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He shook his head before he raked a hand through his hair. It looked a little on the greasy side, like he’d done nothing except run his hands through it repeatedly. “I could use a shower.”
“I’ll be back to take over for you or send someone else up. You hanging in there?”
“Yeah,” he said, his slight smile calling to the echo of pain inside me. “I’ll live. Boo-Boo is safe. You guys all made it back.”
We weren’t going to talk about the ones who didn’t.
“If that changes, tell me.” It wasn’t a request.
He saluted, the gesture a little mocking, but I got it. Leaving him, I headed downstairs. The wall across from the room had been half-leveled between the living room and kitchen. What had been separate areas now looked like someone had punched in a bar window.
On the far side of the destruction, Milo stood in the kitchen with bloodied and bruised knuckles and what looked like a sponge. Most of the debris on this side had been swept from the looks of it, but there was still drywall dust on everything.
“I’m not gonna comment on the fact we just renovated this place.”
Milo snorted but didn’t respond. The interior of the kitchen was a bit worse, what with blood spatter decorating the drywall dust. Worry spiked through me. The coffeemaker had been moved, though it was intact. The table was missing four chairs, now there were only two.
“Need a hand?” I asked before going to the pot and just starting a regular pot of coffee. I liked the fancy stuff too, but I’d been weaned to straight black coffee. I needed it today. The stronger, the better.
Then I needed to get food sorted for Freddie and me. Maybe for Milo, too.
“I got it,” he said in a harsh voice that had me pivoting to find him staring at the damage and not moving. “She told me.”
“She told you.” Repeating the words made me sound like a dumbass. However, the neurons firing to make the connections weren’t lubricated by coffee yet. “Shit.” Reality settled into my bones. “She told you.”
It was a fucking miracle there were still walls standing. More surprised he was still here. While I was glad he’d heard it from her, I hated that he knew.
I hated that I knew, even though I wouldn’t change it for a heartbeat. Because she’d had to fucking live through it. My ass could handle the discomfort the knowledge brought me.
“Jas,” he said slowly after wiping more debris off the counter and onto the dustpan. He pulled out a trash can and dumped it all in there.
While he hadn’t turned to face me, I straightened and settled my stance. If he needed a fight to work off the aggression, we would take this shit outside. Swan didn’t need it, but I wasn’t remotely opposed.
Just needed to feed Freddie first.
“I’m—sorry.” The two words jangled a discordant note in the current situation. Not only were they not the words I expected to hear at all—
“Fuck the wall. We can tear the whole thing down and rebuild it again if necessary.”
Twisting to face me slowly, he wore the barest hint of a smile. “For going after you so hard because you took Ivy—for blaming you that Ivy was here…for not fucking trusting you with what was going on with me.”
“Oh.” That.
Milo dipped his chin and let out a gruff half-laugh. “Oh—I stormed back into everyone’s lives and took out my rage on you. Blaming you for taking my sister, for seducing her, for putting her in danger, and…”
He stared at his hands.
“You didn’t know,” I said slowly. “None of us did.”
“You knew.” It wasn’t an accusation.
Blowing out a breath, I went for the big mugs and filled them with coffee. I needed whiskey for this conversation, but that wasn’t happening right now. “I didn’t know about that.”
Maybe if I’d paid closer attention…
“I knew she was afraid of her partner.” Brass tacks. “That he’d been abusing her.” The image of her as she slipped out of the venue and hid behind the door when Arlington crashed out after her. The guy had initialed his own death warrant right then and there. “I knew she was hurt.”
Glancing down at my coffee, I studied the distortion of my reflection in the dark liquid.
