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Fuck me, I’ve never seen her so shaken. I can’t help touching her shoulder.
“Hey,” I say. “You’re gonna be fine, Ophelia. He’s not hurting you again. It’s okay now.”
“Is it?” she echoes faintly, her pretty green eyes round marbles as she stares at me.
“The hell wouldn’t it be?”
“Um, you’re actuallytalking,for one. I think the world’s about to end.”
I blink.
That’s when I realize she’s teasing me.
Before I know what’s happening, I grin. If she’s still joking, she’ll be one hundred percent fine.
“Brat,” I spit, lightly flicking my fingers against the center of her forehead. “Sit down and I’ll get you the kit.”
She flashes me a smirk and drops herself onto the couch, giving me a glimpse of full hips and jeans that cup her ass like they’re trying to make love to it.
I pull myself away and head down the hall to the first-floor bathroom, trying not to let that vision stick.
Sure enough, there’s a box in the little cabinet above the toilet, an old steel fishing tackle box that belonged to Angela Sanderson’s husband before he died not too long after Ethan was born.
This box came out every time we banged ourselves up as kids, running through the woods like heathens and falling out of trees at least twice a week.
We’d come tumbling in from our adventures, after we dared each other to do stupid shit that risked our necks. It’s a minor miracle nobody got more than a broken ankle over the years.
You name it, we got ourselves scratched up doing it, only to come dragging back before dark so Mrs. Sanderson could patch us up like a good medic and send me home to my ma covered in Bactine and Band-Aids.
The memory makes me smile as I hold the box—and I sober as it hits me.
Time passes like one cruel son of a bitch.
It’s been decades since the last time Angela Sanderson patched me up. And now she’s on her deathbed, while I’m taking this kit out for her grown daughter with a hundred awkward feelings between us, all while her youngest is about to get hitched to a giant asshole and start an entirely new stage of her life.
Funny how everything changes and mutates yet still stays the same.
Tucking the box under my arm, I head into the living room and sink down on the sofa next to Ophelia.
She glances at the tackle box. For a moment, her expression softens as she brushes her fingers over the top.
I can tell what she’s thinking.
Most of the time, I can read her too well.
She’s one of the few people here who makessenseto me, until she doesn’t when she gets all pissed off and I have no idea what the hell I did.
But right now, it’s not hard to tell she’s sinking into those same memories.
The same memories that mean even when it’s just the two of us, we’re never alone. Not when we’re haunted by the same nagging ghosts.
“Remember the tree house?” she asks softly.
I look up.
“No ‘GURLS’ allowed,” I mutter, stressing the way we butchered the spelling. I gently brush her hand aside to flip the first aid kit open. “Except you. We made a one-time exception for the gentleman’s club.”
She laughs—and why the hell do I love that sound so much?
