“A survivor, brother.”
“Well, I suppose we did survive, so many things, but what becomes of us now?”
“Now?” Jake heaved a slow sigh, pushing back from a table I could not see. “Now, brother, we thrive.”
The call ended. For a moment, I stared at the blank phone, as alone as I’d ever been, but my body knew better than I did that everything fell into place when Ranger was near.
I found Cam and divulged Jake’s news. He did not seem surprised. He hugged me and pointed to the pizza ovens where Ranger was with Locke and Folk. And Finch, the woman who had taught him to love everything I got to do with him forever.
“Go eat,” Cam said. “We can talk about this another time.”
“I appreciate that.” I returned his embrace. “All of it.”
“Back atcha.” Cam acknowledged the wealth of words I did not need to say. “Without you, most of us would be dead. And you’ll probably wish we were when you get home.”
I trusted him enough not to concern myself with what he meant by that, and I carried that sentiment to Ranger and stole the pizza off his plate.
Finch watched us with big blue eyes as pretty as her brother’s. “You must be Viktor.”
“I am.”
“I’m Finch.”
“I know.”
She smiled and it was easy to see why Ranger had loved her, and as the day turned into evening, why he loved her still.
“Did you come to check up on them?” I sat with Lida on the ground by her seat, by the firepits that had been lit as the sun had set and only Rebel Kings family remained, where I had been since I had returned from driving Jean home, and Locke’s daughter had begun singing with her guitar.
Finch had spent most the night observing Folk, Ranger, and Locke. “It’s nice to see them happy. They deserve it.”
“You think Ranger is happy?”
“You’re an idiot if you don’t.”
I had been called worse things.
Later, I drove home with my heart and my soul-dog to the house in the cliffs that neither of us cared that much about, save that it was close to where we wanted to be but far enough that Ranger could breathe. “You are hungry?”
Ranger pulled his head from the fridge. “I just ate four pizzas.”
“So why are you in the fridge already?”
“Habit.”
“Maybe you should switch from the kitchen to the living room.”
To the stacked boxes of paw-shaped crisps that my brother had clearly conspired with Cam to deliver to the house while we were gone.
Lots of things made Ranger laugh.
Me.
Jean.
The men he calledbrother.
But I had never seen his eyes light up the way they did as he spied the boxes. “Was beginning to think your brother was full of shite.”
