Page 34 of Clouded by Envy

As they all agreed, the three of them went to the store together to buy the ingredients. Wes won the argument about whether to buy a premade piecrust or make it homemade. Knowing he would end up with the hassle, Wes saidno wayto the homemade crust.

Putting the whole pie together only took Bray and Wes about fifteen minutes. They mixed sugar, cornstarch, salt, and cinnamon—then sprinkled it over the blueberries and poured the mixture into the piecrust that Luca had lined into the pan.

Bray cut the remaining pastry into thin strips and latticed the top. Then Wes set the pie in the oven to bake.

“Do you mind if I go to Kyle’s house for a little while? He’s got this new video game for the Sega I want to play,” Luca pleaded.

“You don’t have to beg me to go to your friend’s house. Go have fun for a while.” Wes tilted his head in the direction of the front door.

Luca’s friend Kyle lived down the street, and Luca still hadn’t gotten over his excitement of living so close to him. He no longer had to bug Wes to drop him off and pick him up all the time.

“Okay, be back in a bit,” Luca said and sprinted for the door.

Still feeling strange from the dream, Bray went outside to her tree and climbed up it. Peeking inside the tree hole, Bray let out a sigh because even though she knew he wouldn’t be there, she wanted to look anyway. Brenik would have understood how she felt.

The feeling hadn’t been around for long, and sometimes she had to let it run its course for a day or two to get back to herself.

“Are you trying to break your neck?” Wes shouted up to her.

Glancing down at the ground, she shook her head at him. “No, sometimes it feels good to climb and do things the hard way.” She started to step down branch by branch, until she hopped down in front of him.

“You seem off today.” He scanned her face, as if he could read her mind.

“Do I?” She was easy to read, because she wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions.

“Yes, you know you do. Do you want to go inside and talk about it?” Wes asked, motioning his head at the back door.

“Can we talk out here?” Speaking about it outside in the open wouldn’t be as constricting as being enclosed inside the house.

“We can talk anywhere you want to. Well, except for in your tree hole.” He chuckled, gazing up at the open space—the window to her world.

Bray gave Wes’s forearm a small poke. “Did you just make a joke?”

He rolled his eyes. “Maybe.”

Squatting down on the grass, Bray propped her back up against the tree. Wes sat down beside her, straightening his legs all the way out before he leaned back.

“So, you know most of the story. But after our mother abandoned Brenik and me, one of the Jovkins took care of us—kept us safe from others of her kind who wanted to slaughter our species. Junah wasn’t overly affectionate, but she was protective and made sure we had everything.”

Even now, she still missed Junah, too.

“When we came here, we had Ruth. She was different, and I don’t want to say better because they were both great in their own ways, but Ruth was caring and affectionate. And the thing is … I don’t get to see her again or hear her voice. The day she had a heart attack, she asked us if we wanted peach pie, and we had said yes.” A whimper escaped Bray’s throat and she leaned her head forward, so she could reach up to brush away her tears. She tugged her knees to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

An arm came down around her shoulder, and Wes pulled her close. He had never done anything like that before, but it felt nice.

Wes propped the back of his head against the tree. “I’m not going to sit here and pretend I understand one word about the first half of what you said. And I don’t think I want to know what aJovkinis. But you and Brenik didn’t cause that heart attack—people die spontaneously all the time. I’m also not going to pretend like it doesn’t hurt because it sure as hell still hurts me, and it’s been almost six years.” He let out a deep sigh, his throat bobbing. “For Luca, he’s luckier in a sense because he doesn’t remember our parents that well since he was still so young when they died. But I remember everything about them so clearly.”

Bray removed her arms from her legs and looped one around Wes’s waist. “Luca is incredibly lucky to have you.”

“Thanks. That means a lot because I’m still learning as I go,” Wes smiled warmly and looked down at her. “Seriously, if you ever need to talk about anything, don’t hesitate. Okay?”

“Okay. But I never want to eat peach pie ever again.” Bray wasn’t sure why eating peaches didn’t bother her, yet the thought of touching a peach pie was out of the question.

“No one’s going to force you to eat peach pie, and I already told you that shit’s nasty.” He grimaced.

Bray buried her face into Wes’s shoulder and let out a loud snort.

“Did you just get spit all over my shoulder?” He laughed while shrugging her off.

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