Conclave (Devil's Night 3.5)

She tightens her arms around me.

“But then…I might never have become friends with you,” she tells me. “My path with you and the guys might never have crossed, and I wouldn’t have a family.”

Her chest shakes under me, and my lungs swell. I feel her heavy breathing, and I know she’s tearing up.

“I need Will back, Rika,” she whispers.

I lift my head, resting my chin on her chest and seeing her eyes glisten.

She purses her lips to keep her emotions in check, but eventually, she explains, “I love you and Banks and Winter and the guys, but…Will gets it.”

I stare at her, my heart breaking a little. Alex puts on a good show, but how easily it never occurred to me how much she was

missing him. All the time Damon wasn’t around, Alex was there for Will.

And we always looked at it like that, too. Alex is with Will. Alex is taking care of Will. Alex keeps Will company.

But none of that was really true. She hung onto him just as much as he hung onto her.

“He didn’t deserve you,” I tell her. “Your roommate’s boyfriend.”

She stares at me for a moment, looking a little pained, but then she lets out a sigh and forces a smile.

“Yeah, no one does,” she jokes. “Not for less than five hundred an hour anyway.”

I give her a pointed look at her sudden change in demeanor. “Alex…”

But she rolls us over and the next thing I know, her head is on my chest. “Rub my head now,” she demands.

I pause there, aggravated she’s changing the subject and putting up that façade again, but she holds me, dressed in her tank and underwear, and swings a long, naked leg over me. I let out a quiet laugh. Hiding behind playfulness. Will does that, too.

I start to rub her head, but then the cabin door opens, and we both look over, seeing Banks standing in the doorway.

She stops dead, her eyebrows nearly reaching her hairline as she catches us in our little, cuddly embrace.

Her mouth forms an O, and she starts to back out, closing the door.

“Get in here,” I call out. “We’re not doing anything.”

For crying out loud.

She stops, a half-smile curling her lips and she comes back in, closing the door behind her.

“And get that constipated look off your face,” Alex says.

Banks heads over to the bed, dressed in some workout clothes, same as me, but her hair is down. “Brat,” she spits out.

Laying at my side, she joins me in giving Alex a scalp massage, except Banks’ massage looks more like how you rub a dog’s head, curling her fingers and lightly scratching.

“Stop that,” Alex barks at her. “I hate you.”

Banks and I both start to laugh. She has like fifty-eight dogs—okay, not that many, but a lot—so petting probably comes naturally to her.

I glance at Banks. “Mads okay?”

“Yup,” she says. “At your mom’s with the nannies, and hopefully Ivarsen by now, too.”

Awesome. My mom is in baby heaven lately. Kai’s mom, Vittoria, and her happily walking the streets of Thunder Bay and buying all the things for their grandsons. I’m surprised Ivarsen doesn’t have a car already. You know, just for when he’s ready.