A thought that jarred a memory, and then a fear. If Ranger was here and he had plans to stay, did that mean his babushka had passed?
It was my turn to study him, searching his dark gaze for grief and heartache, eating as I did, to distract him from my analysis. But he was hard to read, or perhaps I didn’t know him so well anymore.
The bread was gone before I had my answer, and not knowing bothered me enough to ask. “How is your Nanna Jean?”
Ranger’s lips twitched. “So I did tell you about her.”
“About her, and the girl with the pink hair.”
“Finch? Really?”
“I think so. You loved her, no?”
“Fucking hell.” Ranger finished his breakfast and pushed the plate away. “Remind me not to drop a bag of mandy around you ever again.”
“That does not answer the question.”
“I don’t need to if I told you my life story back then. Cos you’ll already know that I still love her. She’s my friend, and she always will be.”
“Does she know you are here?”
“No.”
“Who does?”
“Jakov. Cam. Embry. Though the good father only knows I’m withyou, not where.”
There were names missing from that list that I had expected to hear.
Folk.
Locke.
Saint Malone and Alexei Ivanov. “Cam knows your location?”
Ranger nodded, slowly. “It was his condition for letting me go.”
“And what was your condition,Asher?”
His name rolled off my tongue like silk.
Ranger smirked. “A safe phone to call my nanna and a lifetime supply of Monster Munch.”
It was possible that he was entirely serious. I could not tell, but I honed in on the revelation that his grandmother was very much alive and let the rest go. “Where is this space you haveclaimedfor yourself?”
With his leg still very much wrapped around me, it was hard to imagine a reality where his next words were notright here. But his answer was different to the one in my head.
“The room across from yours.”
I snapped out of my daze. “There is no bed in that room.”
“So? I like the view.”
“You can see nothing but grass from the window.”
“Maybe I’m facing the other way.”
I was not good at conversation anymore. And perhaps I’d never been sharp enough to keep up with him. Either way, my brain fell off a cliff, instantly swamped in thick fog, leaving nothing but profound empty space behind.
