Page 89 of Feed Your Fiends

“She didn’t mention a baby at all, but the timelines certainly add up. Maybe she doesn’t know that my mother was pregnant.”

“Perhaps,” she agrees, looking through the window again.

“Then again, maybe she does.”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe she knows a lot more than she’s letting on. Maybe I should indulge them more to see. I’m thinking of inviting Sylo over to play cricket. There’s an indoor pitch downstairs.”

“Of course there is,” she says with a roll of her eyes, “but don’t you need more players than that?”

Silas will be there, too.

“The horsemen and Stassi and Aria will come too. You haven’t been talking to the girls much.”

“We’ve all been M.I.A.,” she says softly with a frown. “Stassi all but disappeared after her blow-up with Hale. I’ve been focusing on my medical care and-” she hesitates. “You. And Aria, well…”

“Aria has her own problems keeping her preoccupied.”

Her eyes go wide as she sits forward, clearly worried. “Like what?”

“Why don’t you call her?”

But we both know why. It seems hypocritical. Elle seemingly forgave me, at least enough to bide her time, so why not Aria? I know the reason is lurking around as we speak.

“I should,” she says finally. “And maybe you should call Hale.”

“Thank you, by the way.”

“For what?”

“Helping him when I wasn’t there for him. When I simply didn’t care.”

She snorts. “Don’t praise me. I didn’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I wanted an investment.”

“It doesn’t matter what other side effects come along, you still helped him. It’s more than I’ve done lately.” I let go of her foot and use her calf to drag her closer to me. “I’m happy you did it. That ring wasn’t good enough anyway.”

She’s fighting her words, but eventually, she caves. “Good enough for what?”

“This finger,” I say, lifting her ring finger.

She shifts. “Gant—”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t have. I hate it.”

“You hate reality. Someone has to sink you back into it.”

“The same person that’s here with me now? Take some responsibility for immersing me in my delusion.”

She glares at me.

“When I slipped that ring onto your finger, I saw so many delusions as you call them. I call them dreams. Remember when we first met, you told me that ballet was your dream. You asked me if I had any, and I told you I didn’t. Now I do. What’s wrong with sharing my dreams with you?”

She looks at me, a mixture of emotions in her eyes I can’t read.

“Are you afraid of hearing them because they’ll validate what you’ve secretly wanted all along?” I ask, tucking a lock that’s escaped the shitty French braid I’d given her behind her ear.

“No,” she says finally. “Because I’m not spoiled like you. I’ve learned to never want things because I never get them anyway, so what’s the point?”

---