Chapter 27
VI
I’m lying against Sting. I don’t remember deciding to take a snooze, my body made the choice for me.
My back’s against his chest, his arm around my waist, his thumb tracing a slow line across my hip bone.
Armen is on the couch beside us, his hand resting on my ankle.
Rogue is on the floor, shoulders against the couch, head tipped back, eyes closed.
“The heron,” Sting says.
I go still. “Huh?”
“The city seal. The bird. You told Mara it was a heron. Your father told you.”
I didn’t tell Mara that in front of him. I told her in my room, behind my closed door, during one of a dozen conversations he was not invited to.
“Right,” I say, deciding to let it go. “Herons are patient. Eagles just have better PR. That’s what my dad says. Or used to say.”
Sting’s thumb keeps moving on my hip bone. Slow circles.
“That sounds like him,” Sting says. “Your father. That sounds like something he’d say.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. Because what he just said is the first time Sting has referred to my father as a person rather than a case file. A man who said things, who had a sense of humor, who existed beyond the memos and the contracts and the corruption he was surrounded by.
I press my back against his chest. Just enough that he’d feel it, and he pulls me closer.