Page 38 of Reckless

“I caaan speeeak norrrmally?” Deek says, still somehow talking like he’s explaining advanced mathematics to a toddler.

“She can understand you, you idiot! As long as you are facing her when you talk.”

His eyes widen as if he is shocked by this revelation. “No, I know that… I know she can.”

“Then why the fuck are you talking like that?”

His hands run through the back of his hair with anxiety. “Fuck… I don’t know?” He thinks about it for a second. “I panicked!”

Piper laughs. “I like him.”

I groan. “Don’t encourage him.”

“Too late, I like his kind of weird.”

Deek grins at her salaciously. “I like your kinda weird.”

I snap my head around at him, narrowing my eyes on him. Hard! “Do not hit on my sister, Deek!”

Piper giggles as Deek clearly eyes her up and down. “Why? She’s hot.”

“Thanks, you’re not so bad yourself. You’re an idiot, but you’re a hot idiot,” Piper says.

“Jesus Christ,” I mumble under my breath as everyone laughs, and the introductions sort themselves out after that.

Nobody really knows the right way to do it, so they just do it. Koa talks with his hands so much it barely matters whether Piper is watching his lips or not. Bear offers a quiet hello and a handshake. Nitro introduces himself twice because he gets halfway through the first attempt and decides he’d forgotten how names work.

Nobody gets it perfect.

Nobody seems particularly worried about getting it perfect either.

Within five minutes, Piper is laughing with them instead of at them. Deek is somehow convinced her Koa’s soup won an award that definitely doesn’t exist, and Koa is threatening to throw him out into the Nevada desert.

Business. As. Usual.

I watch this from two steps inside the door.

My sister.

Here.

In this room.

It doesn’t feel real yet, in the way enormous things sometimes don’t feel real, like your brain needs a moment to catch up with what your chest already knows.

My eyes find Ghost without me meaning them to. He’s exactly where he usually is, tucked away behind his workstation with enough screens lit up to launch a space shuttle.

Normally, his fingers never stop moving, but tonight they’re still. A toothpick sits between his teeth, shifting once as his jaw tightens. He only chews on one when he’s buried in something that’s got all of his attention.

He’s looking at one of the monitors, not typing, not talking, not doing much of anything really.

I look across the room.

Ghost is already looking back.

He’s got one hand still on the back of his chair as if he’d been about to sit down again.

Instead, he pushes away from the workstation, and something low in my stomach tightens when he walks straight toward us.