I felt her hands rest on my knees. I shifted my weight forward. I put my hand up. And…
I nearly fell forward when she pulled back.
“What a tease,” I said, trying to keep things light and playful.
“No, it’s not that,” Justine said. “I spoke with Lilly today. Cole’s wife?”
I nodded. We all knew Lilly, even though few of us had spoken to her. As far as Cole was concerned, when we interacted with him, we interacted with Lilly too.
“She was talking about how you guys are the best kind of guy but also the worst kind of guy. And I was thinking about how honestly, it was kind of foolish for me to ever assume that I could separate the Black Reaper from the person.”
Had we had this conversation a week ago, I would have easily known the direction it was going.“This is great, but it won’t work.”
Now?
I genuinely had no idea. I was committed to trying to accept whatever happened either way, but I knew in my gut what I really wanted.
“I know you guys are fighting the Bandits, but I also know that at some point, that’s going to end. But will the violence end? Or are you guys committed to fightingsomethingorsomeoneforever?”
I tried not to show a visible reaction because my words didn’t matter much here. I knew what I was going to say.
But after speaking to Brock about the King’s Men and Death’s Patriots, I couldn’t help but think that no matter how much we wanted to believe the violence and chaos would end with Eduardo’s death, that just wasn’t true. We couldn’t ask for outside help and then suddenly pretend like we’d never give it, even if we didn’t have any ties to Las Vegas or Arizona at the moment. It was only a matter of time before we decided to go after King—and with it, bring those states into war.
I refused to show that to Justine, though.
“I’m committed to making Santa Maria a peaceful place,” I said. “And if that means fighting beyond the Bandits, then so be it. But right now, I don’t quite see how that happens.”
Doubt was so obviously etched on Justine’s face that I didn’t know why I’d even bothered to try and hide all of this in the first place. It wasn’t like she was a robot.
“You know…”
And then both of our phones rang, almost at the same time. I looked down at mine. It was Brock.
“It’s the hospital.”
Cole.
I sat up from her couch, went to the corner, and answered the phone.
“Yeah?”
“Cole just woke up,” Brock said. “We’re all headed there now.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
Brock hung up without another word. I turned to Justine.
“Looks like we’ll have to table this for another time, huh?” I said.
“You meant what you said about protecting me if I needed it?”
I nodded.
“I know there are no guarantees for how long any of this will last. But I do promise you that I will protect you by any means possible.”
Justine smiled, came up to me, and kissed me. Somehow, it was both a kiss that was just the right length of time and a kiss that went far longer than I expected.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see Cole.”
