I especially liked that she was getting on with Cy.
"Yeah, I told her."
"You gave her details," he went on, brows low as though that information made no sense whatsoever.
I felt a pang there, recognizing it as guilt. For being so selfish with my pain, for not sharing it with those who wanted to help shoulder the burden of it.
"One of these days, when it feels right, Cy, I'll give you details too."
Suddenly, it didn't seem impossible. It didn't even seem hard. I guess the first time was always the hardest. Now that that was out of the way, I knew the words would come easier.
And maybe each time I shared, it would bleed a little more of the pain away, make it easier to carry around with me.
"I'd like to hear it," he agreed, tone careful.
"Never thanked you," I went on, because the moment was right for this kind of thing. "You dropped your life, and I know you were out living it up, to come and be there for me. I never seemed like I appreciated it, and maybe I did resent it at times, but I do appreciate it. I don't know where I'd be if you and Wasp didn't keep pushing me."
His eyes looked deep for a long moment before - as was Cy's style - he pushed that away to let humor sink in. "Yeah, I hear Wasp is on her way up. Can you imagine her locked in here with all these guys? She'd have half of them in love with her, and half of them wanting to bash her brain in within a day or two."
The idea was funny for a moment before I realized the severity of the situation, the implications that her showing up could bring about.
"We should call her and tell her she can't come."
"Yeah, you try that," Cy suggested with a smirk.
"No, I mean it. I'd like to see her too. And I know she is worried about me. But if V gets even a whiff of a woman who is attached to us that isn't protected..."
"Shit. Is she even safe if she stays away though? V must be searching for us, must be trying to track down weak spots."
"Tell her to hang on the West coast for a while. She can get some sun, con some assholes, eat terrible bagels and complain to us endlessly about how she misses Jersey. She'll enjoy that. And I think that is far enough that she is out of V's reach. We'll set up a check-in system just to be safe. The best bet would be to pull her in, stick her at Hailstorm. But I don't think she would go for that."
Wasp never stopped moving for too long.
Even after her team members got locked down, she was still a free agent, still doing her thing, never letting herself be in one place for too long.
She would die in a cage.
And that was exactly what Hailstorm would be for her - a cage.
I couldn't ask her to do that.
"Hopefully this shit doesn't go on for too long," Cy went on, looking around the room, likely missing Reese. Reese who would have to have guards with her at the library from now on, who couldn't ever do her usual trips to The Creamery without a tail, whose life had just gone through a huge change because of her association with my brother.
That was a price all the women needed to pay to be with us.
I guess it said a fuck of a lot about how they felt about us to be willing to make those sacrifices, to take those risks, to join in a lifestyle full of uncertainty and possible violence.
It was wrong of us, perhaps, to even ask it of them.
But, sometimes, it felt like there was very little choice in the matter.
I felt that way now, with Rey. Even though she was in before she was fully in. Even though the choice had been made for her. I knew that, given enough time with her like we had been doing, I would have asked this of her someday. No matter how set I may have been on pushing her away for her own good. I knew it wouldn't have worked. She was in the night she slid out from under my truck.
All thanks to that goddamn kitten.
I didn't know much about feline care, but that fucking cat was going to have it all, live like a king.
He brought me to Rey.
For that, he could have the world, since that was what he had given to me.
"I know that look," Cyrus said, watching me with twitching lips.
"What look?"
"That 'holy shit, I just found the love of my life' look. Saw it in the mirror for months before I realized what it was."
Because he had been trying to be the good guy and just be friends with Reese because he knew she was too good for him.