Page 18 of Paris and the Reaper

“It’s a good thing you’re out. Any humans should be.”

Like his best friends, who had also claimed a spot in his worried heart last night. They were the other reason he’d asked Liam to bring him out to the coast. As his unwitting accomplice found out as soon as they stepped onto the ocean cliffs, the waves pounding below. “I need to borrow your phone,” Paris said, his hand out.

“You know the rules.”

“Look, you and Mac have this whole network to keep us protected, to watch our backs. My friends only have me, and for years, they were the only ones who had mine. They don’t have the means or money to just get out of YB. Not everyone has the privilege to flee a war zone.” Paris intended to flex his privilege, to offer Jason and Kai a means out, assuming he could get his hands on his trust fund still. And assuming his friends would take the offered help, unlike every other time he’d offered in the past. But he still had to try, especially with the stakes so high now.

Liam looked back the direction of the cabin, up and down the deserted beach, at the crashing waves below, before finally turning his knowing gaze back to Paris. “That’s why we came out here, isn’t it? So Mac wouldn’t hear you.”

“In part, though I really did need to see the water.”

“Fuck,” Liam said as he slapped the phone into his hand. “He’s got his hands full with you.”

Paris didn’t think too hard on what Liam meant, instead turning on his heel and punching in Kai’s number.

“Hello?” his friend answered.

“Kai, it’s me, Paris.”

“Paris—fuck,” he cursed, voice lowered. If Paris had to guess, his friends had fallen asleep cuddled together, as was their way. The snick of a closing door, Kai’s voice back to normal volume when he spoke again, confirmed as much. “We’ve been worried.”

“I’m fine. Are you and Jason?—”

“We’re good, but Paris, there’s something I need to tell you.”

By the appropriately somber tone of his words, Paris knew where this was going. He spared Kai the trouble. “My father’s dead, I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s weird.” He spoke freely with his friend who knew as much about him and his circumstances, about the abuse his father had regularly doled out, as anyone. “I appreciate it, because I know you mean that condolence for me, not because he’s actually gone, but ... I’m not sorry, Kai. I don’t know where I go from here, what it means to be the only one of my family left...” The heir, another thread that had kept him awake, a convo he needed to have with Mac and Liam. But it didn’t change the basic premise, the underlying relief he felt, the same kind of calm he got from staring out at the wide expanse of the ocean. “I’m not sorry he’s gone. I’m not sorry that we’re all safer for it.”

“Are you?” Kai asked. “Safe? Wherever you are...”

He glanced over his shoulder, catching sight of Liam strategically positioned to watch his back. “I’m safe, and I want you and Jason to be too.”

“We’ll be fine. I’m keeping an ear out at the club, and I get paid middle of the month. Jason was talking about some job too. We’ll get enough money to get out before the seventeenth if we need to.”

“I can send you money now.”

“Thank you, but we’ll manage.”

As he’d expected. And he apparently didn’t have time to argue either, Liam making a wrap it up gesture. Another car was pulling into the lot where theirs was parked, and them being seen out here probably defeated the point of being in hiding. “Fuck, I need to go. Listen, if you or Jason need me, I’m in Calera. About a mile past the ocean road motel, there’s a road that leads up the hill, away from the beach and into the forest. We’re the last cabin on the road. If you need backup, if you need anything, you come to me.”

“You do too much for us.” Kai’s voice was as gentle and earnest as he was. He really was the best of them.

“I wish you’d let me do more. Love you both.”

“Love you too.”

He hung up and returned the phone to Liam. “Thank you. That was important to me. They’re important to me. I needed to make that call.”

“You’re welcome. Now let’s go before my brother sends out a search party.”

One last, longing stare at the water, one giant inhale of salty ocean air, then Paris turned on his heel and followed Liam back to the car so he could get back to the forest and the soul waiting for him there.

TEN

Mac was sittingon the front stoop when Liam pulled the car into the driveway. Barefoot, in the same wrinkled slacks and shirt he’d fallen asleep in, Mac clearly hadn’t changed, and judging by the wild state of his black hair, he’d spent every minute since waking plowing his hands through it.

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