Page 83 of Romeo

I looked at the words for a second and felt my shoulders loosen.

No argument.

No demand.

Simply an offer to take my head somewhere else.

Me: Like what?

Ma Belle: Tell me what you’d cook if I showed up hungry

A laugh escaped me. Of all the questions I’d expected, that wasn’t one of them.

Me: Gumbo.

Ma Belle: That takes hours

I walked back toward the bed and sat down.

She wasn’t wrong. A proper gumbo took time. You couldn’t rush the roux without ruining the whole damn thing. You stood there, stirred it, watched it darken, then let everything else simmer until it became what it was supposed to be.

For Fiona, I’d stand over the goddamn pot all day.

Me: You’d be worth the wait.

I stared at my own message after I sent it.

That one wasn’t flirting.

It was just true. More honest than she probably realized.

Ma Belle: Better answer

My smile widened.

Five minutes ago, I’d been sitting here thinking about Death Dogs, Syrena, Kytten, King, and about six different ways the next few months could go straight to hell.

Now I was thinking about Fiona sitting at a kitchen table eating my gumbo and probably telling me I’d used too much spice.

She did that to me.

Me: Thank you.

I sent it and leaned back against the headboard.

Nothing downstairs had changed. The Death Dogs were still too damn close. Kytten still had to live with what Syrena had done. King still had explaining to do, and the brothers were still trying to figure out how all of it fit together.

But my hands weren’t clenched anymore.

Fiona hadn’t fixed anything.

She hadn’t tried to.

She’d just stayed on the other end of the phone until I could think about something besides who I wanted to hurt.

That mattered more than I knew how to explain to her.

I picked up the phone again.