“Yep. Kind of cool, though. I mean, the facilities, not the rest of it. Though, I think giving minors a good time is maybe different still than being a loan shark.”
“Yeah. Definitely. Is your dad just off doing the same things now that he used to do here?”
“I don’t know. We’re all totally no contact with him. There’s no point trying with him, because he sucks you in if you aren’t careful. If he was cruel, outright and obviously cruel, it would be easier. But he’s charming. He can be, anyway.”
“Is that why you never really let me come around your family?”
A fierce light entered his eyes. “Yeah. I never wanted you to be anywhere near him.”
She let that settle between them. That little thing she hadn’t known mingled with their shared history. She was beginning to realize there were pieces of himself that Justice didn’t share with her. But there was also such a breadth of shared experiences there. She wondered if it mattered.
If they needed to know every little thing about each other.
She wanted to. She just didn’t think she needed to.
“Well, thanks for including me.”
“Of course,” he said. And she felt that carefulness again. Like they were dancing around what had happened the other day. Trying to pretend that it didn’t matter. That it had been written off as something sillyshe’d said when she was drunk. But the fact of the matter was she had introduced the idea of sex between the two of them.
You couldn’t unhammer a nail. That was the thing. She had decisively hammered that thing.
Which was a little bit of an unfortunate metaphor when she thought too hard about it.
Lord.
They started heading toward Sullivan’s Point, to the big barn where they had their town hall meetings.
“Do you think you’ll start having the meetings at King’s Crest now that you have the big event space done?”
He shrugged. “It would be an interesting thing to float, and now that our families are linked by marriage, we may not get the resistance from the Sullivans we might have otherwise. But I have a feeling the McClouds and the Garretts won’t necessarily want to have meetings on enemy territory.”
“You’re not enemies. You’re all part of the same collective.”
“Sure. But you know we’re different. We always have been. Just more separate. But you know, that’s part of the whole thing with my dad too. He could only maintain his facade to a certain point, so a little bit of distance was a necessity. Anyway, it’s not like the other heads of household were much better back then. I guess we’ll figure out how to rally around each other, but never really how to integrate with everybody else.”
“Landry is pretty firmly integrated at this point.”
He chuckled. “True.”
“Anyway. You guys took care of me. You took care of your own, really.”
“I guess that was all we could manage,” he said.
He was so weird about compliments. He was, in general, a cocky guy who seemed eternally confident in himself but he didn’t like anything too deep or serious. And he never wanted anyone talking about him being good, heaven forfend. She didn’t get it.
“It’s more than most people. I mean, family, sure. But you took responsibility for Penny, and for me. When Bix showed up on the property, Daughtry immediately took care of her. I guess my point is you’ve all done better than your dad.”
“Thanks.”
“And I really shouldn’t have said what I did to you the other day.”
“Yeah, we don’t need to bring that up.”
“It’s sitting there between us. Whether I say something or not.”
He looked at her and lifted a brow. “I haven’t thought about it.”
“You’re a liar.”
