Kai would be laughing his ass off if he heard the way my voice just cracked on that last word. Sounded like a nervous teenager all over again.
She nods softly. “Okay. I appreciate it.”
We spend the next ten minutes carrying anything Isla wants gone onto the drive. Knowing there’s a time constraint of Kai’s return, she makes decisions quickly enough. There are somethings I urge her to consider tossing, but the memory of them is too strong. The drawers of a dresser with damaged panels are where her grandfather used to hide individually wrapped mints for her. The dusty shoe box holds photographs of her grandparents’ wedding. An armchair with a giant rip in the cushion used to be Isla’s favorite spot to sit and watch the birds at the now-defunct bird feeder.
“You know,” I say finally, as we watch Kai turn onto the road, “you should keep filming. People need real and honest videos like you’re making.”
Isla’s eyes widen. Enough that I should abort this line of conversation.
“Just don’t film the two of us. As Outlaws, we’re not allowed a social media footprint.”
“I’ll make a note to cut and delete the footage with you on it, so I don’t forget.”
“Good girl,” I say without thinking.
Her cheeks go pink, but her eyes stay focused on the truck. Maybe she’s relieved that Kai is nearly here and she can then interact with a normal person.
Kai reverses onto the driveway like a pro, and I busy myself tossing shit into the truck bed. Because here’s the truth I can’t admit out loud:
For the first time since I met Kai, I want someone more than just my partner. I don’t want to lose Kai. But I want to kiss Isla.
And the worst part isn’t even that I’m feeling this way.
It’s that Kai has always had the capacity for feeling like this, and for me, he’s pretending he doesn’t.
I can’t imagine how much that must hurt.
12
JACKAL
“Iknow you don’t want to sit through this, but let’s just get on with it, yeah?” I say, looking at the frown on Garrett’s forehead a few days later.
He hugs the coffee he just poured from the pot behind the bar at the clubhouse. “Video calls make me itch.”
“Dude. Most things make you itch.” I laugh. “Come on. You’ll feel better once we’ve caught up with Jersey.”
“You sound like a parent trying to convince an errant toddler to eat green beans,” Catfish says with a chuckle from his spot farther down the bar.
“I miss fax machines,” Garrett complains. “Handwriting on paper, then just feeding that shit into a machine to send it.”
Atom is warming his hands in front of the fire. “Like you were around when fax machines were used like that.”
“Fine.” Garrett shrugs. “I miss the idea of them. I don’t need to be seeing everyone’s face on my phone every two seconds. Don’t need to be typing on keys so fucking tiny, you need the finger size of a seven-year-old to type on them.”
“Jesus,” Grudge grumbles. “You get out of bed on the wrong side this morning?”
Garrett flips him the bird and I see the scabbed knuckles he got when we tried to re-lay some of the paving down the side of Isla’s house while she was at work yesterday. He got it in his head that it was a trip and fall hazard after we helped her with all her unwanted stuff, and I was happy to spend a couple of hours working with him to fix it.
“That might be the most words I’ve heard him say in one go since I met him,” Smoke adds.
“Let’s get this over with, yeah?” I say, tipping my chin toward the room we use for church. Grudge said it was cool for us to use it.
“If someone hadn’t already named him Shade, we should call him Eeyore,” Wraith says.
“Eyesore?” Garrett asks, and everyone chuckles.
“Ee-yore,” Wraith enunciates. “You know. The perpetually depressed donkey in the Winnie-the-Pooh books. Fen loves him.”
