“That’s debatable,” I whispered.
He glared for a moment.
I glared back at him.
That sneaky corner of his mouth curved, and he held the bottle out.
I reached over and took it, taking a long drink of what tasted like… what was that? Raspberry? I passed it back over to him.
I was sharing a bottle of beer with The Defender. In his house. I was on his couch.
While my life was falling apart.
“You’re really going to sleep in here?” he asked as he took a sip.
I froze. “If it’s okay?” I debated whether or not to tell him the truth for a second but then remembered all the shit we’d been through. We were past that. Weren’t we? “I don’t really want to be alone, and that room is beautiful, but….”
He’d understand. I knew he would.
Or not.
There was another long moment of silence, and I wondered if I should have just sucked it up and gone somewhere else in this big-ass house. There was a living room downstairs. I could hang out on the steps outside.
“I can go somewhere else.”
I was the stranger here after all.
His silence had me sitting back up and grabbing the blanket, but a big hand landed on my shoulder and pushed me down toward the couch.
“Lie down,” he huffed. “You can be wherever you want.”
I rubbed at my throat and asked, dead serious, “Are there ghosts?”
The son of a bitch didn’t even blink. “Only Myrtle.”
I rose up on an elbow. “Seriously, is that a no, or do I need to make a salt circle around the bed?”
“What’s a salt circle supposed to do?”
“Repel ghosts, everyone knows that.” It was Selene who answered.
I looked at her and smiled. She looked at me and smiled right back. Right then and there, I decided I liked her. I got a good feeling about her.
“Everyone knows,” I agreed.
He just looked at me.
“Except you, I guess.” I couldn’t help it, I laughed. Selene did too. My throat hurt, but I couldn’t stop. Closing my eyes, I settled in, wanting to give them some space before they regretted letting me hang out with them.
But to my surprise, they didn’t wait for me to fall asleep before they started talking again.
It was Selene who spoke first. “Did you make a decision then?”
“No,” Alex replied, “especially not after this shit.”
“I can’t believe it, Lexi. You think Mom knows? Do you remember how pissed she was when she did it to Achilles? I thought there was going to be an earthquake that day.”
His huff wasn’t a normal one; it was an irritated one. “Who the fuck knows, Selene.”
