“Here. I brought you--” She dumps her tote bag onto the countertop, a clinking, clacking heap of vials, bottles, jars, tiny bags with corded drawstrings. “Everything, I guess.”
From the stove, Kai snaps around and immediately narrows his eyes. “No.”
Morgan laughs lightly. “Relax, Kai. It’s?—”
“I saidno.” He stretches across to the island, spatula brandished, and uses it to push the heap farther from my reach. “That stuff will kill you.”
“Oh, like that’s any better?” Morgan counters, nodding at the cigarette.
“Yeah, actually. Iknowhow this’ll kill me.” He plucks it from his lips, gesturing for emphasis.” Little by little, them bam—emphysema. Predictable. But that stuff…” He waves a hand at the counter. “It could go crazily haywire and you’d have no way of knowing until it was too late.”
Morgan narrows her eyes and, lightning-quick, snatches the cigarette from his hand and flicks it into the garbage disposal.
“Hey!” Kai lunges for the drain, but once again, she’s faster, and stabs the switch by the sink. The kitchen fills with the grinding sound of the disposal, and Kai scowls.
“Fuck you.”
“Fuckyou.”
“Can we please not?” I ask, eyes fixed on the potions and tonics and whatever they are. To Morgan, I ask, “Will any of these actually help?”
Morgan looks daggers at Kai, but her gaze softens when she comes to my side. “Depends on what ails you. How are you feeling?” She slides a hand to my forehead, her fingers pleasantly cool.
How am I feeling?
Anxious. Angry. Trepidatious. Ashamed--or no, just embarrassed, deathly embarrassed, of myself and what I seem to want, what I seem to think is a good idea.
I settle on something more literal and immediate. “Achy.”
“Mmkay.” Morgan rattles through the bottles and jars, picking up and discarding a few before settling on a small silver case with a gleaming, bejeweled lid. She flicks open the clasp and extracts a single, roundsomethingbetween her fingers, about the size of a Cheerio. “This’ll work.”
I glance at Kai—not untrusting of Morgan, but still. “What is it?”
“Ibuprofen.” She snaps the case shut. “Happy?” she adds, in Kai’s direction.
“Overjoyed,” he mutters, not turning from the pan.
I palm the pill and wash it down with some of my lukewarm coffee, feeling my throat stick the whole way down. Even after I’m done, Morgan is still peering at me, chin in her hands. So is Kingston, attentive but silent at the end of the island, hands wrapped around his own coffee mug but not drinking.
“What?” I say—practically snap. “What are you all looking at?”
Morgan straightens up, and she and Kingston exchange a look.
“You,” he says simply.
I cave my shoulders in. “Well, don’t.”
Kingston, ever deferent, averts his gaze to the surface of his coffee. Morgan, however, doesn’t budge, and keeps her long-lashed eyes trained on my face.
“So what happened?”
I clench my hand around my mug. “You were there,” I say softly. “You saw.”
“You know what I mean, Gwenna.” Morgan’s tone is friendly, but no-nonsense. “What did she say to you?”
There it is. The question of the hour.
Kingston lifts his head slightly. Even Kai turns from his cooking to listen.
