I clear my throat. “River and I actually used to paint with my mom. First fingerpaints when we were small, then watercolor, acrylics, and even oils as we got older. It was one of my mother’s many hobbies. Painting in particular, though, my father said was fucking stupid. A useless pastime. But I loved it. And that pissed him off even more because no son of his needed to participate in some activity for girls.”
“Shut up. He didn’t.” She frowns. “What an asshole.” Her face colors almost immediately, her eyes crashing shut. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t?—”
“Speak of the dead like that? Nah, go ahead. You’re right. My old man was definitely an opinionated, hardheaded asshole.” A vision of my dad upending the small table where my mother’s paints were sitting while shouting at me to get my ass into the house dances before my eyes. I shake my head, forcing the memory to the back of my mind.
Echo sighs, poking her brush into the water, cleaning it off. “I’m done for today. Did you say you had something to do after class?”
I pinch my lips together as I clean up. “Yeah. After getting a look at River again this morning before we left, I realized I have a lot of fuckin’ steam to still blow off.” River’s eye looks even worsetoday, but she seems more stable than she did yesterday. I clear my throat. “I thought it might be a good idea to get out of my head for a bit and head to my old gym with Royal. Get some of the aggression out. I haven’t been there in ages, and he’s never been.” And apparently now I’ll be alternating between whose face I see when I hit the punching bag. My dick-faced abusive brother-in-law or my sadistic asshole father. Two delightful choices, honestly.
Echo clenches her teeth, giving me a pained smile. “I can imagine it’s hard to see her like that. Did you”—she glances around us to make sure no one is listening—“did you tell her about the money?”
“No. Didn’t want to start an argument, you know?” I let out an aggravated breath, pull a tube of lip balm from my pocket, and slick it over my lips, then I automatically hold it out for Echo. “It’ll be there when she’s ready for it.”
She grins as she takes the tube from me, uncaps, and applies it. All the while, I can practically see the gears rotating in her head before she speaks. “But hey, isn’t it kinda fun that our sisters seem to get along pretty well?” Her lips twist as she slaps the lip product back into my hand, raising a brow.
“You’re sure Kara wasn’t just being ridiculously nice?”
She shakes her head. “She’s not like that. If she thinks someone isn’t cool or is full of shit or she doesn’t like them, she will make that known pretty quickly—at the very least, she’d privately tell me. From what Kara said, they talked until almost midnight.”
Well, thank fuck.I’d felt kinda bad leaving River… and equally as shitty about intruding even further on Kara’s home life. “Good. I’ll try not to worry about it, then.”
At the end of class, we grab our bags and scoot out the back door of Brandywine Hall, meeting Royal and Beckham on a bench under the tree.
Royal nods at me as he stands up. “You ready to hit the gym?”
I smirk. “Yeah. Ready to hitsomething, anyway.” I hook an arm around Echo’s neck, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Thanks for reassuring me about River staying with your sister.”
She winks as she puts her arms around Royal, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I don’t say things I don’t mean, just like my sister doesn’t.” She steps away from him, taking Beckham’s offered hand.
He gives her a goofy smile. “Let’s go, Calamity Jane.”
“We’ll be back in a couple hours. Can you tell River where I went?”
“Yeah, man. We’ll tell her.”
The smellof the gym is the same as it always has been. A little musty, a whole lot sweaty, but also a place where young athletes can hope and dream. And it sure as fuck is the place that made me who I am. The place that gave me the will to survive.
I grip Royal’s chin, looking into his eyes, then turn his head so I can get a look at his scalp. I don’t want to fucking hurt him while we’re messing around. “You sure you’re okay to spar today? We don’t have to if you aren’t up to it.” I gesture to the weights with a nod of my head. “We could lift instead, if you’d rather.” Eyeing the bandage on his shoulder, I grimace, and Royal bats my hand away.
“Okay, Nurse Wilder. Enough of that. I’m no idiot. I wouldn’t set foot in the ring with you if I didn’t feel up to it.” He’s got a look of gritty determination in his eye that I would do well to be wary of.
My lip curls. “Okay. Let’s go, then.” I shove in my mouth guard, and immediately drop into my fight stance. Still leery, I slowly begin to circle, waiting for him to make the first move.
It only takes one punch and a sneaky leg strike for me to realize he means business. Honestly, neither his head nor his shoulder seem to have any bearing on his performance, but as we blow off steam, I’m taking more hits than usual because I’m being cautious not to hurt him. Studying my friend as he gives me a snarling smile around his mouthpiece, I chuckle internally. He’s coming after me like a demon, fuck all that shit from yesterday. He might be trying to prove to me—or even to himself—that he’s fine, but it’s all good, because with every hit either of us land, I feel some tension release.
After five sweat-and-grunt-filled minutes, I hold my hand up, calling a stop to our sparring. We’re both breathing hard and, since no one else is in need of the practice ring, we walk around for a minute or two, stretching, before grabbing our water bottles and exiting the ring to unwrap our hands.
Royal gives me a furtive look as we stand side by side. “Hey. I gotta tell you something. I hope you won’t be pissed or offended that I haven’t said shit before this, because I’m not technically supposed to bring it up…” He throws out a hand, wincing. “But I feel like it’s important. A piece of this fuckin’ puzzle.”
Something to do with the Sin Keeper, then. Mother. Fucker.Tossing my gloves and wraps to the side, I exhale hard, waiting for the next bomb to drop, like I’d assumed it would. “Just tell me.” My stomach flips upside down while I wait, studying his pinched, aggravated features.
He clears his throat, finally meeting my eyes. Those pale greens hold some indecision, but also a desire to share whatever this is. “I’m in possession of something from the Franks’ house.”
My forehead creases as my brain whirs. That is not at all what I was expecting. “What sort of something are we talking about?”
He groans. “I transferred everything from Rich’s computer to an external hard drive. I’ve been sitting on it for weeks now, not knowing what to do, what any of it means or”—practically growling, he throws up his hands as he finishes—“if I’ve even fuckin’ figured out correctly what I was being told to do.” His voice is rough by the time he finishes getting that much out.
It’s clear he’s been worrying the entire fucking time this supposed information has been in his possession, and he hasn’t said a word.Fuck.We’re trained like goddamn monkeys to keep this Sin Keeper stuff to ourselves. And why? Seems like if we worked together it’d be a better plan, but what the fuck do I know? I run my hand over my face, in a state of disbelief, as he heaves out a breath.
