Page 15 of Windlass

“Couldn’t you?”

“Stop it.” Stevie glared, only half joking, at Angie. The flirtatious head tilt and coy phrasing that had accompanied Angie’s retort was classic misdirection, and while it usually worked on Stevie, she wasn’t letting Angie get away with it tonight. “You have to promise toletme help.”

Angie stared at her for a long while before speaking. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“You have my permission to distract me by any means necessary.”

Stevie was about to fall prey to misdirection of her own—Angie had set her up perfectly for any number of bad jokes—when a clap of thunder shook the house and rain exploded from the sky with the surprising ferocity of an early summer storm. She hoped Ivy and Jaq had gotten under cover. Marvin skittered around the corner of the kitchen, where he’d been lying on the cold tiles, and whined at Stevie as if she had the power to turn off the sky.

“Come here, big baby.” She patted the couch next to her and he leapt up, panting in her face as she stroked his trembling sides. She addressed him seriously. “We have to be brave for Angie now. She needs us.”

Angie jabbed her in the hip with a toe. This was more like their usual banter. Through the relief it brought, however, she still sensed a tectonic shift from which she worried they would not be able to return—if she wanted to return at all.

The storm grumbled into a steady rain some time later, and Angie finally released the tears she’d been holding back, sound muted beneath the tapping of water on the roof and windows of the old farmhouse. Light from the reading lamp beside her cast the scene on the couch in bright contrast with the room. The darkening sky had stolen indoors, bringing the green shadows of wet leaves with it. A window she’d failed to fully shut let in the smell of wet earth and rain. She let it fill her lungs.

Stevie wasn’t moving out. Stevie didn’t hate her. A relief more powerful than guilt sent spasms of sobs up from the base of her spine to shake her shoulders. She shifted her weight as carefully as she could manage. Stevie lay curled around Marvin on the couch with her blond hair pooling against Angie’s leg. It hadn’t taken more than five minutes for Stevie to nod off after their conversation. Angie might have been offended if she hadn’t seen the dark circles ringing Stevie’s eyes—circles she’d put there. In sleep, Stevie’s face lost both its impish mischief and the faint line of hurt between her brows, and her features relaxed into something almost serious. Her lips, freed from their mission to turn everything into a pun, curved softly, parting as her even breaths stirred a loose strand of hair. Angie brushed the strand aside, familiar enough with Stevie’s napping patterns to know the touch wouldn’t rouse her. It immediately fell back across her face. Stevie’s nose crinkled, but she didn’t wake. Angie brushed the strand away again, her fingers trailing through the soft fall of hair. If only she could tell Stevie everything.

If only, if only, if only.

Stevie’s breath remained even as Angie stroked her hair. The terror that had filled her at the prospect of losing her hadn’t fully abated. She hadn’t expected it to; that terror lived, always, in the dark, moldy corridors of her heart, stalking every peaceful moment.

People didn’t stick around for Angie. Not long-term. Her group of friends felt solid now, but she’d only known them for a few years. Her family had loved her for a few years, too, and if her family could discard her, how much easier would it be for everyone else? Chosen family was a lovely idea, but people could also choose to leave. Stevie could leave. Angie had learned to live with many things in her thirty-one years, and that was not one of them. Stevie was her light. Her golden safety. Her heart. Angie had nearly lost her because her instincts for self-sabotage had always been stronger than her instincts for self-preservation. She wiped her face dry when her sobs subsided, not wanting to drip onto Stevie, and listened to the rain. Marvin snored in soft whuffling exhales. Angie’s cat, James, leapt up onto the arm of the couch and settled against her elbow with a disgruntled glare at his canine housemate. His long fur tickled her bare skin.

Exhaustion settled over her. Crying always made her feel as wrung out as a wet rag, her insides twisted and limp. Anxiety took advantage of the opportunity. She had other problems to worry about besides Stevie.

Old houses swallowed money. Her dog daycare and boarding facility was doing well, but notthatwell. Not with the cost of insurance, electricity, plumbing, water, repairs, more repairs, and stupid things like a lawnmower that only worked when it felt like it and a gravel driveway that constantly needed to be graded because the up-front cost of replacing it with asphalt was enough to make her vomit. A few months ago the house had contained three people aside from herself paying bills. The last thing Angie wanted was new roommates even if that might make things easier with Stevie, but there didn’t seem to be another option. She hadn’t charged her friends much for rent because they were her friends, and when they’d all first moved in several years ago, she’d been too grateful for the company to consider things like flooded fieldstone basements and out-of-date wiring. She could charge new roommates more, though, which would help.

Roommateswouldsolve things. She studied Stevie’s face, trying to imagine sharing this space with anyone else.

Impossible. Stevie was hers. This space was theirs. Yes, she’d nearly fucked everything to hell and back, but she craved this new solitude almost as much as she feared it. The unspoken thing between them was an event horizon, pulling her mercilessly closer to annihilation—or salvation. She wasn’t sure there was a difference. Stevie rolled over, still sleeping, and claimed Angie’s thigh as a pillow, her cheek burning Angie through the fabric of her pants.

A water droplet stung the hand still resting on Stevie’s hair. She stared at the spot, uncomprehending. “What the fuck?”

Stevie bolted upright, wiping her face and blinking away sleep. Her blue eyes sought Angie’s.

“It wasn’t me.”

Stevie narrowed her eyes, those damn near perfect lips quirking in a knowing grin. “Liar.”

“It really wasn’t. I don’t—”

This time the droplet landed on her head, cold and shocking. She jumped. As if the droplet had been a choreography cue, they simultaneously looked up. The ceiling, though lit only dimly, had a distinctive dark spot directly over the area where they sat.

“Well fuck.” Stevie voiced Angie’s thoughts. For her part, she remained silent, the tightness in her stomach doubling into a cramp.

“That’s Lil’s room,” Stevie continued. “Why is Lil’s room pissing on us?”

Because, Angie didn’t say, thefucking roofis leaking. She shut her eyes on the incontrovertible proof that she was absolutely, without question or degree of doubt, screwed.

Chapter Three

Several days after her conversation with Stevie—and subsequent sprint around the house to find the leak—Angie worked up the courage to talk to one of the few other people in her life she trusted completely. That was progress, right? A sign she was serious about making positive changes? Proof she could cite that she was doing everything she could to prevent the catastrophic possibility of Stevie moving out?

The very thought of losing her was enough to cut off her air. Lana was nothing compared to that fear even if she had seemed like the solution to that very same terror the other day. Angie shut her car door, wishing she could shut her thoughts off as easily.

Stevie, the leaking roof, the other bills . . .

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