“Have dinner with me.”
Tristan didn’t react right away. He considered her face, the closed apartment door, and then turned back to Lila. Slowly, he placed the food back on the counter.
“Do you have any plates, Tristan? Real plates?”
He opened a cabinet behind him, messy with plates, steel utensils, and glasses.
Lila joined him, her mind on Dixon’s words. It wasn’t just washed clothes. It wasn’t just a plate. “Go sit down,” she said, grabbing what they needed.
Tristan did as he was told, watching her transfer everything to plates. She handed him a real fork and took down a couple of wine glasses, for a bottle of Sangre had appeared on the end of the counter when she turned her back. She opened the bottle and poured for them both.
It was strange to be around him for so long without yelling. It reminded her of how they used to be, so very long ago. Much of her distrust toward Tristan had started because of the stolen palm, had continued because he kept taking her jammer. What if he really had been taking the device as a joke? What if he had taken the palm because he just wanted something of hers to hold on to?
They’d both hurt her when they pinned that flyer on her coat, but Dixon had saved her life. Tristan had saved it as well. He’d jumped into the water to rescue her even when he couldn’t swim.
They’d never failed to help her when she needed it. She’d always thought it was for money, but maybe it wasn’t.
Could she say the same? She’d agreed to help them with the Wilson case, but she had done that to help Simon and Alex.
There’d always been something in it for her.
“Do you remember that night on the Victory Tower when we made up all those constellations?” she asked, handing him his glass of Sangre.
Tristan’s face fell. “I told you when I stole your—”
“I didn’t bring it up because of that. Did we ever come up with a constellation named Klepto?”
Tristan sipped his wine while she sat down at the barstool next to him. “I don’t remember one named Klepto. I remember one called Buster, though,” he recalled, grinning.
“Buster?”
“Yeah, you said he was Rind’s guard dog. He bit Odin in a delicate place after leaving her house. We kind of got into a discussion about divine anatomy after that, and whether or not the gods actually had—”
Lila couldn’t hide her smile. “I forgot about that one.”
Tristan chuckled and swallowed a bite of chicken stir fry. “I didn’t think you remembered them at all, just what I did after.”
“I remembered. It was a fun night. We used to have fun.”
“We could still have fun. Is this really our last job together, Lila? We could start over. I’d like to start over.”
Lila dug around in her lo mein. “I was supposed to turn you in the moment you admitted to the bombing.”
“You didn’t.”
“I should have. You didn’t just destroy a building, Tristan. You destroyed the contracts of dozens of people at that law firm: clerks, paralegals, admins, janitors, people who had nothing to do with—”
“The payout for their contracts is higher than what they would have received if their bosses had gone into a holding cell. The workborn will have a larger cushion while they look for a new contract, and Bullstow will still get to investigate the information we’re sending them. That was why I did it that way. I figured it would take a long time to bring their bosses to court.”
“You also damaged the buildings around Slack & Roberts.”
“Yes, we did,” he admitted, and sipped his Sangre. “The blast was a little more powerful than we meant it to be. It’s been a few years since Shirley did that sort of work, and the army never cared much about precision.”
“My family owns most of that block. Insurance will reimburse us for the repairs, since it was ruled a gas explosion. If I thought you really meant to hurt people, I’d—”
“I didn’t,” he said. “Perhaps I should have done it in the first place, and I don’t mean that because of the heat from Bullstow. I didn’t even realize how far I’d gone until we met the next day, until I saw how upset and angry you were. You call me a criminal all the time, but that was the first time you meant it.”
“I’m sorry—”