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“The faucet is leaking upstairs and I can hear it when I sleep. It makes me crazy, and it makes her crazy because I’m cranky in the morning since it keeps me up!”

“Oh no,” Arran’s horrified voice makes me snicker. I didn’t realize Zayn was quite this dramatic. It’s clear he spends a lot of time with him. Otherwise, I doubt he’d feel so comfortable being himself. “I’ll need to fix that before flower arranging. We can’t have that.”

Arran is quiet until a door opens and closes.

“He’s really funny,” I say, grinning.

“He’s such a dramatic guy,” he laughs. “We’re hanging out at her house today. He gets suspicious if he spends too much time with Emil. Honestly, everything becomes some kind of elaborate scheme if he lets himself get going.”

“Does he watch a lot of crime shows?” I ask.

“No, but Jared is a lawyer, and Zayn likes to play twenty questions criminal justice system style. I love the way his imagination runs, but it means keeping anything from him is difficult. What’s up?”

“As you know, I’m taking Noor to an art gallery and then we’re walking through Balboa park to get to our dinner reservation,” I explain. “Is there anything I need to watch out for?”

“It’s easy to walk too fast since we’re so tall,” he says slowly. “Take smaller steps, offer her your arm to keep pace with her. If you’re going to be standing still for longer than a few minutes, offer her a seat. Oh. And water. She keeps a tumbler in her purse. Remind her to drink some, or she’ll forget. She also doesn’t eat gluten. Outside of that? I can’t think of anything.”

Okay then.

My mind is still reeling through things I can and can’t say. I’m really fucking nervous, as I haven’t spent any time alone with her yet. I blew up her life, green lit a school to do their worst, and watched it all burn. It doesn’t matter that I immediately regretted it.

…it’s all I’ve been living with. A life of regrets, and a burning wish to be able to build something new from it. For seven years, the fire of that wish has burned, and now it’s here.

It’s a scary place to stand.

“Thanks,” I rasp.

“She’s not going to bite you,” Arran says.

“Maybe that’s what I need,” I sigh, hanging up.

Seeing her gives me hope. It makes me think about the possibilities of moving forward, especially after watching Liliana break apart a month ago with a hammer and screams. I can’t even imagine what could have happened to her to exist in a space between the past and present, ravaged by pain.

It’s clear she somehow believes she keeps Rachelle safe from something. What did her husbands do to her? How did they get to a place where they have kids and a life of happiness?

I can’t imagine going back to the mess I was in high school. I wasn’t well then, and it simply put me in psychosis when we lost Noor.

Swallowing hard, I remind myself that I’m in therapy. I have my medication, I have the ability to pull myself away from unhealthy thoughts, and that even though I’m willing to give my free will away, I still fucking have it.

Good pep talk. Now don’t fuck this up.

I pull open the door to the art gallery, and my eyes immediately begin to search for Noor. My feet are pulled toward the paintings on the walls even as I try to stop them. They’re like a siren song, and now that I’m in their presence, I’m going to have to tell Alastair and Draven that their stranglehold on us is not over yet.

“Ci?”

My arm blindly pulls Noor into me as my body collapses around her to hold her.

“Sorry,” I mumble, my eyes still on the painting in front of me. It’s of a woman who is riding a motorcycle. Her body is voluptuous and curvy, and she’s wearing a pair of leathers as she rides down a road that has a steep drop on her right shoulder. Over the edge is a stormy ocean and a gorgeous sunset as she wears her sunglasses to protect against the glare.

“I first found this artist online, and I pooled my money with Alastair and Dray to buy a painting,” I sigh. “We wanted to own it together, and it’s on our wall at home.”

“Oh?” she asks, her breath hitching as my hands move over her stomach.

I haven’t even said hello. I’ve lost my goddamned mind, haven’t I?

“We’re a little obsessed, I’m afraid,” I say, burying my nose in her throat. I mean it in more ways than one. She whimpers slightly and I kiss where her pulse is thumping wildly. “Sorry, love. How are you? We should move, right? I’ve kept you in one place for too long.”

“Ci.”