“I guess she knows which one of us needs the hugs tonight,” Philippa said with a smile.
“Well, she is yours,” Nova said.
“An empathic kitten,” Leslie said. “Epic.”
“Is that all?” Philippa said to Claire, as if there’d been no interruption.
Sitting closest to her, Nova bumped her shoulder into Claire’s. “Yeah, what do you need from us? Obviously an end-of-the-night check-in isn’t it.”
Claire gestured to their clustered closeness. “Definitely need this. You all wanting to listen, to know what’s going on, and…and not telling me to quit my, um, night job.”
Leslie looked affronted. “Are you kidding? Nine predators behind bars because of you—who knows how many human women you’ve kept safe from them?”
“They don’t all end up behind bars. I mean, not that I can find out. Sometimes there’s court records, which I can find because I know their names. But sometimes there’s nothing. I have to assume those guys get off somehow. I know there’s a huge gap between arrests and prosecutions, much less convictions.”
“Still,” Nova said. She reached her hand toward Lavender, and the kitten bumped it with her nose, then took one giant step over Claire’s ankle, toward Nova’s hand. “This is important work, Claire. I know you said it’s notmoreimportant than my writing, but it’s at leastasimportant. It’s real-time accountability for these guys.”
Approval and encouragement seemed to mean more tonight than they usually did. Maybe because she had already spent so much emotion. Maybe this was also why she kept talking, opening up further than she’d planned. “About the check-in, I think…I think maybe I do need it. Not in case something goes wrong. It’s just…hard to be alone with the…”
“The feelings,” Philippa said gently. “The feelings that hit on the drive home.”
“Yes,” Claire whispered. A part of her still wanted to keep this piece of the secret, but maybe that part was wrong, because the rest of her released an inner sigh of relief that her friends knew not only about the work but also about the toll.
“We’re here for that too,” Nova said. “I’ll be your check-in babes anytime.”
Leslie’s silver eyebrows shot up. “Uh, her what?”
Claire and Nova shared a laugh and explained nothing. But now Claire had to tell them the other half of the story.
As if reading her actual thoughts, Philippa said, “Is this what you fought with Tai about? He told you to quit?”
She’d managed to set their fight aside for a few minutes, but it came washing back in a tide of sadness. “It wasn’t that. He said he’s behind me, behind what I’m doing.”
Slowly Philippa nodded. “Then… If he found out about this tonight…?”
Claire pushed her fingers through her hair. The kitten tripped on her own paws as she tried to leap over Claire’s ankle. She lifted Lavender and gently set her outside the nook of her crossed legs, and Lavender bounded over to Nova’s hand, which now rested on her knee.
“Tai wanted to know why I’d kept it from him,” Claire said. She looked up from her feet. “I said I was going to tell him when we were bloodbound.”
“Hmm,” Leslie said. “I can see him being bothered by that, yeah.” She held up her hands as Claire opened her mouth to continue. “I get how big this is, but Tai’s been pretty open about himself with you—with the whole group in fact. So if it feels unequal to him, I get that.”
“That’s not even the problem.” How could she ever have thought it wouldn’t be a problem?
“Okay…” Nova prompted when Claire lost her words yet again.
“Tai says we can’t be bloodbound. Ever. Because of his condition.”
“Oh.” Leslie’s mouth pulled down. “I’m sorry, Claire. That’s hard.”
The silence grew awkward. Claire shrugged, but they still seemed to be waiting for the rest. “Y’all, I can’t just pretend I’m fine with it. If we’re not bloodbound, then how am I supposed to be sure of us? Ever?”
“Does he want monogamy with you?” Nova said.
“He does for now.”
“But he might move on in a few decades or centuries? Is that what he says?”
“What he says is that he wants to be with me forever.”
