Davy winked at him. “Made you think about it, though.”
He went back into the laundry room to finish getting dressed. A pair of sweatpants and an old T-shirt seemed like the least hair-shirty of the selection available. He swore that rich people were different. He’d worn the same fatigues two weeks straight and had enough sand in his ass crack to fill a play pen, and he’d not wanted to strip his own skin off this much. He pulled the sweats on and wandered back out with the T-shirt dangled from one hand.
“Him marrying your momafterkilling your dad is probably what sticks in your craw,” he said. “Insult to injury.”
Hill gave a tired snort and sat down on the edge of the coffee table. Sort of. It was close enough.
“It’s kind of a package deal for bugging me,” he said. “Killing my dad. Marrying my mom. Raising me like he’d not been the one to screw me up.”
Davy pulled the T-shirt on. It was washed, but the worn cotton still smelled vaguely ofHillin a subtle, sweaty way.
“How long did they wait after your dad died?” he asked.
There was a pause as Hill gave him a suspicious look. “My mom had nothing to do with it,” he said. “My dad’s death. Fraser’s business dealings. None of it.”
Davy sat down on the edge of the couch and reached out to grab the duffel bag and drag it over to him.
“I didn’t say she did.”
“You were about to.”
Davy paused with his hands on the loose metal buckles of the bag. He was definitely better with the baser emotion, but he was pretty sure the confidence that Hill said that made him feelsomething.
Pity, maybe.
“You don’t know me, Hill,” he said. “Don’t fucking assume you do. It won’t end well.”
Hill gave a dry little snort. “So you’re saying Ishouldn’ttrust the undead mercenary who corpse-jacked my body and doesn’t have any skin in the game?” he said. “Thanks. That would never have occurred to me.”
It wasn’t like Davy wasn’t aware of the irony that Hill agreeing with him hurt his feelings. Irony just didn’t make it hurt any less. His tentacles tucked in close around him, the ends curled around his ankles and tucked behind his knees. The posture felt sullen.
Davy ignored them as he pulled the bag straps loose and flipped the top of the duffel open. The inside smelled like old fabric and gun oil.
“I wasn’t accusing your mom of anything,” he said. That part was a lie; he had definitely been about to imply something, but the next part was something he genuinely wanted to know. “Just whether Fraser put his severance plan here together before—”
He tipped the bag upside down and gave it a shake to empty the contents onto the table. The taped-up envelopes landed with a thud, the gun with a crack that made Hill flinch. Davy slapped his hand down to stop it sliding onto the floor. Habit curled his hand around the butt, the plastic and metal a familiar shape.
“—or after he said his vows.”
A hundred thousand sounded like a lot of money. It was actually a surprisingly portable amount of money.
Davy riffled the edge of the last strap of notes before he dropped it on top of the pile. The nice new scent of money had faded from the bills a while ago, but the feel of it against his thumb was still as good as he remembered.
“So, all these years,” Hill said, “Fraser’s just been ready to go, just leave us behind, the minute anything happened?”
Davy glanced up from the tightly stuffed A5 manila envelope he was about to open.
“So?” he said. “I thought you didn’t like him.”
“I don’t,” Hill said. “I love him, but I don’t like him, and I can’t forgive him.”
Yeah. Sometimes Davy was glad he’d never invested in enough therapy to “feel” more shit. Hell, make that most of the time. It looked complicated, and nobody seemed to enjoy it.
“But I thought he…I don’t know,” Hill said as he shook his head. “I thought we mattered to him. Or at least that my mom did. People always say that the two of them are ‘couple goals,’ that they’re perfect for each other.”
Davy peeled the flap of the envelope up. It came away easily, the glue brittle from its time in the wall.
“Fraser’s good at being perfect,” he said with a shrug. “And this isn’t personal. It’s worst-case scenario insurance.”
