Burn Down the Night (Everything I Left Unsaid #3)- Molly O'Keefe Page 0,109
leave. And I wasn’t going to leave those kids. Not with Lagan.”
“You’re so brave,” I said, feeling so cowardly.
“If I am, it’s because you showed me how.” She pressed her forehead to mine and I sighed, feeling like I was being put back together in some way.
“I’m sorry I made you go there,” I breathed. “I’m sorry I left you there to do this alone.”
“Olivia,” Jennifer pulled me into her arms. Her hug was even different. Sharper. Harder. Ferocious. Like she knew how fragile we all were and how hard you had to hold on to keep things from falling apart. “Please stop blaming yourself for everything. You kept us alive and safe against impossible odds more times than I can count.”
“Well, I think the odds are no longer in our favor.”
“They never have been,” Jennifer said, smiling at me a little. “That’s never stopped us before. When things get tough, we get tougher. Remember?”
“I remember,” I sighed like I was simply resigned to being tougher. Jennifer smiled and put her head on my shoulder and I hugged her to me. My hand, stroking her hair. This was familiar and beloved. And so, so missed. “I’ve missed you,” I whispered into her hair.
“I missed you, too. So much.”
“Have you searched this place for anything we could use as a weapon?”
“Yep. There’s some fertilizer spray, but the container is empty.”
“Can we wiggle out the window?”
“Locked.”
“We could break the glass—”
“He’s right outside, Olivia.”
“Yeah…I guess you’re right.”
“There’s two of us now,” she said. “So I figure our odds are improving.”
“True. And Max is coming.”
We made ourselves as comfortable as we could on the riding mower, and we sat there, with Jennifer’s head on my shoulder, hands clasped for a long time.
“What’s the story with this Max guy?”
I laughed. “You want to talk about my love life, now?”
Her head whipped up and she stared at me with her mouth open. “Love life?”
Oh Lord, I could feel myself blushing.
“Oh my God, are you in love with an outlaw biker? And you always gave me such a hard time about my boyfriends.” She squealed like the twenty-something she was underneath all the damage I’d brought down on her head.
“He’s not my boyfriend and he’s not a biker anymore.” I didn’t think. “And I’m not…in…love.”
“So what are you in?”
I’m in trust. Like. Care.
All the shit I’d warned Max not to feel for me. All the things I didn’t want to feel for him.
I felt every unbearable inch of it.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I’ve never felt like this before. I don’t quite know what to call it.”
“Is he really going to come for you?”
“Yes,” I said, for better or worse, Max was coming for me. “And hopefully he’ll bring Aunt Fern’s boyfriend with him. And perhaps a small army of FBI agents and local law enforcement.”
“Hold on now, Aunt Fern has a boyfriend?”
“I know, right?”
I explained Eric and what I’d been planning to do before she called me.
Jennifer nodded. “I managed to get a call to my contact before everything fell apart. I warned her that things were going south. So…maybe this isn’t as bad as it looks?”
She looked up at me as if wanting confirmation on this hope. Like she was asking me if it was okay to believe that we would be all right. And I’d been answering this question the same way our entire lives together. Taking her doubt and giving her my hope.
“What do you think?” I asked.
“I think we’re going to be okay,” she said.
“Me too.”
And now, for the first time in my life, we both had hope. Between the two of us, there was enough to go around.
I don’t know how long we sat like that. Long enough that the sun coming through the high window had shifted and cooled. My stomach growled.
“Man,” Jennifer sighed. “What I wouldn’t give for a big bowl of Aunt Fern’s tuna and grapes.”
I laughed, like she wanted me to. “There was some in the fridge when I left. Not even Max would eat it.”
“Fish and fruit, so delicious—”
The scrape of the lock interrupted her, and we both went silent, staring at the door. It opened and we blinked into the late-day sunshine.
“Let’s go, girls. Max just drove up.”
Jennifer and I shared one slightly frantic look as we climbed down from the riding mower. “That doesn’t sound like he showed up with an army,” she breathed.
I took her hand again and squeezed it, hoping she could feel my hope and confidence.