Page 37 of Revive
The line wasn’t good. Sounded crackly, and she really hoped that wasn’t gunshots in the background.
“So?”
“Yes, I’m back with him. Are you making that a problem?”
She heard the sigh; it sounded like it’d come from his guts. “Of course not.”
“It’s been weeks, and this is what you’re finally calling me for?”
“Well, it’s big news, isn’t it?”
Okay, he maybe had a point. “Be happy for me.”
“I’m so happy for you.” He didn’t even try to disguise the cynicism in his voice.
“Ewan!”
“What? My cat’s in a cattery because of this dude—”
Retrospectively the gunshot sound was probably a van exhaust backfiring.
“Malice is in a cattery because she’s a malevolent beast and you fucked off to Africa to photograph shit and your free cat sitter is unavailable due to her job. Anyway, I thought Theo was collecting her.”
“Ah, but is he responsible enough to be trusted with a pet?”
If their youngest brother could manage to wander around Europe and get by wherever he landed, she was sure he could manage one supremely maleficent moggy. “Hey, remember when he decided it’d be fun to pit his pet tarantula against the other household pets?”
Ewan groaned. “And I hereby rest my case.”
The line fell quiet, Alle refusing to fill the void with idle chatter. There was a purpose to this call, she could feel the anticipated threat of it tingling away in the back of her brain.
“Princess—”
“Don’t fucking call me that.”
“Alle-cat—”
“Not much better.”
“I spoke to Flynn.”
And there it was. The whole purpose of this impromptu call. Silence for weeks and then this. “Whatever he had to say, I don’t care. I don’t want to hear it.”
“He really wants to talk to you.”
“Not happening. You remember what he did, right?”
“I do,” her elder brother said, “But—”
“There is no but. I haven’t had a change of heart. I’m not feeling magnanimous.” If anything, seeing the repercussions of what he’d done, close up, had left her even more pissed. And of course, they were having this conversation today. Today when she didn’t know what was going on. And Spook was hurting. And distractions were hard to come by. “You realise that wounds like that don’t magically knit. They leaving bloody great scars behind.”
“Princess, he’s not expecting—”
“I said stop calling me that.”
“—forgiveness. He just wants to talk.”
Talk in this context was a synonym forforgive me.
