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Avery nods with her eyes still closed. “Yes, but no magic mushrooms.”
“Too late. I already added magic mushrooms. But I can hold the whip.”
“Nobody puts whip on tea.” She laughs, and that’s how the morning really starts. With tea and the soft sound of Avery’s laughter.
“The thing is, I need to go get clean clothes,” she muses a while later. “I want a shower. A long shower. If there’s, you know, water on the commune.”
“There’s water, you ass. I’ll walk with you to the car for your stuff. I need to talk to my dad anyway.”
We go across to their trailer after the tea and Avery pulls her stuff out of the back of the G-wagon while I knock on the door. She gives me a little wave and marches back across the open space toward our place.Our place. Unbelievable.
My dad answers the door with bags under his eyes and a radiant smile on his face. “Hey. Wait here a second.” He goes back in and returns with two coffee mugs. “Let’s go out. The baby’s asleep with Indigo, so—” He motions down.Keep it quiet.
There’s a trail out behind the houses, and we take it. We’re the first ones up, I guess, and it doesn’t take long to settle into a quiet companionship. “You seem better now,” I say eventually. “You were pretty pissed in the city.”
He picks his way around a boulder sitting in the middle of the path. “Yeah. With the baby due—it was stressful to be so far away. But you’re my kid, too. You needed me. I’m glad I could help in some way.”
“Thanks for that.” I slow my pace to drink my coffee and after a minute my dad catches up with me. “I asked Avery to marry me last night.”
My dad stops dead in the middle of the path. We have a near miss with the hot coffee before he can collect himself. I watch a full recap of our history in his eyes, ending with the utter astonishment of this moment. “Jesus, Rome. What’d she say?”
“She said yes.” I can’t keep the huge, stupid smile off my face. “You’re going to tell me I’m fucking crazy.”
He takes a deep breath, and in that breath I hear all the reasons not to do this. The longstanding feud between our families. The killers lurking in the city, waiting to finish us off. And the old, aching wound from when Avery took the stand and lied. My dad’s face softens. He takes another long drink of coffee.
“You’ve got to follow your heart.” Then he extends his hand. What’s he doing? “Congratulations, son.”
We shake hands, and at the last minute my dad pulls me into a hug. For all his hippie ways, he’s not a touchy-feely guy. It’s brief, but genuine, and when we break apart he nods like he’s making a plan. My heart can’t help but answer the question begged byfollow your heart. My heart says that I fucking love Avery, and I don’t want to lose her. I only just found her again after all these years.
“You think you’ll get married in the city?” My dad gives me a pat on the shoulder and we keep walking.
“No.” I hadn’t thought about it again until now, but the city is a hive of danger and sin. “No, it’ll have to be quicker than that. I don’t want to wait.”
“Perfect.” He says it so happily that it’s my turn to stare at him. “We can do it here, if you want. We have the old church on the far edge of the property. When are you thinking?”
“Now,” I say, without hesitation. “Today. This morning. Before her family finds her and takes her away from me forever.”
My father’s smile fades, replaced by a steely determination. “This morning,” he echoes, tipping the last bit of his coffee onto a shrub as he nods. A knowing smile spreads across his tanned face. “I think we can manage that.”
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
AVERY
The world won’t leave me the fuck alone—not even for a day.
I step out of the shower in this strange, glassed-in house that has somehow managed to imprint itself on my heart and rummage around in my suitcase. It was packed hastily, in less than five minutes, and I’m missing half the stuff I normally use to beautify myself each morning. Lotions and creams and foundation primer. In the bottom of the mess, I see my burner phone–the one nobody except Nathan and Elliot have the number for–and find the screen crowded with notifications.
“Shit.” Texts. Missed calls. Voicemail after voicemail. Nathan, Enzo, and Jennifer have all tried to contact me, not just last night but in the twenty minutes I spent in the shower. Fuck. I don’t know which of them divulged my private number. I put my money on Nathan. He’s so eager to keep himself in Enzo’s good graces, I can see him crumbling under the pressure.
I dial Nathan’s number before I can think about it. The longer I wait, the less I’ll want to call, and the more they’ll push until I finally snap.
“Avery, thank god.” He’s breathing hard, like he’s been running. “Where are you?”
“I’m taking a couple days off.”
“What does that mean?”
I go to stand by the windows. First the windows in the north, then the east, then the south, then the west. There’s no sign of any of my family. They’re not here yet.Do they already know where I am?Fear and fury pull the hairs on the back of my neck straight up.
