“Sorry,” she whispered. “It’s not you. He put his hands on me. I did it with Link too.” She let out a strangled chuckle. “What Conrad did wasn’t even all that bad, but I think it was just the last straw. I think everyone needs to…”
“More than understandable,” I promised her. “Now what do you want to tell me about today?”
Apparently everything.
Andapparently, everything included a plastic bright pink flamingo lawn ornament. Which left me with only one question… “Were you high?”
She snorted, not looking offended at all. “Right? That’s crazy, but he said he picked that form so I wasn’t scared and I liked them as a child.”
“So, it’s someone you knew?”
“I think a familiar,” she answered, sitting back in her chair with a huff. “Maybe one of the ones I turned down? What happens to a familiar that doesn’t bond? Wouldn’t it make sense that it would go back to the spirit world and wait for another chance?”
“That makes sense and let’s go with that as the answer for right now so we have less variables,” I muttered.
She gave me a small smile. “This is why I wanted to ask you. You never make me feel small or stupid. If I was going to get cryptic clues and parts of answers to try and piece together, I wanted you to be the partner I had to make the puzzle work.”
Wow. And she seriously didn’t understand how we could have feelings for her or want her? This woman truly didn’t know her value.
She wanted to play me the whole recording and tell me what I wasn’t hearing, but I didn’t think this was the time. The council would be gathering soon and we had to handle Conrad. Bevin was getting flustered when I tried to cut in like I was brushing her off or ignoring what she wanted.
This was the major roadblock we’d hit and unfortunately I was an asshole and plowed through it—not even noticing before.
I made the signal for a time-out. “Bevin, I’m not shutting you down. I’m missing why this is the priority when I see something else as the priority.” I held my hands out and brought them together. “I’m trying to get us here on the same page. I don’t know how to articulate that and this is the pattern we’re in. At least I see it now, but I’m not dismissing you.”
She stared at my hands innocently like she was contemplating what I’d said, but I had a flash of my hands on her pale, naked skin and her moans in my ear. Oh yeah, keeping this not sexual was going to gowell.
Bevin’s gorgeous amethyst met mine and I was surprised when they were full of guilt. “I’m sorry I didn’t talk to yousooner. You’re so much easier to deal with and reasonable. I’m sorry you were hurt because I’m so inept and overwhelmed. Really.”
I opened my mouth to brush it off but then let out a shaky breath. “Thank you. I…” I flinched when I realized tears were burning my eyes and stared down at my food. “I understand it’s been too much for you, but I think I needed to hear you acknowledge that I did try to talk to you. Others keep painting me like I just—I tried. Not well, but…”
“You tried,” she accepted. “It just got all messed up. Thank you for hearing me and not letting us make the same mistakes.”
I nodded and sniffled. “We’ll make new ones.”
She snorted. “Undoubtedly. And I think you say just what you said. You’re missing where my head is. Too many brush me off or try to take over. I need to hear that you don’t have the pieces you need. There are too many pieces or the crazy is hard to organize. Something that makes it notmeor my fault.” She let out a shaky breath this time. “It always feels like my fault.”
“I know that feeling well.” I focused on my sandwich and listened to her explain that she was pushing this because she thought it was the key to how we should handle the council. The spirit felt that naming me was important and came first.
Then I was on board. If she was sent a… Spirit guide? Sure, we could call him that since I had no idea what else to refer to him as. But since she was given one, it would be stupid not to listen.
“But we need to acknowledge that he might not be sent by someone good,” I warned her before she restarted the recording. “All of this—we—”
“I know,” she agreed. “It could be a present from a dark god one day or a spirit from them. It had to be you because you’re as distrusting as I am and that will keep us alive.”
I was glad she understood that.
I swallowed loudly a few times as she told me what I wasn’t hearing in between listening to what she said on the recording. I finished my food by then and scrubbed my hands over my face. “Okay, we’re going to need to listen to this a few more times and break it down, start a real plan and figure things out. But for today, I think I know how to play this.”
“Good, because I don’t.” She huffed. “I do, but I don’t, and I’m fried.”
“You take the lead and show them you’re not to be trifled with, but then let me be your hammer and threat,” I told her, nodding when her eyes flashed shock. I glanced at my phone and realized we were out of time. “I need you to trust me.”
She swallowed loudly. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“I’ll do my best.” That didn’t seem enough, so I went with what was in my heart. “I’ve never been out to play you, Bevin. I fuck up and I need to be kicked, but I hate the games as much as you do. I’m putting myself at risk doing this too, so my goal will always be to do what’s best for us.”
“Fair. Yeah, that’s totally fair.”
