I glance at Shiloh. He already knows. He pushes off with a sigh. “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”
Later,I sit by the pool back at the house with a piece of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. The blade moves in steady strokes, shaving thin curls from the surface without much thought. I’ve been doing this since I was a kid. Keeps my hands busy when my head won’t settle.
Right now, the wood isn’t becoming anything. It’s just something to work through.
Footsteps approach behind me.
Shiloh drops onto one of the loungers with a tired exhale. “She’s down,” he says. “Motel room. Not great, but it’ll do. I could hear her snoring through the door when I left.”
“Good,” I say, not looking up. “We’re going to need a rotation,” I add after a second. “We won’t be able to keep picking her up like this. Not if we’re supposed to be watching her.”
He shifts, stretching out. “Yeah. Which means we’re going to have to get her in the bar.”
I nod, the blade continuing its slow path along the grain.
“And then here,” he adds. “Only way we cover all hours.”
I pause for a second, then continue carving. He’s right.
“Yeah,” I say. “That’s where this is headed.”
Silence settles between us, broken only by the song of insects and the soft scrape of steel against wood.
I study the piece in my hand. Still formless. Still rough. That’ll change.
“We start with the bar,” I say.
I’m sorry, little one. Time doesn’t erase things.
It blurs them.
The important parts stay, even if they don’t feel like enough.
I read something once that said grief is love with nowhere to go. Let yourself grieve, because doing so is letting yourself continue to love them.
—Ash
CHAPTER EIGHT
REVA
The motel signflickers outside my window, one neon letter gone dead, the others buzzing like they’re thinking about giving up the ghost.
It’s not clean or safe or anything remotely like I’d normally choose. It’s cheap, though, and right now, cheap matters.
I sit cross-legged on the bed, staring down at the contents of my knapsack spread across the faded sateen bedspread. The fabric is worn thin in places, patterned with something that was probably floral once and now just looks tired.
This is it. Everything I have. Everything I brought with me when I decided to walk into Noir like I had a plan.
My plan has been blown to shit, and that pisses me off all over again.
Ever’s voice echoes in my head—flat, dismissive, final. Not hiring.
Shiloh’s face follows right behind it, all easy charm and nothing underneath it that resembles salvation.
Like the night before hadn’t happened. Like I didn’t matter.
“Fuck him,” I mutter, dragging a hand through my hair.
