16. Lilah #2
"She was very good at making things difficult for people who deserved to have things made difficult."
The corner of his mouth lifts. "I think I'd have liked her."
I smile because I know exactly what Lucy would make of the man sitting beside me.
"She would've loved you."
"Yeah?"
"Within thirty seconds, she'd call you my brooding biker boyfriend. And then she'd call you that for the rest of your life," I add. "Birthdays, Christmas cards, probably our wedding."
Kai's eyes flick to mine. I realize what I've said, and he definitely notices what I've said.
I clear my throat. "Anyway."
His mouth starts to curve.
"Don't."
"Didn't say anything."
"You were about to."
"Wasn't."
I give him a look.
He laughs, and I shove at his chest with my good hand.
"She would've been worse than you."
"Sounds like Venom."
I gasp. "Don't ever say that at her grave."
That makes him laugh harder.
Somehow, I end up laughing too, sitting there with tears still drying on my face while I tell him about the time Lucy got barred from a pub for climbing behind the bar to pour her own drink because the bartender was taking too long.
This is what I want to keep from today: Lucy making trouble, Kai laughing, and me getting to talk about my sister without the worst thing that happened to her being the only thing I remember.
Marcus is still in custody. I haven't asked for every detail, but Ghost keeps me updated on the things he thinks I should know.
Marcus got himself a lawyer and started talking almost immediately, giving them everything he had on Evan, including information that helped close Lucy's case and several others they'd never been able to connect to him.
He's cooperating, but he's also facing charges of his own. Kai asked me once if I wanted to see him.
I didn't answer straight away, but for the next day or so, the question kept coming back at odd moments: while I was making coffee, standing in the shower, trying to fall asleep.
I thought about what I'd say if Marcus was sitting across from me, whether I'd ask him why he helped Evan for so long, or if he ever thought about me when he was following me through Boston.
I even thought about thanking him for what he did in that room. In the end, none of it felt like something I needed.
"No," I told Kai the next evening.
He looked over from the couch. "You sure?"
"Yeah."
That was it.
Marcus helped me get out of that farmhouse alive, and I'm grateful he finally saw his brother for what he was, but it doesn't undo everything that came before it. He followed me for months. He learned my routine, planted a listening device in my home, and helped Evan take me.
Whatever Marcus has to make peace with now belongs to him. I don't need to help him do it.
Louise is standing inside the door of Petals when I arrive for my first shift back.
She looks at me, then at the clock on the wall. "You're two minutes late."
I stop with one hand still on the door. "We don't open until nine."
"You're usually here at eight forty-five."
"It's eight forty-seven."
"Exactly." She steps aside and gestures impatiently for me to get inside. "If you make a habit of it, I'm taking it out of your lunch break."
I stare at her, her expression doesn't change. A laugh escapes me before I can stop it, and something in her face softens. Then she points toward the back. "I've got three deliveries waiting and Cara ordered far too many roses again."
"I heard that," Cara calls from somewhere behind the shelves.
"Good."
I close the door behind me. My coffee is sitting beside the till. I pick it up and take a sip. Louise is already halfway to the flower buckets, fussing with something that doesn't need fussing with. "Thanks."
She waves a hand without looking at me. "It's coffee, Lilah."
I take another sip and follow her into the back. The first hour is harder than I expected. Every time the door opens, I tense up.
The first man who walks in makes my stomach tighten before I can stop it. He's about seventy, wants an anniversary bouquet for his wife, and spends ten minutes arguing with Louise because she tells him carnations are not romantic.
By ten, I'm laughing. By eleven, I'm elbow-deep in greenery, trying to fix a sympathy arrangement that refuses to sit the way I want it to, and I realize I haven't looked at the door in nearly an hour. I pause with the scissors in my hand, acknowledge it, then I go back to the flowers.
Three days later, the bell above the door rings while I'm at the workbench.
I glance up automatically. Kai.
He's barely two steps inside before I smile.
He catches it. Of course he does.
"Hey."
"Hey."
He walks over and leans one forearm against the counter, pretending there is absolutely nothing unusual about him appearing in the middle of my shift.
"Need flowers?"
"No."
"Card?"
"No."
"Balloon?"
His eyes narrow. "Do I look like I need a balloon?"
"I don't know, you haven't told me why you're here yet."
"I was passing."
"Your clubhouse is twenty minutes in the other direction."
"I took the scenic route."
"Of course you did."
I go back to the arrangement in front of me. I don't mind him checking on me. I think he knows that. He's quiet for a moment and when I look up again, he's staring at the flowers in my hands.
Sunflowers. His expression has changed, not much, but I see it.
"You okay?" I ask.
His eyes move to mine. "Was about to ask you the same thing."
I look down. My fingers are wrapped around one of the stems and for a second, I see a completely different kitchen. Lucy standing at the sink on a Saturday morning with a bunch of sunflowers she'd bought at the market, complaining because one of them had a bent stem.
She bought them almost every week. Always too many for the one vase we owned, so the extras ended up in old jam jars around the flat.
Once, she leaned so far into a bunch checking whether one had opened properly that she came away with pollen on the end of her nose.
She refused to believe me until I took a picture. I still have that picture.
"Lucy loved these." Kai doesn't say anything. "She used to buy them on Saturdays. Every fucking Saturday, even when we were broke."
I turn the stem in my hand and tuck it into the arrangement. "Evan knew that."
"Yeah."
"That's why he used them." Kai's jaw tightens and I reach for another. "But they were hers first." His eyes stay on me. I adjust the flower until it sits where I want it. "He doesn't get to take them too."
"No," Kai says quietly. "He doesn't."
And with that, the arrangement is complete.
"Are you ever going back to your apartment?"
Kai lowers the paper enough to look at me over the top of it. We're at the kitchen table after dinner, and I've been watching him pretend to read the same page for at least five minutes.
"Probably."
"When?"
He thinks about it. "Need more socks eventually."
I snort and his paper goes back up.
I look around the apartment. His boots are beside mine at the door.
His cut is over the arm of the couch, his phone charger has permanently replaced mine beside the bed and there are now two different kinds of coffee in my cupboard because apparently mine is unacceptable.
There's a pile of his washing in the bedroom, his shampoo is in my shower, and his toothbrush is beside mine.
The only thing that hasn't moved in is his clothes, and that's mainly because they're close enough for him to walk across the hall whenever he needs something, although the pile here continues to grow. He hasn't slept in his apartment once since the farmhouse. I don't want him to.
The realization isn't new. I've known it for a while; I just haven't said it out loud.
"Move in."
The paper lowers again, this time, going all the way to the table. "What?"
"You heard me."
His eyes search my face. "You sure?"
"Your shit is already everywhere."
"Lilah."
"I'm serious."
"So am I."
I look at him. There isn't a joke in his expression now. "Yeah," I say. "I'm sure."
He watches me for another second before pushing his chair back and coming around the table.
"What are you doing?"
He takes my coffee out of my hand and puts it down.
"Kai…"
His hands settle at my waist, and he pulls me to my feet. "You just asked me to move in with you."
"Technically, I told you."
His mouth twitches. "Bossy."
"Apparently you like it."
"Apparently I fucking do."
He kisses me. I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back, laughing when he lifts me just enough that my toes leave the floor.
"Shoulder," I remind him.
He immediately puts me down. "Sorry."
"I'm fine."
His hand comes up to my face and his thumb moves across my cheek. "Yeah," he says.
"Yeah?"
"I'm moving in."
I smile. "Good."
"Tomorrow."
My eyes widen. "Tomorrow?"
"Before you change your mind."
"I'm not going to change my mind."
"Still doing it tomorrow."
I laugh and kiss him again.
Later, when we're getting ready for bed, my gaze is drawn to the chair at the kitchen table, my chair. The one I've used since I moved here. For three years, I chose that seat because it’s against the wall and I could see the front door from it.
I used to know exactly how many steps it would take me to reach the hallway, which window I'd use if someone came through the door, and where my keys were before I sat down. Tonight, I sat there through dinner and didn't look at the door once. I was too busy watching Kai pretend to read his paper.
I don't move the chair. Maybe one day I will, maybe I won't. It doesn't really matter anymore.
The Sunday barbecue isn't officially for anything.
According to Kai, this is just what happens when the weather is decent, someone buys too much food and enough of the brothers are around to turn lunch into an all-day thing.
By the time we pull into the clubhouse, the parking lot is packed with bikes and a couple of cars, and there are kids everywhere.
Kai kills the engine; I climb off behind him and pull off my helmet as a little boy tears past us between two bikes.
"Should he be doing that?"
"Nope."
"Are you going to stop him?"
"Nope."
I look at Kai.