“It’s good,” he says.
“Which part.”
“All of it.”
He looks at me with that look — the certain one — and I feel it the same way I felt it the first time and apparently that doesn’t stop.
“You mean me,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“That’s a lot.”
“I know.”
“Don’t ever stop.”
The corner of his mouth lifts.“Keep it.”
I keep it. I keep all of it.
Carson Webb ran his story. Turns out blackmailing a journalist in a dead-end hallway is a bad long-term career strategy. Riley made sure everyone who mattered knew exactly how he’d gotten his information.
He hasn’t had a press credential at a Cyclones game since.
Brick walks across the manuscript and sits on it.
I look at him. “You know this is about you.”
He blinks.
“You snuck out,” I tease him. “Came back married with kids and acting like nothing happened.”
Brick looks at the wall.
“That’s not —” I look at Jax. “Is that not insane to you.”
“That’s Brick.”
“He didn’t even introduce her first. Just showed up with a whole situation.”
“He knew what he wanted.”
“That’s not a defense.”
“It worked though.”
I look at Brick. Brick does not look at me. That absolute menace.
I look at the room. His coffee cup and mine on the counter. My camera bag by the door. The plant. Brick on the manuscript. Dina in the window. The Fancy Cat can on the shelf where it’s been for eight months.
There it is.
“Eight months,” I say.
“Record,” he says.
“You knew I’d stay.”
