Conclave (Devil's Night 3.5)

I toss the sandwich down on the counter, filling up another glass of water. I have to get this taste out of my mouth.

“Winter’s pregnant again, isn’t she?” Rika asks, taking another bite.

“How did you know?”

She shrugs. “She’s been tired. Nauseous.”

Well, that explains why she took the cameras offline then. She didn’t want me to see.

Rika leans on the counter, her eyes downcast as she plays with the rest of her sandwich. Her throat moves up and down as she swallows and then her jaw flexes like she’s deep in thought.

I take a drink and then dump out the rest of the water. “What?”

She darts her eyes up. “Nothing.”

But she’s not convincing. She’s thinking something.

“What?” I grit out again.

But she fires back. “Nothing.”

Her gaze falls to her sandwich again, and I decide to leave it. She knows how to solve her problems.

Which reminds me…

“While we’re on the subject, I want you married before you have his child.”

She laughs at me. “You want?”

I nod. “Kai married Banks in a day. What’s taking so long?”

It was a little different when she was just my friend’s girlfriend, but things have changed.

“You’re not married to Winter yet, either.”

“Winter and I are waiting for Will to come home,” I point out.

“Yeah, me, too,” she quickly replies, as if latching onto the first viable excuse I was stupid enough to give her.

But that’s not it. I know it’s not it. They’ve been engaged for a while, and Will only left town about a year ago. At first, I thought it was Michael. His schedule, his obligations, etc.

I’m not sure it’s his fault anymore, though. What’s going on with her?

I watch her play with her bread, remembering the first time we were alone in a kitchen together. I had to be fifteen. She saw me, stopped breathing, and left as quickly as possible.

Now she rarely makes a move without my knowledge or input.

“You know what a papal conclave is?” I ask.

She shakes her head a little. “Um, kind of, I guess.”

I slide my hands into my pockets and lean against the fridge. “When it’s time to elect a new pope, every cardinal in the college of cardinals under the age of eighty is locked in a room until they can come to an agreement on who the new pope will be,” I explain. “They started doing this, because eight-hundred years ago, it took three years to choose a new pope due to political infighting. People don’t solve problems if they’re not forced to face them, you know? Now, the cardinals are led into the Sistine Chapel, there’s a shout of ‘extra omnes’ meaning ‘everyone out’, and the doors are chained shut, locking them in until they solve the problem.”

We might not make the best decisions under pressure, but you can’t make a decision at all when you’re not talking about it.

She sits there, the wheels in her head turning. “Conclave,” she murmurs to herself.

“It’s a good idea when you’ve got things to settle, you know?”