on a plate, seasoned, ready for the grill.
I came behind him, tucked my front into his back, and wrapped my arms around him. He leaned into me.
“Are you okay?” He’d asked it fifty times today already.
“Yes, and yes, and yes,” I said, but lightly.
He chuckled. “I know. I’m sorry. It’s more than the accident. You’ve had a tough time lately. The Charlotte thing, I guess?”
“I am fine. Davis. We all are. I promise.” I spoke into his shirt, my eyes pricking with grateful tears. I was a damn good liar, but he’d still sensed something bubbling around under my surface. His sweetness made me squeeze him tighter, drop a kiss between his shoulder blades. “Where’s Mads?”
“Not in the basement, I can tell you that,” Davis said, so wry that I knew Luca must be over. “She’s there. Where I can see her.” He pointed out the window.
I leaned around so I could see. The two of them were sitting in the big hanging swing on the patio, deep in solemn conversation. Luca still looked shaken. His mother really had had a close call today.
I realized I wasn’t finished with my reparations tour. I’d put up a wall to block the little line of feeling snaking west toward Tig. I’d opted out of Roux’s game. Davis and I might be pointed into a storm, but he loved me. I had never been more sure of that than I was now, listening to him ask if I was all right, telling me he’d somehow seen through me. If the storm came, I had real hope that he’d be willing to weather it with me.
I hadn’t yet squared things up with Maddy, though. I’d planned to turn her inside out, make her betray Luca, spill her secrets. I’d been so intent on using what I knew that I hadn’t talked to her about what I’d seen, down in the basement. That had not been a healthy, normal teenage make-out thing. I needed to talk to her about her body and her choices. I’d promised Davis that I would.
I let Davis go and went out the back door. Luca started and then stood up when he saw me coming. His eyes were very red around the rims.
“Hey, you’re home. I guess I better get going, too.” I thought that was probably best. He turned to the door, then paused. “I wanted to say, thank you. I just—” He wiped at his eyes.
“It’s okay,” I said, and quoted Roux at him. “All I did was my job.”
“Well, you’re really good at it,” he said.
He went out the back gate instead of through the house, heading for home. The grill was on the other side of the long patio, so even if Davis came out, we would still have privacy. I took Luca’s place on the other end of the swing.
“Is he your boyfriend?” She flushed pink, shaking her head. “But he’s more than just a friend,” I said, careful to make it flat. A statement, not a question. I’d learned long ago not to trap Maddy by asking her if she’d done something I already knew about. She would panic, and lie, and then we’d have dishonesty to deal with on top of the trouble that she was already in.
Her thick, straight brows puzzled up.
“No he’s not,” she said. I gave her my best skeptical face, and she straightened up, defensive. “I swear we’re not. He has a girlfriend.”
“Here?” I said. I’d never seen Luca with anyone but Maddy.
“No back in—” She stopped herself. “His old hometown.”
If I had still been playing Roux’s game . . . God. She really did know where they were from. Maybe even his real name. I pushed that thought away, though. I would not veer off the course I’d chosen. I would not use Roux’s methods to squeeze this child.
“Is this a real girlfriend or the kind he ‘met at camp,’ who lives way up in Canada?”
She shook her head. “No. She texts him all the time, and I’ve seen pictures. She’s, like, got this perfect body, and she’s a senior. . . .” She trailed off, shrugging.
“So he’s not your boyfriend. And he’s serious about another girl,” I said. This was hard, but there was no way out but through. I spoke softly, firm and calm. “Then I need you to explain to me what you were doing with him in the basement. When I went to get more air tanks.”
Maddie’s eyes widened, and she searched my face.