“Everyone hates their job,” I remind her with a scoff.
She lets me go to cross her arms over her chest. “Yeah, but no one hates their job the way you do. You resent it. That job exists because you had to drop everything you loved to take care of us. But we’re good now. So maybe go home and have a nice long think about what you can do now that I’m taking over.”
I’m too terrified to give that any consideration. It feels almost unfair. It feels the way Leo described saying I love you felt. Like it’s tempting the universe to rip it all away.
“I’m exhausted,” Starr says, cutting into my thoughts. “I think we should all go home and have a bed-rot day.”
I gather Starr into another hug, then pull in Westin and Henry, who hug me back just as tight. Meadow finally gets up to join our little party, though she looks annoyed as hell about it.
“Promise me that whatever happens, we keep this,” I tell them.
This time, it’s Meadow who speaks up. “You couldn’t get rid of us if you tried, dickhead.”
I hug her a little tighter just for that.
I feel a little sad about everything on the drive home, especially when I pull up and find Russell on the railing. He’s got a friend with him, who flits up to the roof, but Russell quickly flaps his way to my shoulder and begins to nibble at my ear.
“If I have to move, bud, you think you’ll be able to find me?”
He clicks his beak a few times, and I stroke over the top of his head before leaning against the railing. He hops off after a second, stares at me with his big, black eye, then takes off, heading for the line of trees at the edge of the neighborhood.
I don’t have the confidence that he’ll find me. Or that he’ll want to. He’s thriving now—a crow that wasn’t meant to make it but is living his best life. And at the very least, I know I can rest easy with the knowledge that I gave him the best start.
Maybe he’ll mate. Make a few eggs. Rear some chicks that they can send out into the world.
It comforts me as I step inside the house and kick my shoes off before making a beeline to the couch. My knees bend halfway before I freeze, and my gaze catches on something sitting on the table.
It’s Leo’s laptop. It’s worse for the wear—melted plastic along the sides, and I highly doubt it’s functional. We haven’t talked much about his writing career, but one night in the afterglow of making each other feel good, he told me about his book.
“It’s nothing special. Just a character journey that has a little bit of romance and a little bit of tragedy.”
It hurts me that he thinks his stories are nothing special, but it was obvious at the time he didn’t want to talk about it, so Ididn’t press. He also didn’t seem overly concerned with getting his things from the house, so I’m surprised to find it there.
Especially because it wasn’t on the table when I left.
A moment later, I hear footsteps coming down the hallway, and my breath catches in my chest as Leo appears in the entryway.
He must have just gotten home because he looks a little windswept, his hair curlier than usual, which is probably from the rain earlier, and he’s smiling like he’s happy to see me, which is such a novelty.
“Hey.” He walks over, his limp a little more pronounced than usual, which I’m pretty sure has to do with us being a little…ah…athleticlast night. His gaze flits down toward the laptop, and he lets out a small sigh. “Apparently, Easton tried to rescue that when he grabbed my fish.”
I settle on the edge of the cushion and pat the space next to me, but he doesn’t move yet. “Does it work?”
He snorts. “No. It’s pretty fucked.”
“How much did you lose?” I ask with a wince.
“A few chapters, but they were all complete shit.” He finally moves toward me and drops down, his thigh pressing against mine. “I’ve decided to take this as a sign that writing isn’t my thing.”
“Leo—”
“No. It was never my dream,” he says quietly. “I’ve always liked telling stories, but Liam got all fixated on me being an author because it meant he could keep me with him. He didn’t want me tied down to some office, and he knew how much I loved being an archivist.”
I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, but the more I learn about Liam, the more I think he’s kind of a fucking jackass. “Is that something you’d want to get back into?”
Leo glances up at me, a smile playing at his lips. “No. I can barely read on my good days. There’s not a chance in hell I could do that job again.” He rubs his palms over his jeans, then says, “I think I might want to write a history book one day. I also think I’d like to garden. And maybe get into beekeeping…” He trails off for a second, then shrugs with a heavy sigh. “I don’t know. I’ve decided I want to take some time to figure it out.”
Pulling him close, he flips his legs over my thighs, and I take him by the chin, tugging him close for a kiss. “I think that sounds amazing.”
