Wrong Question, Right Answer (The Bourbon Street Boys #3) - Elle Casey Page 0,30

will for the rest of my life. He went out in a hail of bullets, surrounded by feelings of hatred and anger, revenge and darkness. I don’t want that for the silly fish, because he’s Lucky’s fish.

Lucky puts his other hand on top of mine and nods. He looks over at the fish again, but not before I see a tear fall. “You’re right. Respect. Sunny deserves that.”

“We all do. Fish or people.”

The fish gives a couple more flutters of his fins, and then it’s all over. He goes belly up, and a few seconds later the water stops moving.

I don’t know what to do, and I don’t know the right thing to say, so I just sit quietly, trying to empty my brain of any thoughts. We stay there, holding hands, until the sun goes down and the temperature drops. When my automatic light timer—set to go off at 6:30 p.m.—flicks on the living room lamp, we’re still on the couch.

The sudden light coming on seems to bring Lucky out of the trance he was in. He sits back, letting our hands slide apart, his leather jacket making a squeaking sound as it rubs against itself.

I turn around to look at him, speaking in a hushed tone. “What can I get for you?”

He shakes his head, staring off into space. “Nothing.”

I stand. “I’m going to make us some dinner.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“I don’t care. You’re going to eat anyway.”

I feel bad leaving him in the room with Sunny floating there in front of him, but maybe he needs some time alone with the last link he had to his sister.

I’m way sadder than I expected to be over this. It’s just a fish. But when I see Lucky sitting there on the couch all by himself, tears falling down his cheeks in the dim light, I realize Sunny was never just a fish. Just like Charlie was never just a problem. We all look at things in our lives and give them labels because that’s how other people see them, but that doesn’t mean it’s who or what they really are to us.

Charlie wasn’t just a boyfriend; Charlie was my darkness. He represented the anger that has been inside me since I was a very young girl, growing up in an abusive and neglectful household. He brought out the worst in me, but he’s not to blame; I let him be that person in my life. I let him control me and use me up when I was at my weakest.

Lucky’s always had what seems like a really great life, on the outside. He’s a smiling fool and has been since the day I met him downtown, standing in an empty lot where an old building had been knocked down months before. He was there using a BB gun to blow holes into junk, and Thibault and I were anxious to give it a try. Until the day Lucky showed up, nobody we knew under the age of fifteen had one of those. We were both eleven at the time.

I never knew much about what went on at his house, since Lucky preferred to be at ours or out on the streets hanging around, but I always got the feeling that it wasn’t great. He never invited us over, and, being kids, we never questioned it. It impressed me that despite the situation, whatever it was, he was always happy. Or at least he appeared to be happy. But maybe I was wrong. Maybe he’s just as miserable inside as I’ve been.

I go through the motions of making dinner for two. It’s not much, just spaghetti with defrosted meatballs, but it’ll do. I’m not much of a cook, which is why I love eating at Ozzie’s place. It doesn’t matter that I’m the defrost queen tonight, though; I’m sure neither Lucky nor I will taste much of this meal.

A sound behind me makes me jump. I spin around, my wooden sauce spoon in my hand. I still picture Charlie coming at me whenever someone sneaks up on me. Ozzie says it’s post-traumatic stress disorder, but I’ve always been a little high-strung.

Lucky is standing there, his hands in his pockets. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to startle you.”

I go back to stirring the sauce, making sure it doesn’t burn. It came out of a jar, so I just need to heat it through. “No big deal. I’m just finishing up here.” I snag a noodle out of the boiling pot with a fork