He nods. Doesn’t push it. He understands about not going back to things.
We do the dishes without discussing it. He washes. I dry. Easy and natural and a little scary in the specific way of things that fit too well.
Halfway through the dishes Jax stops.
“Where’s Brick?”
I look at the couch. Empty.
We check the bedroom. The bathroom. Behind the curtains. Under the bed. The closet.
Then we hear him. Cat. Outside. The specific complaining yowl of a cat who has been somewhere he didn’t intend to end up for longer than he intended to be there.
Jax opens the back door. Brick is on the step.
He walks past us into the apartment without acknowledging either of us. Goes back to the couch. Sits down. Looks at the wall.
Outside, the bowl is empty. Dina is gone.
“Brick.”
Brick says nothing.
Jax looks at me. I look at Jax. Neither of us says anything.
He goes back to the dishes. I go back to drying. Brick stays on the couch and does not acknowledge any of us for the rest of the night.
He leaves at seven.
Jacket. Keys. Carrier in his other hand — Brick goes in without protest, which is itself information. Jax stops at the door. Turns around.
That look.
“It was more than fair,” he says.
My phone lights up on the counter. I glance at it. Tampa area code. Griffin.
Something moves through me that I don’t have a name for yet.
I look back at him. He’s already seen my face. He doesn’t say anything. I don’t say anything. He holds my eyes for a second — steady, reading me the way he reads everything — and then he nods once.
Puts his hand on the door.
Gone.
I look at the phone.
Griffin:
Heard you’ve been busy, Nova. Covering the Cyclones or playing with them? Tell Kat I said hi. She always makes shitty decisions.
I don’t answer it.
I don’t move either.
Chapter fifteen
Jax
