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“You could always ask her,” Angel said cheerfully, sliding into the chair on the opposite side of him.
“Jesus,” he said, turning to the left so quickly he accidentally hit Eddie’s leg with his knee. “What is wrong with you?” he asked his cousin. “Sorry,” he added to Eddie, reaching out to rub her thigh, like he did when Finn got injured. Like he could rub the hurt away.
It was a miscalculation.
She sucked in her breath.
He froze with his hand on her thigh.
They stared at each other. He was being pulled under by her amber eyes, mesmerized by their depths. He wanted desperately, with everything inside him, to kiss her then take her home with him. Put her in his bed, make her scream out his name a time or twelve, and wake up next to her in the morning and cook her breakfast.
Eddie was no puppy. He couldn’t just say, “I’ll take her.”
He could ask though.
Just lean in, whisper in her ear, “Let me kiss you,” and see how she reacted.
Probably with a slap. Or at the very least condemnation and an end to their renewed friendship.
He didn’t want that.
Sullivan pulled back. Something flickered in Eddie’s eyes, but she also shifted, further away from him. He turned to Angel. “Can you just let it go? Seriously. I don’t like avoiding you at family get-togethers.”
“Can you just listen to what I have to say?” she volleyed back.
“I don’t believe in ghosts. Nor do I want to think that Kendra is trapped between this world and the next, just stuck.” The thought made him feel sick.
“She’s not trapped. It’s not like that,” Angel said.
Which didn’t reassure him in the least fucking bit.
He didn’t even know what to say to that. “Eddie, this is my cousin, Angel, Torin’s younger sister. I’m not sure you ever met her since she’s five years younger than us.”
“No, I don’t think so. Nice to meet you,” Eddie said, but she didn’t smile. Her expression and tone were filled with curiosity.
Let Angel explain. She enjoyed telling her story.
“I died when I was eight-years-old,” Angel said.
Yep. She loved this story.
“Excuse me, what?” Eddie asked, sounding perplexed.
“I fell in the lake through ice and my heart stopped.”
“There was a fresh snowfall,” Sullivan told her. “Weighing down the ice and making it hard to gauge its depth. It was too thin to walk on.” Even though he hadn’t been there, the incident had scared all of the kids in town straight. Before that, they had all done stupid shit like jump from ice floe to ice floe and crawl along the edge of the lake at the rocks. They’d even had contests to see who would walk the furthest out onto the frozen water. It was a miracle more of them hadn’t fallen through cracked ice. “You never went with us when we were skating on the lake, did you, Ed?”
“No, my mother wouldn’t let me go. I did sneak away once and went sledding with Winnie and her brother, but my mom didn’t know.”
“How could you live in Minnesota and not do winter activities? That’s just wrong,” he told her. He honestly didn’t remember Eddie’s mom, but he had a sneaking suspicion he wouldn’t like her a whole lot.
“Tell that to Rena,” she said dryly. Then she directed her next question to Angel. “So you were obviously rescued quickly. That must have been terrifying as a kid.”
“It was terrifying plunging into the cold water. I did the worst thing possible. I flailed around and I opened my mouth to scream. I took water into my lungs and sank. I was under for several minutes before Drake Larson jumped in and saved me. He was only eleven.”
“I don’t remember Drake,” Eddie said. “I don’t remember you falling through the ice either. You would think I would remember that.”
“Drake Larson was a Beaver Bend star that whole following year. But that was the year your parents got divorced, so it makes sense you don’t remember.”
