tilts her head, giving me a curious look.
“I guess I didn’t think about that.”
“Yeah. I guess you didn’t.” She snaps this time, irritated with me.
“I’m sorry.”
“Stop it.” She rolls her eyes, making Zeke laugh as he attempts to look away from my groveling. “Stop apologizing. Things get shitty sometimes, and it sucks, but that’s what it is. Now, can you stop pitying yourself and let’s actually visit?”
“Fine.” I smirk, looking back at her, my heart slamming into my chest. “You doing okay up there?”
“Yeah.” She shrugs. “It’s not the same without you there.” She cringes as she says it, almost as if she’s embarrassed to admit it.
“And someone got fired.” Zeke chimes in next to her.
Tatum’s face snaps over to him, and she’s glaring. I’m glad that I’m not the only one who gets it from her. “That’s not exactly true.”
“Then what would you call it?” He looks over at her. I can’t help but laugh again as she sticks her tongue out at him.
“That’s bullshit.” I bough out behind a laugh.
“I know. I told her to let me talk to them.”
“And that’s an even worse idea.” I tell my brother. “All we need is for your hot-head to go up there flying colors, and have us even more on a radar than we already are.”
Zeke nods his head, hesitating, agreeing with me.
“What ever you need…” I trail as she opens her mouth. Shaking my head, attempting to stop her from arguing with me, but as she says something, I continue, cutting her off. “Stop it. I’m the reason you lost your job. I’ve got it until…”
“Until when?”
“Whenever.” I shrug.
She doesn’t look like she wants to agree to anything, but she finally sighs. “You’re not the reason I got fired. He is. It’s his fault.”
“And things will eventually get evened out.” I say, leaning my head down and looking her right in the eyes so she knows what I mean.
I watch her eyes slowly grow sad as she looks back up at me. “What if… what if this doesn’t work out how you want to?”
Swallowing, I look up at her. I know what I’ll push her to do, but it guts me to fucking say it out loud.
“No.” She shakes her head, raising her hands and her voice. She knows what it is I’m saying. That if I stay in here, she should move on.
“Tatum.” I call to her, trying to get her to remember where we are and that she needs to keep her voice down. “If it comes to that. We’ll deal with it then.”
Her eyes gloss over as she looks at me, and I smile at her again, reassuring her.
I can hear everyone around me moving and I know that the time is almost up. For whatever reason, they came and got me late. Maybe my charges pissed the guards off? Which I will most likely have to deal with at a later time.
Tatum takes a deep breath, as if trying to keep a strong front for me until she gets out of the doors. Standing up, I reach over, wrapping my arms around her for a moment and looking over at my brother.Make sure she’s okay.
