Essence shifts again — this time from him to me.
“What … what was that?” he asks, a little shaky. And a little gleeful.
“That was you reaching through our bond.”
He goes still. Wary again but with an edge of desperately wanting to believe. To believe me.
I take another long, slow sip of my milkshake, then eat a few bites of my salad.
Cal looks out the window. His shoulders slump, and he falls back against the bench seat, the rest of his fries and half his milkshake abandoned. “I can’t leave Lou.”
“I know.”
“She needs me.”
“I understand.”
His breathing becomes heavy, as if he’s fighting back a well of emotion.
I give him time, space.
“Do you … do my brothers live with you?”
“Yes,” I say, simplifying the extraordinarily complicated answer. “And your sister, Presh. I have an estate up the coast of Oregon, just past Newport.”
“Newport,” he echoes. “What’s an estate? A big house? Like the plantations?”
“The plantations in the Federation have a different context, but yes. A large piece of land with multiple buildings, including a main house with plenty of bedrooms.” I’m not going to push, but I need to make it clear that he’s wanted. “I think your siblings would love a chance to get to know you.”
“They never bothered before,” he says, clinging to the narrative I’m fairly certain Lou has fed him. Maybe because she thought it was the truth.
“Rath and Rought, for certain, haven’t been back to the Federation since you were born,” I say. “And I think … well, Presh ran away just earlier this year. She hasn’t mentioned you. Which makes me fairly certain she doesn’t know you exist.”
“Those are MC handles,” Cal says, throwing up the walls he had just started to lower. As I expected.
“They were,” I say, thinking of Rath tossing his cut at the Outcast’s feet.
“Not interested,” Cal says, gaze fixed out the window again.
I turn my head just enough to see Lou waving at him impatiently. When I look back, Cal is watching me.
“Okay,” I whisper past the clog in my throat that feels a lot like my heart.
His lower lip quivers.
This is way too much responsibility for someone his age. He shouldn’t have to make decisions like this — between Lou and his future.
“What if …” He swallows the question. The one I know he truly needs to ask.
“What if Lou looks at you like she looks at me?” I say as gently as possible.
Cal’s expression shuts down hard. “She loves me, takes care of me.”
“I know.”
He grabs a handful of fries, sliding out of the booth and trying to walk past me, out of the diner.
Twisting in my seat, but not standing, not chasing after him no matter how desperately I want to, I touch his shoulder lightly. His step hitches.
