I took another sip too. “I figured. I mean, if I don’t see you, I know what you’re doing. I didn’t expect you to sit around all day, writing Electro-Man storylines.” I bit my lip, pushing aside the fact that I still couldn’t comprehend he was a writer for a living. “I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad yesterday, Alex. I was mostly joking. But it did hurt my feelings you were gone for a whole month and you couldn’t send me a text.” I paused. “Even though you don’t need to tell me where you are. It was just because it was a long time that you were gone, and I thought we’d been getting closer. And I’m being fucking awkward now. The point is, I wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. You don’t owe me anything. You can be gone as long as you want. I already told you what I wanted to tell you. Thank you, I mean.”
He nodded slowly, and I could tell by his face he was thinking.
About me sticking my foot in my mouth? Maybe. But I hoped I made a little bit of sense at least. “All I’m trying to say now is good luck with all your Defender stuff. You don’t need to warn me when you have to leave.”
He was back to thinking, I could tell, as he took yet another drink from his mug. “I’ll make sure to leave the car keys by the front door.”
“Honestly, I was surprised you left them for me last time.”
“I don’t expect you to get around in your invisible car.”
I snorted, which reminded me. “I should be getting my check soon, from my insurance.” It wasn’t enough to pay for a new car, but I didn’t want to share that concern with him. “Hopefully I’ll be getting my life back on track so I can get out of your hair.”
His eyebrows knit together. “About that. You can have the car in the garage. The silver one. Or we can share the Durango. I don’t drive much—” His cell started ringing. Alex cursed as he pulled it out and peered at the screen for a second before answering it, his gaze dead on mine. But all he said was one word, “Yes,” before he hung up.
I smiled at him, and in the time it took me to blink, he was out of there, and a heartbeat later, the front door slammed shut.
I ran to the big window in the kitchen, but there wasn’t even a dot in the sky.
He was gone.
Wow.
Wow, wow, wow.
Smiling, and purposely ignoring what in the world he might have wanted to talk about, I finished my breakfast and showered. Once I was done, I grabbed my laptop and headed downstairs to the living room, where I turned on the television.
My hand froze in midair holding the remote.
I’d forgotten that I had turned on the news to see if I could find anything about Alex.
“…sentenced to five back-to-back life sentences without the possibility of parole,”the television anchor said as an image of Camilo Beltran filled the screen.
Five life sentences.
I felt my breath go out in literally a whoosh.
Then I changed the damn channel as fast as I could as my stomach churned.
It didn’t mean anything. He could escape. He had before.
But what if he didn’t? What if he was one less person to worry about now?
* * *
I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d learned the day before.
Alex hadn’t come back, and I’d turned on the news to see that he’d been helping deal with a nuclear reactor. It wasn’t the first time, or even the tenth time, one of the Trinity had dealt with nuclear issues, so I knew the radioactive gases and radiation didn’t harm them, fortunately. Or at least not in the same manner or level it did humans. I was planning on asking him one day how that worked exactly. Did it affect him a little and just make him weak instead of blatantly killing him? Or were their bodies just that amazing that they repelled all that toxic stuff outright? My money was on that.
On the bright side, Selene had shown up and taken me to Robert and Agatha’s house for dinner, and I’d been reassured that the man known as The Centurion really was terrific and sweet. He had a polo shirt and khakis on, and just looked like… a hot uncle.
I knew all about hot uncles now.
For one moment, I’d thought about asking Agatha about that vision, but I’d kept my mouth shut. The more I’d worried over it, the more I’d realized and then come to accept the fact that it didn’t matter. It didn’t change anything. Having these feelings for Alex was the equivalent of having a crush on a celebrity.
That you knew and lived with.
And kissed.
