Page 62 of Clubs

“What did I say to you last night?” she asked. “I don’t remember it. I vaguely remember getting drunk at Spades. Kinda remember you helping me shower?” Her cheeks burned brighter at that last bit. “But I don’t remember much else.”

“You told me you love me.” I smiled when I said that, and her smile dropped. Not like she was ashamed, but like she was embarrassed. This next part would only embarrass her more. “You told me why it’s so hard for you to say that. ‘I love you,’ I mean. And I get it now. It was nice to hear it, but you don’t have to say it again. If it’s too hard for you, I understand. I’ll settle for my, ‘you too.’ The occasional, ‘same here.’”

Brooke laughed. “I do. You know I do, right?”

Until last night, no, I hadn’t. Well, I had. Until Emory had pointed out that she never said it and made me question everything. But… “Yeah, I do.”

She smiled a little bigger. “I’m gonna work on it. Talking more. Opening up to you. I know I’m not good at it, but I’m—”

Leaning in, I cut her off with a kiss. It was long, hard, and slow. Deep. Not passionate and fiery, but powerful and soothing.

When I finally pulled back, resting my forehead against hers, staring into those crystal blue eyes, I shook my head. “You don’t need to. Not until you’re ready. But not because I’m going anywhere, alright? It stresses me out that you don’t communicate as well as I do. But I don’t want you to think that I’m going anywhere. I’m not gonna leave you just because we work a little different than everybody else. I love you no matter what, sweetheart. I’m not leaving you.”

I repeated that so many times to get it through her head.

It seemed to have done the trick, because her eyes twinkled with tears. Like that was exactly what she needed to hear. That I mattered as much to her she did to me. That we were both broken, and fucked up, and no good at this. We both sucked at relationships, probably because neither of us had seen healthy ones. But we would figure it out. Because this was real.

Words weren’t, but this was.

After a few heartbeats, she pulled away, blinking. As if I hadn’t already seen the tears. Clearing her throat, she stood. “We should hurry. We need to get that body burned ASAP.”

What a wonderful ending to a beautiful moment.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

BROOKE

Over the rest of the day, we finalized the plan.

There was another car parked outside now. The one Alicia’s neighbors had described with the fancy wheels. So we teleported to Alicia’s house and planted a few of her belongings in it. Could they prove it was the car that was used to transport her body? No, absolutely not. But it would prove that she had, in fact, been here.

There really wasn’t much that could be done about the body. It had to go, and that was that. So we burned it. Regular fire wasn’t hot enough to turn a body to ash, but we were Witches. We weren’t using gasoline. We used a spell, one that turned Davey’s body to ash within less than ten minutes.

The longest part was waiting for the smell of burned flesh to dissipate so Declan could get a good scent and search for blood droplets. Davey’s, Ria’s, and Emory’s. From what I could tell, Emory hadn’t lost a drop. But, here we were. Making progress. Covering up a murder.

When we were finished, it was almost seven. Declan did another walk through the house, just to check again for scents. Emory and Ria looked all over for fingerprints we may have missed. Then, for good measure, we took Davey’s severed hands and slathered them all over everything. Clasped the fingers around an empty glass on the countertop. The door handles. The refrigerator, the sink handle, all over the countertops, all over everything that Declan and I had touched yesterday, just to be certain that we didn’t miss anything.

By eight, we were as close to certain as we could be. With a spell, we had regrown the patch of burned soil in the yard. Alicia’s belongings were inside Davey’s car. The dead girl was now tied to the drug dealer’s—her true murderer’s—house.

And with that, we did not got home. We went to the middle of the city and found a pay phone. The cops were now familiar with my voice, Declan’s and Emory’s as well, but they didn’t know Ria’s. So, she called the local PD and put in an anonymous tip.

“Alicia Tanner, she was my friend,” she said, not having to pretend to make her voice tremble. “We worked together. On the streets, I mean. She got caught up with some guy. He started as her dealer, and then he became more than that. Her clientele became his, if you know what I mean. He didn’t like when she worked without him. I think he’s the one who killed her. His name’s Davey Johnson.” She listed the address, and then she hung up.

Walking up beside her, I rested a hand on her back. “You did good.”

She did her best to form a smile. Sniffling, she cleared her throat. “Anybody down for breakfast before we start calling rehabs?”

“I’ll make it,” Emory said. “Let’s go back to Spades.”

* * *

While we ate, I scoured a few of my spell books. It wasn’t the worst thing if she went to rehab looking the way she did, but if I could ease some of Ria’s pain before then, that would be preferable. Sure enough, I found something just as Declan was clearing the table. I didn’t have all of the ingredients on hand, so I had to teleport back to my house to grab them.

But, within an hour, Ria was almost back to normal, awaiting a ride from the rehab center at 5 PM. Her lips were still a bit swollen, but the blue and black around her eyes had mostly faded. Now, they were only discolored because of the withdrawals. She still had a small cut along her forehead, but it was smaller than it had been. The boys had left the room as I finished up, so I thought it was time I addressed the bit that Declan had mentioned this afternoon. Of course, I had to ease my way into that one. “I’m so proud of you.”

She smiled. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“You don’t give yourself enough credit.” Tucking some hair behind her ear, I returned the smile. “But once we get you checked in and everything, once we get you settled, I don’t want you to end up here again.”

---