“That's the plan.”
“Good plan. Better than your last plans.”
“All of my plans are excellent.”
“All of your plans end with you bleeding.”
“Not all of them.”
“Name one.”
I opened my mouth and realized I couldn't actually name one. “Fuck.”
Declan came back into the living room and sat beside me on the arm of the couch, his hand settling on my shoulder in a way that felt automatic now. “His plans are getting better.”
“Low bar,” Mara said.
“Very low bar,” Luka agreed.
“I'm right here,” I said.
“We know.” Ash smiled. “That's why we're comfortable roasting you.”
The conversation flowed into easier territory after that. Mara and Luka got into one of those verbal sparring matches they seemed to enjoy, trading barbs about strategy and risk assessment that was clearly rooted in mutual respect but sounded like they were about to kill each other. Dmitri provided color commentary that made everything funnier. Ash mediated when things got too heated and made sure everyone stayed fed.
And I just sat there watching it happen, feeling the strangeness of being in a room full of people who'd all nearly died for me in the past two weeks and were now arguing about whether Chicago deep dish counted as real pizza.
“It's not pizza,” Mara said flatly. “It's a casserole with delusions.”
“Is pizza,” Dmitri insisted. “Has cheese, has sauce, has bread. Is pizza.”
“By that logic, lasagna is pizza.”
“Lasagna is lasagna. Is different thing.”
“How?”
“Because lasagna has layers. Pizza is flat.”
“Deep dish has layers.”
“Deep dish has depth. Is different from layers.”
I looked at Declan and found him already looking at me with an expression that said he was thinking the same thing I was. That this was insane and perfect and exactly what we needed.
He leaned down and kissed me in front of everyone, quick and sure, and I heard Mara make a gagging sound that was at least fifty percent affection.
“Get a room,” she said.
“It's my house,” Declan pointed out.
“Then get a room in your own house. We don't need to see that.”
“You literally just watched,” I said.
“Against my will.”
“You could have looked away.”
