Page 243 of Hide and Keep

Ever doesn’t speak for a minute, watching me closely while I keep my eyes trained on the road.

“Crue?”

I shake my head. “Don’t. Don’t ask me.”

If I tell her the truth, she’ll try to talk me out of it. I’m not backing out. I’ve waited multiple days for this. It’s finally happening. That motherfucker is getting the ax.

“I don’t want you to do anything that puts you in danger.”

“I’m Ever Munreaux’s bodyguard. I’m always in danger.” I beam at her but she doesn’t reciprocate the gesture.

With a sniffle, she corrects, “Personal protection agent,” for the first time, nearly making me give in, too.

I can’t though. Ryan needs to go.

I walk Ever to her first class, right by her clones with Ever ignoring them entirely, just like she’s done every other day since we started fucking. As soon as the door closes, I run to the fish market and pick out the three biggest barracudas they have, all over seven pounds each, and from the Caribbean. Barracudas, especially the bigger ones, are more likely to carry the ciguatera toxin, which is poisonous to humans, even if it’s cooked. Since there’s no way to tell if a fish is infected with the toxin, I leave them sitting in the car during the rest of Ever’s classes…just to be sure there’ssomethingwrong with them.

I can’t give the spoiled, and hopefully poisonous, fish to Ryan straight out, or else I could just as easily be blamed, so I wait until about twenty minutes before dinnertime to awkwardly ask Ryan for that coconut oil I had him buy me. Then, while he’s in the pantry, looking for that, I sneak a bag of my own cubed barracuda in with the prepared ceviche.

I study the bowl. I can smell it, the bad fish. The lime juice is strong enough to cover it, but I’m looking for it. I know that shit’s turned. I also know it might kill me. It might kill all of us.

I shouldn’t have asked Edwin to try it. He’s the only innocent one. Ryan, I hope suffers. Arthur, too. Me? If dying’s what it takes to free Ever from these demented fucks, I’ll do it. I’ll do it happily.

With a red face, Ryan returns with the coconut oil, his reluctance to hand it over obvious.

I take it from him with a mumbled, “Thanks,” playing up the embarrassed act. Was he this embarrassed when he stoodover my girl, yanking on his cock where she could see? Probably fucking not because he has his own act, too.

“Look familiar?” He gestures to the ceviche.

“Looks fancier. Yours has way more fish than ours did.”

Ryan smiles proudly, happy to take full credit for the fishier-than-it-was-a-second-ago fish salsa.

He’s such a douche, and not the kind that goes in pussies. Those actually serve a purpose sometimes.

“The Munreauxs wouldn’t have it any other way,” is all he says.

I think Ever would have it literally any other way. She doesn’t act half as spoiled around me as she used to. She’s pretty unpretentious when it’s just us. She’ll have the occasional slipup of not understanding how the real world works, but even then, she lets me educate her without getting all high and mighty.

She’s like two different people—the one she is with me and the one she is with everybody else.

Maybe that’s how everyone in love is though.

Not that Ever’s in love with me. More so that’s how I see her.

Except I don’t love her…

Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t because…

Love isn’t…

And I’m only…

So I can’t actually…

But somehow…

I do.

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