smiled. “Do you know what extortion is?”
He looked up at me with a tilt of his head. “No?”
“Sometimes, people do bad things, like me when I left you and made you sad, and sometimes that means that good people, like you, can hold that over the bad person’s head to get a few things they want,” I explained.
“It sounds like that would make me a bad person too,” Gus replied.
“Well, yes, in most situations, but in this very specific situation, no. I deserve to feel guilty for hurting you and upsetting you, and you deserve to be spoiled a little bit because I did those things. So anytime you want something, you just call and extort me for it.”
At that, Gus finally cracked a little smile. “The new game in that series we were just playing came out.”
“Then I’m buying it for you,” I said. “Can you download it directly?”
His smile widened. “Yeah, but will you play it with me?”
I nodded. “I promise I will, but I can’t do it right now. I’ll get it for you right now, but I have a few more people I have to apologize to. You weren’t the only one I hurt.”
“Will they get to use the extortion thing with you too?” he asked, and I laughed.
“Probably,” I said, then I opened my arms, and Gus flopped forward out of his chair, onto his knees, and into a hug. “I love you, kid.”
“I love you too.”
“I’ll never, ever do that to you again, okay?” I said.
“Okay.”
He pulled back, and I pushed him back into his chair. “This summer, I’m going to be living with my friends, but I’ll visit you whenever you want, and my friend has a massive pool with a slide. I bet you could come over for some awesome pool parties.”
“Yeah!” Gus yelped.
“I’m already on it.” I stood up and kissed him on his forehead. “Okay, go find the game and I’ll buy it.”
I spent a little bit of extra time with Gus, letting him show me the beginning of his game and making sure he felt extra loved, then I gave him a final kiss on the forehead and left, promising to be back soon. He saw me out with a smile, then I swung through the kitchen to give each of my parents a final kiss and goodbye. I returned to my car. It’d already been a long day, but I felt much better than I did at the beginning of the day. Ciara had been taken care of, my parents and Gus had forgiven me.
All that was left was The Royal Court—but for that, I’d need backup.
“Yello?” I smiled at the familiar sound of Sicily’s voice. I might have liked to see him in person, but the day was running short, so a phone call would have to suffice to get his help.
“Hi.”
“Hey!” Sicily squealed. “I haven’t heard your voice in a whole week. You get your old friends back and suddenly you’re too good for your old pal, Sicily?”
“You know that’s not true,” I replied. “I’ve mostly been sleeping.”
“I’m just yankin’ your chain. No one can quit ol’ Sic,” he responded.
Sicily had been my only friend through the past six months. Given that he and Deon became close in the time that Deon was at Postings Proper High before disappearing again, when Deon did go missing, Sicily was just as frustrated as I was. He too believed that Deon was still alive and out there, and we had been working together to try and find him. Though we’d had no luck, we developed quite the bond in the interim, and now I considered Sicily one of my closest friends.
“I just finished apologizing to my parents and Gus,” I said. “It went way better than I thought it would.”
“Glad to hear it. You headed to Nathan’s now?” he asked.
“Yeah, and I was hoping you could meet me there? I know they were my friends before, but they’ve all changed so much in the past six months that it feels like I’m walking into a house of strangers. It’d be nice to have a familiar face there.”
He snickered. “Aw man, you know I’ve got you covered. I’ve missed ya anyway, so let’s take on The Royal Court together, girl!”
My smile grew, even if Sicily wasn’t there with me. “Thanks, Sic.”
“No problem. I’ll leave in the next five minutes here. See you soon.”
“Yeah. Bye.”
I hung up my phone and started up my car, but I waited a bit to leave.