Page 87 of The Killer Card

“Wait!” I hold up a hand, pointing at Rowan. “You knew?!”

Clara looks just as shocked. “Knew what?!” She demanded. “What is going on?!”

Rowan rolled his eyes, gesturing to us again. “They were fucking in secret the entire spring before she left for D.C.”

“You were WHAT?!”

“How did you know?!”

“I’ve known this man twenty years,” Rowan pointed at Graham. “You think I don’t know when he’s regularly getting laid? And it’s not like you two were subtle! You bickered like an old married couple every fucking time we got you in a room—”

“We did not!”

It does not help our case at all that the protest comes out in unison. I glare at Graham who has the biggest shit eating grin on his face. The face of a man who did, in fact, just get laid. In a public restroom no less because I have no decency left when it comes to him.

Sucking at my teeth, I turn back to our friends. “It’s not what it looks like.”

“Bullshit,” Graham scoffs.

“It meant nothing,” I say more firmly, throwing him another you better shut the fuck up look.

Except he doesn’t cower the way he used to. He doesn’t fall to submission. In fact, his eyes darken, narrow, heat that isn’t desire boiling their green depths.

“Fuck you, Naomi,” he snaps. Clara actually gasps behind me. My jaw tightens. “I’m fucking done with your shit.”

“Shut up, Graham—”

“Why? Because all I’ve ever done is shut up and fucking love you and try to help you while you just continue to just use me! Well, no more,” he throws his hands up with such ferocity he nearly smacks Rowan in the face. “I’m fucking done! Consider this the last time. Have fun with your fucking vibrator.”

He turns away, storming back down the hall toward the suite. “Graham!” Rowan calls after him, looking between us with wide eyes. “What the fuck is going on?!”

He just gives us the finger over his shoulder. “Have an amazing flight back to Boston, bitch!”

For a moment I just stand there, staring at his back, my fists clenched at my sides and still able to feel his cum between my thighs. Graham has never spoken to me like that before. He’s always been submissive, pleading, needy. For the first time something in my chest starts to crack, a hint of the guilt and shame I work so hard to keep at bay creeping through. My fingers tremble ever so slightly.

“Naomi…” Clara reaches for me, fixing the back of my shirt where it got folded weird in our coupling. “You okay…?”

“Fine,” I straighten. “Like I said, it meant nothing.” Turning back to her, I force a smile. “Come on, I need a drink.”

The request for their discretion remains silent between us as we walk back to the suite. Neither of them say anything to Elias or Nelly about what they saw. Not at the game, or after. Graham stays in the balcony seats, watching the game with too much focus, and I remain inside- a fresh drink in hand- not at all watching him.

Because it meant nothing.

Because we are still nothing.

Because tomorrow morning I’m flying back to Boston and he’ll remain here. Just a bartender in Lightning Cove. Just a more present member of my best friends’ lives than I’m ever going to be again.

Our paths will continue to cross as we orbit each other like twin stars. Until one day gravity collapses and one or both of us falls away, lost to our individual voids.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Graham

I don’t like Vegas. I don’t like the lights or the sounds or the smells. There was a time when I did, another lifetime in which this was everything I wanted. Now? Now, I find myself walking down the strip, a cigarette dangling between my lips, looking at a map of the surrounding neighborhoods.

I’m being ridiculous, I know. I haven’t seen Sonya in over two decades. A quick search every few years doesn’t actually mean she lives here. It certainly doesn’t mean she stayed. I don’t even actually know if it’s her. She could have changed her name like I did back when shit hit the fan.

Except, when I zoom in on the address I found online and see the collection of irises growing in the front yard of a reasonably sized house, I know it must be hers. My sister loved flowers, irises were her favorites. Whoever she’s with must either know her very well or be willing to let her spend hundreds in landscaping to keep them up.