Page 112 of Savannah Royals
“Lighten up, Kat.” He chuckles. “I’m teasing.”
I manage a small smile, then sigh. “So what’s your plan? For…extraction, did you call it?”
“There’s the job, for one, and I’m getting a place of my own downtown. I toured a spot I like this morning, actually. I may sign the papers this weekend, just in case. Then there’s my relationship with you, but I think we’re going to be fine.”
“We will be,” I whisper.
“I’ve been talking to Tony too. Trying to nudge him in the same direction, because the implosion is coming. It’s only a matter of time.”
“I don’t want things to change.”
“Things were always gonna change, Kat. We just thought it would be a different kind of change. That you’d come back here to us after you finished at the Academy, screwing Paul every other night so we’d have to buy earplugs. That kind of change.”
“I really made a messof things, huh?”
“No, you didn’t. You made the best choice you could for yourself. I told you before Christmas this life wasn’t built to last. It’s been great, a real rush, but you and I can’t be climbing up buildings and sliding down drainpipes forever.”
“I probably have a few more years left in me, if I want to,” I observe.
“Maybe, maybe not. But you don’thaveto. Whether you realize it or not, you’ve been working on an extraction plan too. Matthew is a good man. He’ll treat you right. Better than Paul, in the long run.”
“Paul always treated me fine.” I feel oddly defensive.
“You really think so? You think sharing you with me when he was feeling adventurous equates to taking care of you? Matthew’s not interested in sharing, right? He wants all of you.”
“That’s not fair,” I say, frowning. “Paul was only willing to share me withyou. It was an exception, not the rule.”
“And lying to you about moving drugs? Using you for jobs when it was convenient for him? Without listening to your concerns when you didn’t feel good about it—like the Magpie hit? You think that equates to taking care of you?”
“There were problems, of course, but I still care about him. He’s not a bad person, so don’t vilify him.”
“I’m not. Paul is one of my best mates, but he never fully appreciated what he had with you. Now it’s time to face the music. Remember the bedtime adventure story we used to read when we were kids,Peter and Wendy?” He looks at me, and I nod. “How does it end, Kat?”
I’m silent.
“Peter loses Wendy.”
The words fill me with terrible sadness, but Abe isn’t wrong.
“I’m not one of Peter’s Lost Boys any longer,” he continues. “I’m not going down with this ship when it sinks. I hope you don’t plan to either.”
“Believe me, I don’t.”
“Didyouhaveagood day, darling?” I ask as Matthew steps into his kitchen after a shift that evening.
“I did.” Amusement flickers in the lift of his brow. “Are you cooking?”
“I am. I’m trying my hand at domesticity.” I step back from the stove and cock my hip. I’m wearing a horrifically frilly apron I found shoved away in one of his cupboards. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s the culmination of every fantasy I’ve ever had about you.” He laughs. “Although, if I truly had my druthers, you’d be wearing the apron and nothing else.”
I laugh and return to the stove, stirring in the pot, around and around, as Matthew trots over.
“So what’s for supper, my darling domestic Katarina?”
“Buttered noodles.”
“Dilly. Super domestic. They teach you that at the Academy?”
