“He said he’d call when he gets settled,” Paul reminds me. “Until then, we wait.”

Kit looks up at me, her eyes focusing for the first time since we left the hospital. “I think you should open the shop. Do your tat. You’re going to need the money.” She doesn’t look me in the eye when she says the last part of it. “Can I go, too?” she asks. “I want to watch.”

I wrap my arm around her and she smiles up at me. “You ok?” I ask.

She nods and leans in. I can feel the warm wind of her inhale against my skin. “Stop sniffing me, you little pervita,” I say.

Her eyebrows lift and she repeats the word. “Pervita?” She laughs. I hug her to me, never wanting to let her go. She’s a part of us now. All of us. And she’s mine.

Sam and Pete are walking behind us with their heads pushed together, talking softly. When they do that, there’s usually trouble brewing. “What are you two up to?” Paul barks. Their heads snap apart, and they try not to look guilty. They’re terrible at it, though.

“Nothing,” they say in unison.

Paul narrows his eyes at them. “I don’t believe you.”

They look at him sheepishly.

“I don’t believe you either,” I say.

“I think I liked you better when you didn’t speak,” Pete says. Then he grins.

I flip him the bird and he flies at me, jumping on my back. He bounces up and down, and leans over my shoulder so I can see his lips. “My feet are cold,” he says, batting his golden lashes at me. “You should carry me the rest of the way.”

He’s latched onto me like a koala. And he’s f**king heavy. It’s like carrying a load of bricks. But I hitch him up higher and start walking.

Sam turns his back to Kit and bends down. “You look tired, Kit,” he says. “Want a ride?” He waggles his brows at her. She laughs, and jumps onto his back.

“I’m not sure I got the good end of this deal,” I croak, as we all walk along together.

I can’t help but wish Matt were here. I miss the gentle giant already.

***

I’ve been working on this tat for weeks. It’s a huge bald eagle that goes from shoulder blade to shoulder blade. Not to mention that it’s on a really big guy. I drew the outline, and then I started shading it last week. I need to finish it today. It’s a five hundred dollar tat, and we could use the money. Particularly now.

I settle down to work on it, and Kit watches over my shoulder for a few minutes. But then she goes to the front of the store to sit down with Friday and Paul. Paul is updating Friday on Matt’s condition. Friday adores Matt; if there’s one of us she hangs with the most, it’s him. She wipes a tear from her eye.

I can read her lips from there. “What are the odds that he gets accepted in that trial? It’s so strange,” she says. I can’t see what Paul says in response.

Kit ambles up to the front of the store and says something to Paul. He looks shocked for a minute and then he pulls her forearm down to look at it. She’s not hurt, is she? I move to set my gun to the side, but she looks over her shoulder and smiles at me. She’s fine. Paul motions for her to follow him and he takes her behind a curtain. I see his lips when he says, “Keep him out of there,” to Friday. Keep who out of where? Then he pulls a curtain around the two of them to separate them from us and I have to put the gun down. I start in that direction. Friday gets between me and them. “She’s just getting a tat,” she says, turning me around.

“What kind of tat?”

“A tiny little butterfly or something equally as cute. Maybe a Disney princess. She hadn’t decided yet.” She rolls her eyes. Friday has skulls and crossbones, and turtles, and all sorts of weird shit all over her body.

“I want to help her pick something,” I say, trying to push past Friday.

“Stop,” she says. “She wants to surprise you.”

I run a frustrated hand through my hair.

“Tats mean different things to different people,” Friday says. “This means a lot to her and she should be the one to decide what she gets.”

I already know this, but I want to be involved. Damn it.

“You don’t trust Paul to take care of her?” Friday asks, her brows crashing together.

Of course I trust him. “But this is my girl,” I say. I know I sound like a baby. But there it is.

She pats me on the arm. “Suck it up, buttercup,” she says. Then she narrows her eyes at me. “Wait a minute! When did you start talking?”

My face flushes with heat. “Don’t get used to it,” I grumble. “I may never talk to you again.”

“I could only be so lucky,” Friday says, rolling her eyes. But she jumps up onto her tiptoes and hugs me tightly. “I’m so happy for you,” she says.

I can’t figure out what she’s talking about. Kit? Me? Our relationship? My talking? I brush her off when the guy I was working on starts waving his arms from the back of the shop. I have a lot of work to do. So, I had better get busy.

An hour later, Kit comes out from behind the curtain with Paul. She’s smiling, and her forearm is covered with a large bandage. She walks over to me. I finished my tat ten minutes ago and have just been waiting for her. “You’re going to wear a hole in the carpet,” Kit teases.

Paul walks out behind her. He’s smiling, but he won’t meet my eyes.