I looked to my lap and started to fiddle with the strap on my bag.
“Evie?” Mag called.
I stopped fiddling with the strap on my bag, faced front and said nothing.
But suddenly, I felt the mood in the cab lighten.
“Fuck, baby,” Mag murmured, reaching out and taking hold of my hand. “I’m sorry. I was a dick in how I relayed that.”
“It would hurt even if you were nice about it,” I told him, my voice flat.
He heard my voice, which was probably why he forced his fingers through mine, and with them laced, held on tight, pulling my hand to his thigh.
“Yeah, it would hurt,” he agreed. “But I should always be nice. I should never be a dick to you. It’s no excuse, but when you called from the mall, flipped out, then were cut off, and then Axl called it in that Cisco got you, it tweaked me. It was a certain kind of hell, knowing he had you, tryin’ to keep my head in the game as Hawk and the boys strategized a rescue mission. Then you called, and with how you did, I knew you were swinging your ass way out there, and that didn’t tweak me, it freaked me.”
Oh.
Well then.
One could say it didn’t once occur to me to think how it would feel to be on Mag’s side of this situation.
But now that he was sharing, I realized his day had been (almost) as bad as mine.
“Then my relief when the Nightingale team reported that you were safe didn’t last long when Cisco made it clear you charmed his shit,” he carried on. “I’m not a jealous guy, but I’m also not a guy who wants another guy openly into my woman. Definitely not throwing down for her. And definitely not someone like Cisco bein’ her latest fan.”
Hmm.
“I was kinda involved in what was happening to me and the girls,” I admitted. “I didn’t think about what you were going through.”
“Babe, I didn’t tell you that to get your sympathy. I told you that to explain why, since I saw you in Fortnum’s, I was acting like a dick.”
“Now that I know, it doesn’t seem like you’ve been a dick. Just…venting.”
“Right,” he muttered, giving my fingers a squeeze.
I squeezed his back.
And there we were.
My uncertainty washed away, and I was back on the fast track with Mag.
Because Mag was ticked, he worked it out with the guys, he shared with me, we worked it out.
And we ended all that holding hands.
“I can get you in to see your dad if you want,” he offered.
No.
I did not want.
“It could have been over for me. Easy,” I declared. “I had that bag to hand off to Snag and then I was out. Mick dragged me in, but Dad kept me in, and it’s a miracle that things turned out the way they did. It wasn’t fun, and you got hurt, but we can all move on, only by a miracle. Anything changed, like today, a stray bullet hit Ryn, or Axl took one, or Cisco didn’t like me, or those calls I made to you or Dad didn’t go as I’d hoped and that guy shot Pepper, and then Juno wouldn’t have a mom. The alternate scenarios are too frightening to even contemplate. And my fucking brother and father put me and people I care about in those scenarios.”
I looked to him.
And I then asked, “With all of that, what do you say to someone who did that to you? Who knowingly, for their own ends, put you in that spot? That someone, or those someones being your very own blood?”
“I don’t know, honey,” he whispered, his fingers tightening on my hand.
“Nothing,” I said. “There’s nothing to say.” I turned forward again. “And the funny thing is, I also feel nothing. Not about that. But I’m pissed because what I do feel is like I’m mourning the death of someone I should care about. And I’m doing that even though they never gave me the people they were supposed to be for me. I’ve lost a brother and a father that I never really had in the first place.”
I looked to him when I had to shift his way because he lifted my hand to press it against his heart.
And I watched when he lifted it again, to touch his lips to my fingers.
Then he set it back down on his thigh and spoke.
“Only thing I got to give you is, it’s over.”
For long moments, I stared at his long, strong fingers threaded through mine, still feeling the soft touch of his lips, before I closed my eyes and again turned forward.
I opened them and muttered, “Yeah.”
We fell silent.
We were close to his complex when I broke it to say, “Smithie knows I’m quitting.”
“Well, shit,” he said gently, “that means my girl really had a bad day.”