“Did my baby rat me out?” Keira didn’t bother to look at me as I approached, pulling that quilt further up her shoulder as though the flame from the pit wasn’t blazing full blast.
“She’s worried, cheri.” She went on watching the low tide of the lake, the soft current brushing against the shore as I leaned over her to lower the flame. “You gonna stay here all day?” Keira didn’t react at all when I tilted the bottle away from her, holding it by the neck. But when I looked down, waiting for her to look at me, her sigh and the flash of her gaze clued me in on the semblance of life flickering behind those dormant, mildly buzzed blue eyes.
“It was already open. I haven’t been out here drinking myself into oblivion.” She demonstrated this point by nodding at her feet to the full wine glass next to the leg of her chair. “I’m depressed, not drunk.”
“Good.” That glare lowered when I sat next to her, facing the lake. I could sit there all day. Sundays were for rest and Ethan…well. Things had been a little frigid between us mostly because he had been so busy with cases and I hadn’t given him a decision about our might-be/might-not-be engagement. He still wasn’t pressuring me, but I could tell that the passing days with no resolution was weighing on him. I’d also made zero excuses for helping Keira out with Koa and Mack. Ethan had given me a side look when I mentioned bringing Mack back to Mandeville after practice or staying with she and Koa so Keira could work. He didn’t ask why Ransom couldn’t look after his siblings and I didn’t offer any information about my ex’s PT and half-hearted attempts to get back into playing form.
Ethan didn’t seem to care about why I came to the lake house, only that I did. So he’d spent most of his night working on cases and not anywhere near my condo. Last night he’d left for Biloxi promising, via text, that he had to defend his honor against Steph’s claim she could out play him at the Craps table. So, he left and I got busy. My condo was clean, laundry folded and put away and meal prep for the week was done. Busy work. It’s not just for undergrads and first graders.
Keira barely moved when I scooted the chair close enough to rest my boots on the pit. She didn’t often pout. That wasn’t her style, but being away from Kona—and ignoring his constant calls or so Ransom told me—had put her in a funk. Everyone was allowed one off day.
“No studio work today?” I asked, nudging her with the tip of my boot when she kept silent.
“My muse left me too.”
“Keira…”
“What?” She sat up, turning around to face me, tucking her slippered feet under the arm rest. “That’s what it feels like. He left.”
“You asked him to, didn’t you?”
“That’s not the point.” The hem of the quilt got dangerously close to the flame and Keira threw it back. “He was supposed to fight…”
“Do you know how ridiculous you sound, cheri?”
“What?” She opened her mouth, looking like an out of her bowl fish and I understood. She wanted solidarity. She wanted me telling her she wasn’t wrong at all keeping Kona from his home. But I wasn’t going to lie to her.
“Keira, do you know how long I waited for Ransom to chase after me?” She closed her mouth, leaning back against the chair like I was revealing state secrets. “Do you know how many nights I prayed that he’d just turn up at my condo and tell me he wanted me and nothing else? No team, no Miami, no chance of hurting himself again and again, no anything but me and him in the city we loved.”
“Sweetie, it’s different. Kona and Ransom…”
“Of course it’s different. I left. I walked away and you practically pushed Kona out of the door.” When she moved to the edge of her chair, looking jumpy and eager to argue, I shook my head, mimicking her by moving forward in my seat. “I know why you did it. I know that all of this secrecy, him keeping everything to himself, is completely different from the man you love. The ex, the supposed other kids he fathered, the way your lives have gotten…”
“Busy.”
Shoulders falling, I tilted my head watching Keira close, realizing to her, her struggles were real. But they weren’t hers alone. “Souple, that’s life. You know. Hell, you taught me that. Work and kids and trying to juggle all the hats you wear, me zanmi, Keira, you’ve been preaching that to me for thirteen years. It was bound to get monotonous and complicated because that’s what life does. But you still need each other.”
“He didn’t tell me. He didn’t trust me enough to…” A small whip of wind moved against her, moving the hair from her forehead and Keira stopped her complaint in favor of blinking, trying it seemed, to keep herself in check.
“He wanted to protect you. I know that.” I held out my hand and she took it, rubbing her thumb over the obnoxious ring Ethan had given me. “I think you know that too and I understand, shoushou, that it still hurts. You feel like he didn’t think you could handle it.”