Return to the Darkness - Ripley Proserpina Page 0,31

could say this right. “It’s like, if I think of myself as a teenager. That girl is still me. I’m still her. But I’m not. She’s inside me. One version of me. Just like whoever I was as a child. Or even a toddler. I didn’t make those versions of myself never happen. I just sort of absorbed them.” I’d probably fucked that up. “Clear as mud?”

Reaching for my hands, he nodded and smiled. “It actually makes sense. And I can live with it. It’s more the thought of knowing I had this moment with you, and having to live this version of my life with that knowledge that makes me sick.”

His phone rang, and he ignored it. Then it rang again. And again. He sighed and stepped away. “Hold on. What?” he barked into the phone.

Poor Susan. That woman should get hazard pay.

Colton’s eyes widened. “Okay. Let him in.”

Hanging up the phone, he swallowed hard. “What is it?” I asked.

There was a knock on the door and right before it opened, he answered me. “Thorn.”

The man standing at the door stared at me. “I don’t believe it.”

An interested looking Susan peered over his shoulder. Colton stepped forward, grabbed Thorn’s arm, pulled him inside, and slammed the door.

I stared at my oldest friend, my gaze traveling over him. “Aaron said you were the football coach. He didn’t tell me you were the entire team.”

Thorn’s shoulders and arms stretched the limit of his cotton shirt. He was massive, like he worked out seven days a week and then threw a full-grown steer over his shoulder and did squats with it just for funsies.

“I didn’t believe him.” He strode toward me. His gaze cut to Colton quickly and then away, as if he couldn’t be bothered with his other friend. “But it’s true.”

“Ta-da.” The weight of so many I’m-not-dead reveals was starting to get to me. I was messing up these guys’ lives, whatever I thought of them, and changing everything. The irony of being the Mr. Chee of this reality wasn’t lost on me.

He held out his massive arms and wrapped me up tight. His heart pounded a mile a minute under my cheek, and his breath billowed out of his lungs like he’d run a race. “For a guy who’s as fit as you, you shouldn’t be out of breath.” Here came the awkward jokes. “You need to add cardio between your weight days.”

He snorted and kissed the top of my head. “Holy shit, Lace. Holy shit.” Holding my shoulders, he pushed me away. “You’re here to fuck with everything, aren’t you?”

That was funny, and I smirked. The Thorn of my now would never say that to me. But the Thorn from high school? The one who had been insecure when he got back about his place in my life? Yeah… he was still in this Thorn.

“You know me, Thorn. I like to fuck everything up every chance I get.”

His smile was huge. “I’m never going to understand how this works. Way above my head.”

“Really?” I lifted an eyebrow. “Because in my reality, you’re totally a rich tech god. But you can handle what I have to do now.” I brushed against him just because I could. “I’ve lost the stones that I need to get back to my timeline. Colton,” I looked over my shoulder. “Can you still break into a house?”

He blinked. “Was that something I could do?”

Okay. Not him.

There was a knock on the door. Aaron rocked back and forth in the doorway, as if waiting for permission to enter, while Oliver leaned against the wall. Some things were the same. Oliver was a great leaner.

Oliver lifted his hand. “I can. Break into a house, I mean. I can’t guarantee I won’t get caught. I tend to get caught when I do things. But I could break in.”

I nodded. “We won’t let you get caught. You have us. We’re a really good team. We beat back a hag—not an old lady—that’s ageist. A creepy nightmare creature. It was really something.” I smiled. I never could have predicted those would be memories I would like.

“Then what?” Colton asked, still not having moved. “What will you do after you’ve got them?”

That was a good question, and unfortunately there was really only one answer I could give. “I’m going to ask Mr. Chee. He got me into this mess, and so help me, he’s going to get me out of it.”

And if he were very lucky, when I got home,