Chapter 80: WHAT HAPPENED WITH LYRA?
KEISHA’S POV
I turned around.
Dane was leaning against the wall of the house next to mine with his arms folded, watching me look at my house with a blank look on his face.
"You did the windows." I pointed out.
"The old ones were wrong." He shrugged. "Wrong glass, wrong frame. Someone with the right tool gets through them in under a minute." He pushed off the wall. "The new ones are a different story."
"You painted the wall too." I smiled slightly.
"It needed it." He looked down at me.
"And the porch light." I turned back to the house.
"The old one was barely working." He shrugged.
I looked at my house. The door, the windows, the paint, the light. All of it sitting there looking cared for in a way that made something press against my chest.
"You didn’t have to do all of this." I muttered.
"I know." He said simply.
"Dane." I whispered.
"You’re welcome." He said before I had even said thank you.
I looked at him and he looked back at me with that patient expression.
I turned and started walking back toward the office and he fell into step beside me without being invited.
We walked for a while without talking and the afternoon was cold and the path was mostly empty at this hour.
"You seemed more settled this week." He broke the silence. "At the mansion."
"Nadia is good company." I sighed
"She’s relentless company." He said.
"That too." I huffed. "It helped actually. Having somewhere to be that wasn’t my own head."
"Good." He said.
I glanced at him sideways. "Why are you walking me back to the office?"
"I’m going in the same direction." He said.
"Are you?" I asked.
"The east corridor." He tilted his head. "Border report to file."
"The east corridor is the other way." I said.
He said nothing and I looked ahead.
"Keisha." He said after a moment.
"Hm." I said.
"The pool." He slowed down. "The other night. What you said."
I kept walking. "What about it?"
"Did you mean it?" He asked. "That you think we’re just using you."
"I said what I said." I didn’t look at him.
"That’s not an answer." He said.
"It’s the only one you’re getting right now." I shrugged.
He was quiet for a moment. "I’m not using you." He said. "I want you to know that."
"Dane—"
"I’m not." He pressed. "Whatever this is between the three of us, it’s not that. At least not from my end."
I kept my eyes on the path. "And Callum’s end?" I said.
"You know the answer to that." He said.
"Do I?" I whispered.
"Yes." He said quietly but firmly. "You do."
I said nothing.
We walked in the quiet for a moment, and I kept my eyes forward and my pace even and told myself to say nothing.
"You’re angry at me." He muttered.
"I’m not angry." I huffed.
"You’ve been keeping distance since the pool." He said. "Even before the pool. Longer than that."
"I’m not keeping distance." I frowned. "I’ve just been busy."
"Keisha." He rubbed his chin.
"Dane." I said back.
He stepped slightly in front of me and I stopped walking because the alternative was walking into him.
He was close. Closer than the path required. His eyes were dark, patient and doing the thing where they waited for me to say the real thing instead of the thing I was going to say to avoid the real thing.
I stepped back. "Stop doing that." I said.
"Doing what." He said.
"The close thing." I said. "The eyes thing you do. The whole—" I gestured at him. "Thing."
"I’m just standing here." He frowned.
"You’re standing here deliberately." I said. "With intention."
Something pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Am I not allowed to stand near you?"
"Not like that." I whispered, feeling my resolve crumble lightly.
"Like what?" He said and took one more small step closer and I felt the irritation of someone whose body was not cooperating with their brain so I stepped back again and pointed at him.
"Stop." I frowned. "I mean it. Stop standing there looking like that and asking reasonable questions in that voice and acting like you actually—" I stopped.
He waited.
"You broke my sister’s heart." I reminded him and the words came out flat and certain.
His expression changed immediately, the almost-smile gone.
"Lyra." I said. "You were with her for over a year and you ended it without explaining yourself and she spent eighteen months trying to understand why and I sat in Coldridge watching her go through that and I held her hand through it and I told her it was going to be okay." I looked at him directly. "And now I’m standing here and every time you show up, I forget that. I keep forgetting it and I can’t keep forgetting it."
He said nothing.
"What happened?" I asked, my voice pleading. "Between you and her. Because she never got an explanation and I never got one and nobody seems to know and I—" I paused. "I think I deserve to know. After everything."
He looked at me for a long moment.
Something was working through his face. Something that had layers to it, complicated and sitting right at the edge of coming out.
"Keisha." He said quietly.
"Don’t say my name like that." I pleaded. "Just tell me what happened."
He exhaled slowly. "It’s not simple." He said.
"I’m not asking for simple." I sniffled. "I’m asking for true."
He looked at the path, then back at me, his jaw was tight. "There are things I need to explain properly." He said. "Things that—" He stopped and tried again. "I can’t do it right here. Right now. Not without—" He pressed his lips together. "Not without making everything more complicated than it already is."
"More complicated for who?" I asked.
He looked at me and said nothing.
Right.
"That’s what I thought." I nodded.
"Keisha I’m not—"
"You’re not what?" I cut him off. "You’re not avoiding it? You’re not protecting something? What are you not doing, Dane, because from where I’m standing you’re doing all of those things."
He looked at me with tight lips and his hands had gone into his pockets and his jaw was still tight.
I waited as he opened his mouth and— Nothing came out.
He just stood there.
I looked at him for a long moment. "When you can." I said quietly. "If you ever can."
I turned and walked back to the office.
He didn’t follow and I didn’t look back. I sat down at my desk and opened the next file in my queue, stared at the words and thought about Lyra’s voice on the phone.
Eighteen months.
I worked through the afternoon with my head down and my hands busy.
By the time the office started emptying out, I had cleared my full queue, done three additional logs nobody asked for and helped Evelyn locate a misfiled report that had been causing her supervisor problems since Thursday.
I was packing my own bag when Mrs Velaris appeared at my desk with a folder tucked under her arm and her coat already on.
"I have a report that needs to go to the Alpha tonight." She informed me. "Before morning. He asked for it by the end of the day."
"Okay." I said. "Do you want me to—"
"My son has a recital." She said. "I promised I’d be there and I’m already cutting it close and I—" She looked at the folder.
"I’ll take it." I told her.
She looked at me. "You’re sure?"
"Go to the recital." I said as I took the folder. "I’ve got it."
She exhaled. "Thank you." She said and she said it like she meant it. "I’ll remember this."
"Go." I smiled.
She went.
I put the folder in my bag and finished packing and headed out into the evening before I headed toward the Alpha’s mansion.
