Page 127 of Sinners Reunion

I stroke her arm and hope she can’t hear the way my heart kicks up its pace. “If you’d like to tell me.”

“I think I’m ready.”

She explains everything to me, even telling me how she ran it by the girls first because she was so worried it was silly. Now I’ve never felt like a bigger heel in my life. There I was, forcing her into corners and dangling my lips in front of her as she fought to hang on to the one thing that hadn’t been stolen from her. It isn’t silly at all, and I only wish I hadn’t been a cad.

“I’m so sorry for the way I behaved. I was a brute. A fool.” I hug her closer. “Had I known⁠—”

“But you didn’t know, and I was too afraid to tell you. I thought you’d think it was stupid.”

“The furthest from it.”

“I just have to be sure before I share that with someone. I have to know it’s forever.”

“Are you sure now?”

She doesn’t answer. How could she? She needs forever, and I may only have four days.

“That was selfish of me. I apologize. I can’t expect you to give that to me when things may not end well for us.”

Her hand moves to my chest, and she looks up at me. “Without sounding like a desperate, needy bitch, I have to ask. If you weren’t dying at the end of this, would it have to end?”

I chuckle, and the movement bounces her precious, big head. “You’ve successfully ensnared me, my beauty. The strings have been strung, and I’m tied up tight. If I had it my way, this wouldn’t stop at the end of this trip. We’d have many more nights of annoying each other.”

“Then let’s just focus on bringing Aven and Bennett around to our way of thinking.” She relaxes against my chest again. “There’ll be time for working through our idiosyncrasies if we can just find a way to help them heal.”

I thought I’d gotten closer to both of them, but our closeness doesn’t seem to mend the wounds the way it did for Frankie and Ezra. There is a palpable disconnect, and they hoard their hatred for me as their father while also drawing closer to me as their father figure. One doesn’t disperse the other, however.

Josie yawns. “Which kid was the control group?”

“What’s that?”

“For the experiment. Which one of the Carter kids was the control? Every good experiment needs a control group.”

“I’ve never considered that. I suppose we didn’t have one.”

“Not a very good experiment, then.”

No, it wasn’t. The Carter siblings were the only good that came out of it.

“Oh, wait,” I say. “Jim’s son would be the control, I suppose.”

Josie’s head rears back a bit. “Jim has a son?”

“Yes, Jeff, but he stays quite busy. He hardly ever sees his father. In fact, I’m not sure we’ve seen much of him in several retreats. Sometimes, I forget he exists.”

“You forget your own nephew?”

“I never knew him as a child. I didn’t know he was a thing until Jim introduced us when he was already a young adult. You have to understand that while we’re very close now, we weren’t always. When we were young men, he was more about science and experimentation, and I was more about murder and . . .”

“Pussy. You can say it.”

“I wasn’t afraid to. I was just trying to find something more eloquent, but yes. That, you crass little thing.” I hike her leg higher on my waist and pop her ass. Hard.

She lets out a little moan and grinds herself against my hip.

“Stop distracting me. I was explaining that when it came to our personal lives—our relationships and work lives—we were complete strangers. But if murders were involved, Jim was interested. In the watching more than the killing, but sometimes the killing. He’s an odd one like that.”

“Then this experiment brought you closer?”