“What?” She took a huge bite. “All these secrets and sexual tension are making me hungry.”
“Sexual tension?” My voice might have come out a little high.
Myra coughed over a chuckle, and Rossi sighed.
Only very old vampires could put that much suffering into a sigh. “It’s not a secret how much you and Ryder want each other. Honestly, I thought the Reed pragmatism would have kicked in by now and you’d have realized that it will never work between you.”
Both Jean and Myra stood and faced him.
I turned toward him too, so all three Reed girls had squared off, shoulder-to-shoulder.
“Want to try that again?” Myra asked.
“Don’t be a dick, Rossi,” Jean said.
And yes, it made my heart feel all glowy. I knew neither of my sisters were big fans of Ryder at the moment. Not since he’d broken up with me.
But they knew how I felt about him. Because apparently everyone knew how I felt about him. Even old vampires.
Okay, that part was a little weird, but knowing my sisters had my back still made me feel loved.
“Did they have cupcakes?” I asked Crow.
He held up a big, soft red velvet cupcake. “One.” Then he took a huge bite out of it.
“Hey! That was my cupcake, you jerk.”
“And it’s delicious,” he said.
Myra hit him again.
“Whatever I am or am not with Ryder isn’t any of your business, Rossi.” I thought I sounded rather calm. Relaxed. In charge.
But Rossi crossed his arms over his chest and made a rude sound.
“Right?” Crow pushed the rest of my cupcake into his big, fat mouth. “There isn’t any way to unknot those tangled life threads you two have going.”
“What threads?”
“Ryder life threads with Reed life threads.” Crow rubbed icing off his lips with his palm, then wiped his palm on the thigh of his jeans. Something on my face must have clued him in that I wasn’t following his logic, and was also hating him for eating my cupcake.
“All the places where your paths have connected: his blood on the corpse you’re investigating,” he started around a bite of the donut he was now eating, “him part of a secret government creature outreach agency,freelanceon top of it. You working for the government of your own free will. Monster hunters he knows who you might want to get rid of. And the fact that he probably loves you and you definitely love him. Childhood sweethearts.”
“We were never sweethearts.”
“You should have been,” Crow said, not unkindly. Then he walked into the kitchen and put the box with the remaining donuts on the table. “So. How do we do this? Come clean, or wipe his brain clean?”
Everyone looked to me.
No pressure.
I opened my mouth.
There was the rap of knuckles on the unlocked front door. The door that pushed open, Ryder leaning into the wedge of space.
“Uh, Delaney?” he said.
“Yeah?”
