Page 82 of Hell and High Water

The fact that we're all here, the fact that they're all willing to be here. With me. It makes my heart ache. Makes my stomach ache a little bit, too.

The idea that I should ever have to choose one of them… It's not something I'm prepared to face. And I hope it's something that we'll never have to face.

But I can hear Rachelle’s voice in the back of my head, my mother's voice, representing what I’m sure most people would say about our situation. “You can’t have everything you want.”

You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Especially three cakes.

But that's a problem for another day. For now, we dig in as the huge bear of a host lays out the plates of meat, tortillas, veggies, and sauces. This is beyond heavenly.

“Alright, so you guys clearly had a great time while I was out!” Tell complains, tromping back down the stairs after changing his clothes, admiring the spread of food. “I feel left out.”

“You really should.” Evan clicks his tongue.

“Asshole.”

“Assclown.”

“Don’t worry, Tell, only Gavin was allowed to touch.”

“HA!” Tell flicks Evan’s nose as he walks by, making Evan shake his head angrily at him.

“That's not the only thing you got left out of,” I snark, pointing to Gavin and Evan. “Apparently, these two got in a fight and got wasted last night. Care to share?”

Gavin gives Evan a look over his shoulder, stirring his pan absently.

“Fine. I’ll tell you.”

Evan dives into the tale, filling us in on the details of his discovery, the mansion, glossing over the mundane details of getting there and Gavin’s sweet jeep. Several times, I almost interrupt, eager to ask silly questions about any and everything.

Being out of the loop, stuck inside for so long, has me hankering for juicy details.

“I promise, I’ll give you the play by play tomorrow.” Gavin chuckles, patting my leg.

“So anyway, we drag the safe upstairs when whoever was using the mansion as a base of operations decided to intercede.”

“By intercede, he means kick him in the head.”

“Tried to shoot you too.”

“And kick me in the face. My knee is still killing me, too.” Gavin’s smile falters a little at this, his eyes flicking to the side. I’ll have to ask him about it later.

“The way you threw her into the wall… I was genuinely flabbergasted when she got back up.”

“I’m just glad that she wasn’t aiming to kill us.”

“She?” I ask, not bothering to keep the incredulity out of my voice.

“Apparently. A very vicious ‘she’.”

“What makes you think she wasn’t trying to kill you?” I ask, the thrill of the story making me jittery.

“She got the drop on us. Could have shot Evan instead of attacking him.”

“The spray of bullets at the end might disagree with you.”

“No way. If she had wanted to kill us, we’d be dead. Long story short, I think that’s our shooter.”

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