“Maybe she took the weekend and reconsidered,” Doc said.
“Doubtful,” Halo replied as she stared into the dark well of her coffee mug. Though she’d never admit it, she felt guilty she’d triggered their current situation.
“She can’t be spiteful forever, so she won’t stay past the summer,” Silas said, adopting his brother-in-law’s outlook.
When Raven finally showed up, she strode into the kitchen with straight shoulders and a file tucked under her arm. If Silas had any hope that Raven would be okay returning to the busy work he’d given her last week, her assured strut extinguished it.
“Morning,” Raven said once she’d placed herself at the head of the table. “First, I want to say it’s a brand-new week, so clean slate.”
She looked around, meeting each of their eyes; a queen pardoning her subjects.
“I meant it when I said I want to help,” Raven said. “So, in that spirit, I have some suggestions to improve things around here.”
They all shifted where they sat and stood, and Silas prepared himself to push back on the most disastrous proposals.
“First order of business is getting that sink fixed,” she said, reading from a piece of paper she’d pulled from the file.
It was a logical first action. One Silas would’ve taken when the sink broke weeks ago if he’d had access to the business funds.
“You’ll need to change the name on the business bank account to your name to access any money to pay for the plumber,” Silas said.
The accounts had been frozen shortly after Chuck’s death. Only payroll, which a third party handled, and automated bills continued to be paid as usual. Other auxiliary expenses like gas for the shuttle van and supplies for their different classes were coming straight from his pocket. Silas had planned to reimburse himself once ownership had been sorted out.
“Easy. I’ll do that this week,” Raven said. “We should also see if we can budget for a new computer and a better appointment scheduling software. The Pilates studio my mom goes to has a really good one.”
She continued down her list, proposing other improvements. A few of her ideas had been ones he’d tried to encourage Chuck to adopt for years. But even so, Silas had to fight the impulse to reject every single one of them simply because they were coming from her.
“Also, I have this.” Raven pulled out a box covered in decorative paper with a slot at the top. “It’s a suggestion box. If you have any other ideas or feedback, you can drop them here.”
Bodie threw his hand in the air as if in school, his muscular arm straining the seams of his T-shirt.
“Yes, Bodie?” Raven said.
“How many suggestions per person?” he asked.
“As many as you can think of,” she said.
Bodie pumped his fist. “Hell, yeah.”
She’d regret that allowance.
In the end, the meeting went better than Silas had expected. Seeing as she wasn’t planning on erecting a statue of herself at the front, he thought he could survive her stint here.
The team scattered to different corners of the cabin to prepare for their morning classes, but Raven stopped Silas before he could reach the front door.
“I’d like to come with you on your shuttle pickups today,” she said to him. “I heard that Chuck used to do them, so I’d like to learn the route and maybe take that duty off your plate.”
Just like everything else involving Raven, this declaration felt like encroachment. But he was an adult. He could play nice and let her take up a responsibility he had no real attachment to.
“We leave in ten,” he said.
* * *
When Silas boarded the shuttle bus, he found Raven seated, assessing herself in a compact mirror. She said nothing, so he didn’t either, and they began their trip in silence. It wasn’t until they hit the long stretch of road that took them down the mountain that either said another word.
“What did you lose in the wager?” she asked.
He met her eyes briefly in the rearview mirror, cursing the day he made that fucking bet.
