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Until this past July, when Zach Jessup had walked into this kitchen.
Now she had no freaking idea what the future held. Everything was different—Pop and Reed were going to be Bulls; they were going to be outlaws. For all she knew, they were becoming Bulls right now—all the men in her life were at some meeting at the rental house, and she wasn’t allowed to be there, so they were probably doing something big.
And, of course, there was Zach himself. He’d told her this morning he was staying in Laughlin, and yay! But obviously he wouldn’t want to live in this house, haunted by Pop’s glower. Would he want to live with her? Where? And when? What was too soon? What was too late?
Also! This morning, Michelle had texted that she’d quit the Aquarius—she hadn’t given notice, simply called in and quit. She’d decided she didn’t want to work at a casino after what Brady Everdeen had done at the Cadence. Now, despite her mother’s need of her, Michelle was talking about leaving Laughlin, maybe going to college at UNR, or possibly giving Los Angeles a try.
She’d asked Lyra what she thought of going to LA together—and then pulled it back in the next text, withNVM. Zach. I know.
And yeah, Lyra wasn’t going to tell Zach she was packing up and heading to LA out of the blue, after he’d just said he’d stay in Laughlin, but it wasn’t Zach holding her back. Lyra didn’t want to go to LA. For a vacation, sure. She’d love to go to Disneyland and Universal Studios and all that. But not tolive. It was expensive, crowded, and offered her nothing she wanted in her life.
Except, possibly, her only friend in the world.
She and Michelle hadn’t talked all this out yet. She didn’t know how serious Michelle was about moving away. But if she wasn’t going to work in a casino, around here that pretty much left retail, unless she wanted to clean up guts—and she’d made it clear many times that she thought crime scene cleaning was disgusting work.
Shit.
Everything in Lyra’s life was suddenly being put through the spin cycle—and it could have been worse. Pop and Reed could have turned HRC into a laundry for the Bulls’ outlaw earnings.
She still hadn’t yelled at Pop about that. As time passed, and she and Zach had straightened out their little tangle, she’d lost some steam for a fight with her father. Unless he walked in right now, while she was thinking about it all and feeling nervy. She could work up a good mad again right now.
She picked a t-shirt out of the laundry and frowned at it for a second. It wasn’t Pop’s or Reed’s; among the many ways she took care of them was buying most of their clothes, and neither of them wore this br—oh. It was Zach’s. She’d pulled it on to go to the bathroom, and must have tossed it into her hamper when she dressed.
She put it to her face and huffed it. It smelled like Tide and Bounce, obviously, but she still got a big hit of Zach, if only in her mind. All these wild twists and turns in her previously arrow-straight life were completely worth it if it meant Zach was her person. The one who’d be there always, who’d movetoher, not away, who’d value her opinion and want her at his side always as well.
This t-shirt was hers now.
As she began returning the stacks of folded clothes to the basket so she could do her circuit and put them all in their proper drawers, Brutus leapt up from where he’d been lying under the table. He was so big he jostled the table and made Reed’s stack fall over, and then he knocked a chair over when he fought his way out from under and trotted to the doorway between the kitchen and the short hall that led to the front of the house.
He wasn’t barking, but Brutus rarely barked. She didn’t know if it was his wolf programming or what, but if that dog made a noise beyond a pleading whine, everybody in town needed to find cover, because the two-hundred-pound wolfdog was pissed the fuck off.
Right now, he was not pissed. In fact, his ginormous tail wagged slowly. He was extremely alert. Somebody he liked was approaching the house. But if it was Pop or Reed, he’d be at the door, tail knocking over everything he passed to get there. So it was somebody he knew, somebody he didn’t think of as a threat, but not someone he thought belonged here.
One of Pop’s friends, maybe? Or Zach? Oh—maybe Michelle—though she never came by without a heads-up first.
Leaving the basket on the table, Lyra went to him. “Who’s here, Brutie?”
He looked up at her and trotted forward—and then the front door swung open.
Lyra’s mother stepped into the house.
She was dressed like she was on her way to Coachella, or maybe Woodstock, in vintage hip-hugger bell-bottoms, a tangerine chiffon midriff top with huge bell sleeves, and tortoiseshell Jackie O sunglasses. Her dark, wavy hair, a trait Lyra shared with her, was artfully windblown.
Flouncy, as usual.
They’d seen each other only twice since Lyra had told her about Wade’s pass, and both of those stilted meetings had come about when Lyra had gone to the shop to see her. This was the first time Mom had made any move toward her.
“Hey, sweetie,” she said to Lyra as she gave Brutus a quick, reluctant greeting pat and then pushed his big head away.
“Hi, Mom.”
“I didn’t see the bikes out front. Reed and your father aren’t here?”
“Nope. Just me and Brutie.”
“Good. Can we talk?”
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