“I’m not excited, and neither are you. But I think we both know how it feels to have the paternal wool pulled over our eyes. I think together we can show this child enough love, be a friend, be an uncle, be a father, be whatever the hell it needs. It’s a casualty of the shit world we’re living in, but that doesn’t make it less of a person. There will be enough affection to go around.”
“Hear, hear. Also, I think that Chloe might actually care about this one. After all, she thinks it’s yours. She never cared to be pregnant with Tobie. Not for one hot minute, and she’s downright glowing this time around.”
“That she is. She’s due in August. Same month as Laken. Last year you had Charlie and Eli in August as well. You should probably keep it in your pants next November.”
“As long as Laken is in my bed, I’m not keeping it in my pants. Might I suggest you stray from the nuptials. I think you’ve met your quota on weddings for all of your nine lives.”
“Touché. But Skyla will get married again.” He stares down at the watery globe. “To Logan. Sooner than later, I’m guessing.”
“I don’t know. They’re not exactly shacking up just yet. I think her heart is still pining for someone else.” A smile bounces over my lips. “Marshall Dudley.”
“Very funny.” Gage doesn’t bother with a smile of his own. “You keep that up and I might give you a swirly. I think I owe you years of brotherly affection.”
“I’m not a big fan of dunking my head into the toilet bowl, so I’ll step back.” My heart breaks for my little brother. Life is forcing him to eat a shit sandwich and he has to find a way to like it, too. “You really think you’ll be okay if Skyla marries Logan?”
He takes a huge breath. “I don’t have a choice. The only respite I have is knowing I’ll get to spend eternity with her and the kids. I guess you can say I’m in it for the end game.”
I slap him on the back. “And, let me guess, the end can’t get here soon enough.”
“You got that right.” He leans hard over the granite rim of the well. “Show me Skyla.”
An image forms, but we’re not anywhere near the library. Instead, it’s Ezrina’s new lab below Whitehorse, those familiar blue tubes glowing like light bulbs.
“They’re full.” I point over to the glass enclosures, each filled with a body. “Holy hell. It’s the Spectators. Ezrina is going for it. The Videns will love them if they can pull this off.”
“That they will,” he whispers. “Why is that so bad? We have the seat in the heavenlies. My coronation is in the spring. We will never lose our standing. I say let the Spectators live.”
“That’s because you’re a bleeding heart, Gage. And what a bleeding heart like you doesn’t realize is that Ezrina isn’t just doing some random good deed. I know that witch better than anyone. She’s cutting her chops. Getting ready to try out some new recipe for disaster. And believe you me, she will directly try to screw things up for us. This isn’t some innocent Viden revival that has Skyla wandering the lab.” I think about another horrifying option. “When and if Chloe ever finds out about this mockery of yours, you’re going to have two women pissed off at you. The two most powerful women in the world when you think about it.”
“I’m not thinking about it, because it’s not happening.”
We refocus our attention to the watery globe, and sure enough Logan is right there by Skyla’s side, Ellis Harrison and Brody Bishop right behind them. “That, my brother, is the Retribution League getting ready to hand you your ass. Things aren’t over. They’re not over by a long shot. So you see, Your Highness, I wouldn’t go resting on your laurels just yet. That ex-wife you’re still so very much in love with is looking to blow a hole through any eternal plans you might be making. I wouldn’t go imagining some sickly sweet reunion in the Elysian Fields just yet. Skyla is gunning for you, Gage. And she just might send us both to hell yet.”
He shoots a steely glance out the window at the stormy skies that reflect his mood. “She won’t. I will never let her get close.”
“You’ve underestimated her.”
“Quite the opposite.” His fingers press white as he clenches that granite tub. “That’s why I went hard. That’s why I won’t relent. I love her more than she will ever understand.”
“She’ll understand one day, in the sweet by and by.”
He shakes his head as if it were an impossibility. “I don’t even think she’ll understand it then. In fact, I know what she will say. We could have found a way.” He heads for the bar and pours himself a shot of that haunted whiskey.
Gage could have found a way. Skyla would have moved heaven and earth just the way he’s doing it for her. Gage is an outright idiot and it breaks my heart to witness.
They could have had it all. I don’t know if it’s still true, though. He cut deep. The blows he’s delivered, the wounds, they fell too hard, cut to the bone.
Sometimes I think he simply prefers to brood. You can’t brood in a state of constant happiness. And to be truthful, I don’t think Gage has ever truly felt happy. He had Logan sitting over his shoulder during his entire marriage to Skyla. He was never Skyla’s first choice. Perhaps he’s always felt like a consolation prize. And perhaps, deep down, he’s felt as if he wanted to make things right for Skyla and Logan because he believed the lies he was feeding himself—that Skyla was never truly his to begin with.
Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are the most damning of them all.
Skyla loved him. He was her everything. Even now, if he pleads insanity, she would open her arms to him and happily fall into the nearest bed with him. But there is no reasoning with him. And if I tried, I just might lose the love of my life in the process. Sorry, Gage. You can’t wake up, and I can’t slap you back to reality. But at the end of the day, you have no one else to blame but yourself.
“Show me Laken,” I say to this wicked well and an image forms. The library materializes before us with little Charlie in Coop’s lap. Coop’s arm is wrapped around Laken as if they were a couple. Chloe sits next to Laken and I spot Tobie sitting up front with Gage’s boys. But my gaze drops back to Cooper Flanders’ arm, how low it is, how very intimate it looks.
Laken isn’t fighting it and it makes me wonder.
13
