“My goal isn’t to keep you apart. It’s to keep you—”
“Safe. I heard. Get out of my way, Char. Unless you’re planning to lock me up next to Billy.”
I exhaled. Then I stepped aside.
Davey marched toward the door—then she stopped cold as she passed my coffee table. Staring at the empty Johnny Walker bottle.
Shit.
“I thought you said Bishop bought that bottle of Gold Label.” She frowned as her gaze skimmed both glasses, only one of which was standing on a coaster. “Oh my god.”
“Davey—”
“You’re making a federal case out of me and Vance, and the whole time you’re up here fucking thegrieving widower? In the middle of his wife’s murder investigation?”
“It’s not… You don’t understand what happened.”
“Oh, I understand. You’re a fucking hypocrite. In spirit, if not in actual deed.”
“Okay, that’s enough,” I snapped. “This has nothing to do with you and Vance or with Faythe’s pilot program. And it’s still none of your business, or anyone else’s.”
“Meaning…you don’t want me to tell Austin.”
“Meaning you don’t have the right to tellanyone. And not just for my sake. For Bishop’s. It’s not for you to judge how he copes with grief. And heisgrieving. Believe that, even if you believe nothing else.”
“I do.” Davey sighed, her expression softening for just a moment, not on my behalf, but on Bishop’s. “And I get it.”
“And I haven’t told anyone about you and Vance. Because that’s your business.”
She rolled her eyes. “And because you think it’d make you look like a weak leader, if people knew your second in command broke your rule.”
“No, I think it’d make me look like a woman of my word, if people knew why I fired him. I’m not telling because it’s none of their business. But peoplewillstart asking questions, once they find out he’s gone.”
Davey shrugged. “Fine. Answer any questions you want. You’re the only reason we were keeping that secret in the first place, and now that you know, there’s no real point in hiding it.” She glanced at the empty whiskey bottle on her way past me to the door. “Also, if you haven’t even washed the dishes yet, I know damn well you haven’t changed the sheets. Just because I can’t smell Bishop in here doesn’t mean no one else will.”
TWENTY-TWO
Istripped the bed and threw my sheets in the washer, and by the time I made it back downstairs, Davey was long gone.
“She said hi to everyone, then announced that she was taking a mental health day,” Austin said when I joined him behind the bar.
“I don’t suppose she said where she was going?” I whispered as I cut limes.
He gave me a sidelong grin. “No, but she had a couple of colorful suggestions about whereyoushould go.”
I sighed. This wasn’t the first time one of our arguments had spilled over into the bar, and with any luck, none of the regulars had connected our sibling spat with Vance’s absence.
“Yvette and I fought all the time,” Austin whispered as he began emptying a crate of glasses, still steaming from the dishwasher. “I mean, we were close, but sometimes that proximity can chafe.”
“Did she…” I hesitated, trying to figure out how to phrase my question without revealing anything about Faythe’s secret project. “Did Yvette feel like she was on the outside looking in? As the only human in your household?”
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, we didn’t live in a very shifter-dense area, so if anything, I think Bishop and I probably felt more like outsiders in her world. Personally, I felt like a bull in a China shop. Took me forever to figure out how to…moderate my new strength. Once, I broke the door handle off a department car and had to pretend it just fell off in my hand. Manufacturer defect.” He shrugged. “After that, I was always afraid I’d break something in the house. Or scare her.”
“Yeah, I went through a similar phase. My understanding is that that’s not a thing, for those who grew up as shifters.”
He huffed. “Must be nice to know where you belong.”
I wanted Davey to feel like she belonged. I’d done everything I could to make that happen here in the bar—ourbar—because I already felt like making it a shifter haven was basically taking it over for myself. I wanted her in my life, and I wanted to be in hers.
