She glances over her shoulder surreptitiously. “Yes, I would say that.”
“So you’re saying apologies go a long way?”
“Very.” She tries to stop a smile from gracing her lips. “I mean, if youhadn’tapologized, I may have never spoken to you again.” She shrugs matter-of-factly.
I know we’re just pretending, but the thought of Kira Noland never speaking to me again makes me want to claw out my own heart.
“I wouldn’t have survived it,” I growl, a bit testy, and take a turn looking in the backseat. “Because when you love someone,” I speak pointedly, “even a day without them feels like an eternity in hell.” I look back at the road. “I don’t know howsomepeople do it.”
“You know you two aren’t coming off as subtle, right?” Nix snaps, and I catch her folding her arms across her chest in the rear view mirror.
“Wasn’t trying to,” I drawl.
The two of them are stressing out Kira when I’m not here, and I’m trying to mend her heart, not have it give out again. They need to fix their shit because I’m in it with Kira for the long haul, and their antics are going to get old fast.
“She’s not sorry,” Caleb mumbles.
“I never said I wasn’t!” Nix screeches.
“But you haven’t said you are, either,” Kira points out.
“Because James deserved it! I just want him to admit that.”
“Oh, my God,” Kira sighs. “Quit talking like he isn’t right next to you. You’re being a brat.”
“Fine!” She turns to him in the backseat. “I want you to admit that James was a piece of shit and that you’re better off without him.”
“Of course I’m better off without him!” Caleb explodes. “But that doesn’t mean I wanted him dead!”
“It was the only way. He was never—”
“JUST SAY SORRY,” Kira and I cut her off at the same time.
“I AM!!” Nix finally breaks. “I am! Okay?! I’m sorry.” Her voice cracks. “I feel fucking awful and I miss you and if I’d known you weren’t going to talk to me again, I never would have done it! God, I’m sorry.”
In the silence that follows, I glance in the mirror to see Caleb’s eyes filling with tears.
“I’ve missed you too,” he finally breathes after a moment.
Kira and I give each other a sidelong glance of amazement, resisting the urge to high-five.
“You have?” Nix sniffles.
“All I’ve wanted this whole time was to be with you.”
It isn’t long until they are kissing, and I’m wishing for the silence again.
“Jesus Christ,” I mutter, rolling my window down another inch. “Can you two save the reunion make-out for literally any other day?”
They don’t hear me. Or they pretend not to. Either way, the car goes syrupy and warm with their breathing and whispered apologies, and the sudden sweetness is almost worse than the tension was. Kira hides a grin behind her hand, and I cut her a look that saysdon’t you dare.
She snorts softly, but her fingers find mine on the console, stroking softly before she turns her eyes back to the window. The world outside has gone gray in that specific way that graces funerals. The closer we get, the more it feels like the air is thickening. Funerals always have that gravity, my mother’s was similar, even if this time the man in the ground has earned his place there.
My knuckles tighten around the wheel, almost wishing I had grief instead of whatever’s thrumming in me now. I would compare it to how Kira needed the cardboard burned. I need James gone. All the way. To quite literally hammer the nail inthe coffin. It’s time for a new way. With my life and with Landon Enterprises.
I knew that James had contracts with some of the most nefarious operations staining the world, but there are some things I can’t defend in good conscience. And that’s saying something coming from me. I’m hoping when James is lowered into the ground, when his associates at the service see it for themselves, they’ll accept an era is ending and go quietly. Otherwise, things are going to get messy in the city.
Caleb and Nix finally come up for air as we pull into the circular entrance of Cloverwick Cemetery. Tires crunching over gravel, the iron gate looks ominously on either side as we pass it.
