Page 56 of Love Thy Brother
He held out his hand. I took it and wrapped my other arm around my torso, groaning as I rose to my feet.
River eyed me. “Your ribs?”
“Yeah. They were already fucked from Nashie’s fists, though, so I ain’t worried.”
He was, I could tell. But he didn’t have a monopoly on being a pig-headed moron.
Besides, the pain in my ribs was logical. I’d take it over a nonsensical migraine any day of the week.
“Come on.” I squeezed his hand. “Let’s go.”
The supermarket was a shorter walk than hoofing it back into town. We stayed off the road and tramped through grassland, only stepping out of the shadows when we reached the car-park boundary.
Cam’s SUV was by the bottle bank, free of tickets and vandalism. The fob was too waterlogged to trigger the central locking, but we were both wrong’uns enough that it took less than a minute to jimmy the doors open.
River slid behind the wheel, firing me a glare that dared me to argue.
I didn’t. I folded myself into the passenger seat and tipped my head back while he started the engine and fiddled with the heaters. “You still need shopping?”
River snorted. “Look in the mirror and ask me that question.”
I flipped the sun visor and studied my reflection. Absorbed the dirt on my face and the ratty mess of my barnet.
Yeah. Okay. Maybe not. With River still bleeding, it wasn’t our best look.
River put his hands on the wheel. In the eery light of the car park, they were bone-white, almost blue, and it hit me how close I’d come to losing him tonight.
I reached for him in the same moment he looked over his shoulder to back out of the space. “Wait.”
He frowned. “What is it?”
I love you. But my phone kickstarted a rave in River’s pocket, killing the moment before I found what was left of my voice.
His scowl returned. He ripped my phone from his pocket and glared at the screen. “Video call. Mateo. The fuck does he want?”
Nothing. If it was a video call, the last face I’d see when I answered it was Mats. He hated shit like that. The only soul who’d have the nerve to FaceTime from his phone was my second BFF, who was prettier than Nash and Embry combined.
I took the phone from River and answered the call. The screen blurred before it reset on the angelic face of Liliana Romano-Carter—the new name she’d chosen a few months back.
Her button eyes were wide and deep. Her soft smile, toothy and beautiful. “Rubieeee,” she called. “Where are you? Me and Ivy want to see you.”
Ivy’s blond head popped up, twigs in her hair, a tiger painted on her cheek. “Uncle Giant,” she said seriously. “Where are you? Daddy said you’re not here.”
“Maybe he’s teasing you.” I squinted at the screen, resisting the compulsion to rub sand from my eyes. “Did you look everywhere?”
Ivy nodded. “Apart from the toilet in the bar. I’m not allowed to go in there, even though Cam says you sleep there sometimes.”
“Hmm. Maybe you should ask Cam where he slept the night of his thirtieth birthday. And what happened to his clothes.”
Ivy giggled and vanished, presumably to seek out Uncle Cam and fire him with a thousand questions he didn’t know how to answer without swearing.
Good girl. That left me with Liliana, who was studying me with a gaze too sage for the decade she’d spent earthside. “Why’s your hair wet?”
“I went swimming.”
“In a pool?”
“No, in the sea. It was an accident.” I pulled my seatbelt down as the car started to move. “What are you up to? Draw anything good today?”
