I would wear him down, even if I had to blow up his phone. I didn’t care if it was a stalkerish, dickhead move.
His not answering was entirely my fault, though. I took a lot for granted with Phin, and it was biting me in the ass.
Miles was five seconds away from stabbing me with the sharpest object he could find, which happened to be one of the knives in the block on the kitchen counter next to a butcher block. He stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room.
Joel seemed comfortable in the house. So comfortable that he immediately went to the kitchen to look for food. He went for the ice cream, which was a good choice.
The bottle of Jack was a quarter gone by the time Phin finally answered his phone. “Fuck, man. Where have you been?”
“Oh, that’s rich coming from a guy who ghosts me regularly.” Phin sounded fine, as healthy and feisty as ever. Thank the gods.
I let out a sigh of relief. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” He paused for a heartbeat. “Where has everyone been?” he whispered.
My heart jumped. I didn’t know what to say. My instinct was to tell him the truth, but Morgana made it clear that doing so would put Phin in danger. The more the whiskey warmed me from the inside out, the more I had to agree. I didn’t want to lie to him either. I’d never lied up to that point. Sure, I’d gotten caught up in other things: waves, liquor, parties. I always told him the truth about where I’d been.
“I can’t tell you that. Not yet.” That was the truth, at least. Maybe I couldn’t explain why, but lying to him wasn’t an option.
Without a single reply, the call ended. Phin hung up on me. In the past, when phones were big and clunky, slamming the receiver down was far more satisfying. I took comfort in knowing that Phin couldn’t experience that by pressing a button on a screen.
“Fuck!” I banged my fist on the table. It helped, but only marginally. I was mad at myself, not at Phin.
Miles jumped and recoiled into the living room, behind the wall. The poor guy didn’t know what was happening any more than Phin did. He certainly didn’t trust me. Not that I blamed him. I might have had a good reason to kidnap him, but I still took him against his will.
“You’re safe, man. I’m just upset because my guy hung up on me.” Even though I deserved it, it still stung.
“Why?” Miles was cautious as he stepped across the threshold again. He crossed his arms over his chest and scowled at me. It would have been intimidating if he were larger.
“Because I can’t explain something to him.”
“Can’t or won’t?”
“Ugh.” I sat back in the chair and shut my eyes. I'd made a grand mess of things with Phin. I would apologize, but I’d already done that about a thousand times. I’d skipped out on our plans and apologized afterward. It wasn’t always better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Too often, that attitude had made Phin stop trusting me. “Both.”
Miles shrugged and glanced at the fork and plate on the table. “That’s gross.”
“Tell my brothers. Not me.” I didn’t leave it there. I was pretty sure Azriel did, but only because he’d been eating when Morgana ordered us all to find beloveds and reap souls. “We should all be on a cleaning rotation.”
“Yeah, not my problem.” Miles’s scowl deepened.
“It will be when you’re on the rotation, too. You can’t go anywhere. It’s not safe.” Not that Miles believed or trusted me.
“I’m going home just as soon as Elliot tells me what the hell is going on.” He yelled Elliot’s name, not for the first time.
The last thing I wanted to deal with was someone else’s beloved. I already had enough problems with my own. To start, Phin was in danger and didn’t know it. If I knew who Miles belonged to, I would make him that reaper’s problem. Whoever it was owed me big time.
I dialed Phin’s number again.
This time, he answered on the first ring. “Are you going to explain what’s going on?”
“I can’t, baby.”
“Don’t call me until you do. And don’t call me baby. I have been ghosted for the last time, Ossy Reaper. I mean it this time.” With that, the phone went silent. Again.
Gods, I hated not being able to tell Phin.
I set my phone on the table around the same time Miles lunged for what I thought was a knife, but he grabbed the butcher block instead and hurled it at me. I moved at the last second. The heavy slab of wood crashed into the kitchen cabinet. Nothing broke, but that had more to do with where the block hit than anything else. The block slammed onto the floor and sat there, a casualty of war.
