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How easy life must be for things to be so simple. “When will Booker be back?”
“He should be already.” Wilde stops scrubbing and sets his hands on his knees. “Foley said he’s too busy though. That he’s enjoying it there. I swear, if he up and leaves the End for Dale, I …”
I smirk when he doesn’t finish. “You’ll what?” I mock. “Let him kick your ass in Peril again?”
Wilde grunts and turns his aggression back to my bloodstain. “He got lucky. Next time, he won’t.”
“You say that every time.”
“Yeah, and you said you were planning to help me. This is your blood.”
“Without a forensics kit, good luck proving it.”
“I don’t need to prove it. I saw it with my own eyes.”
I push off the wall and search the room. “That would never hold up in court.”
He ignores me, and I finally spot what I came here for. A stupid, ugly goose. And its wing, apparently. “I’m taking this.”
Wilde looks it over. “What is that?”
My future. My entire heart. The thing that’s going to make Sasha smile in a way that I’ll never be able to scrub from my mind but will forever be trying to replicate. “None of your business.”
“Right. Thanks for the help.”
I pause at the door on the way out and look back at him. “I told you what to do. It’s not my fault you wouldn’t accept my help.”
“With how prone this place is to wildfires, you can shove your suggestion.”
I tsk my tongue against my teeth. “So aggressive, Wilde. You should see someone about that.”
He scowls, but I leave, no longer interested in the conversation. We will never see eye to eye, and that probably should bother me, but Wilde’s opinion means so little in the scheme of things. He had no objections to Sasha staying here, so for now, things can continue as is.
But if his Hudson doesn’t follow through, and Old End is sold to people and those people invade our precious town, Wilde had better be prepared. I might not kill him, but I won’t need to.
There are other ways to take everything from someone.
Sasha made me see that.
When I get back to my house, I grab my sewing things and get to work on the goose. It’s the floppy kind with an absurdly long neck and eyes that creepily feel as though they’re watching you. This thing is going outside with Bob when we fuck in the house.
The whole time I’m working on it, it’s hard not to worry about Sasha. To not question where he is and whether he’s safe. Wilde’s been giving me updates on Antonio, and according to him, he’s still locked up, but Jeffrey is another matter. They had nothing to hold him on, unless Sasha is willing to testify that he was part of his kidnapping, but Sasha flat out refused to let Wilde tell the police about that.
One side of me was relieved that we wouldn’t have more outsiders poking around up here, but the other side of me will forever be worried Sasha made the wrong choice. Like Wilde trusts Hudson, I have to trust Sasha though. Proving we’re nothing but a pair of fools.
I get the goose finished and dinner on without Sasha returning home. I know there’s nothing wrong, but my anticipation of showing him the silly bird and just wanting to see him in general has me out of sorts. This isn’t usual behavior for me, and I hate it as much as I don’t.
I stalk around the house until I hear his footsteps on the front stairs. My heart does this weird swoop thing, and my gaze immediately darts to the goose lying on the table, second-guessing everything.
I gave Sasha so much of myself the other week, so much that he guessed what I was feeling before I even realized it, which shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s much smarter than I am.
He sighs as soon as he gets inside, the tension seeping from his limbs as a smile settles on his face. “Long day.”
“What happened?”
“Cookie Pickard almost took off the top of her finger while she was carving. It was a whole thing.” He stumbles straight for me and wraps his arms around my waist, all his body weight leaning against me. The way he relaxes so instantly when he gets home helps all of me relax as well. I’m lighter when he’s here.
“I fetched something that belongs to you today,” I say.
