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“Keeping you on your toes, am I?”
He tugged on my scarf. “Yes, you are.”
“How are you feeling about your parents?” I asked carefully. “Your dad said he was proud of you.”
“I'm . . .” He tilted his head to the side and was quiet a minute. “I feel like a weight has been lifted. Like everything was a giant misunderstanding. Mostly by me.”
“But you’ve come together now.”
“I think I let it all go as soon as they said they were on their way.”
“You’re not the only one constantly surprised.” I tapped his chest. “You are the most tenderhearted person I’ve ever known.”
“You must have me mixed up with someone else.”
I shook my head vehemently and dug my finger into his chest again. “You.” I put my lips against his ear. “And I’m more than happy to keep that our little secret.”
CHAPTERNINETEEN
KANE
“How doyou do all this work?”
Whitley propped his feet up on the coffee table and slumped onto the sofa.
“This little bit?” I motioned toward the stacks of files piled around his feet. “That’s nothing.”
Every day that passed, this table looked more like my desk.
Whitley scowled. “I should’ve never gotten tangled up with you.”
“Your wife thinks the same thing about you.”
He grinned. “Nah. She’s always thinking of waystoget tangled up with me.”
I pointed toward Penelope. “My daughter is right there.”
“Eh. She’s an adult. Isn’t that right, P-lope?”
“P-lope?” That was a new one. But he’d taken to talking to Penelope as if she were able to respond. I appreciated him including her. Not treating her like she was hurt.
“I could call you Z-ass.” He shrugged.
I shook my head. “Probably fits.”
“Definitely does.” He leaned his head against the back of the sofa. “I hesitated to bring your work here, then thought it might be good for her if we’re all acting normal.”
I hadn’t been too keen on it either at first. Penelope needed quiet . . . or at least I’d thought so. But JoJo had pointed out that she might be able to hear us. And she’d want us to keep going, to be ourselves, and to include her.
We had so much to lose.
Every decision felt monumental . . . even the smallest ones. Things that under normal circumstances I would have had no trouble knowing exactly what to do, I stumbled through trying to make the right choice.
Someone’s life was in my hands. Someone I desperately wanted to hang on to.
It was a different kind of power than the one I held when considering ending Alma’s. Because in trying to save my daughter, I had no power at all.
Her state was mostly unchanged. I wasn’t entirely sure how long we’d been at the facility. Time ran together into a continuous blob.
