Destiny and Deception by Shannon Delany Page B

Max and looking as comfortable as I’d seen the two look together in a while, Amy merely yawned and asked, “What time is it?”
    “Ten-seventeen,” Max reported as Pietr pushed up a sleeve to check his wrist.
    Pietr raised wary eyes at his brother and nodded at the accuracy of his statement.
    “Sounds like time to call it a night, boys,” Amy said, slowly rising from her chair and stretching. “Some of us”—she reached down and tapped Max’s stubbly chin—“should call about the status of our job applications in the morning.”
    I froze, astonished by how focused she’d become on something other than Marvin’s funeral.
    Also in the morning.
    “And on that note…” Alexi tucked away his cell phone, rose, and looked at the character sheet sitting before him. “Am I supposed to do something with this?”
    Amy snorted. “Give it to me, Sasha. You’re enough of a character. I’ll make you into something new and shiny.”
    “Shiny is overrated.” Alexi looked at Smith. “Smith,” he said after a long pause that told me he was working on remembering the name, “thank you so much for starting us on what will surely be an exciting adventure of the imagination.”
    I blinked.
    Smith knew a dismissal when he heard one and clambered to his feet, quickly collecting his things. He cleared his throat, managing to get Hascal and Jaikin to look away from Cat. For a moment.
    “Oh.” They both stood, both apologized, both stumbled over themselves telling Cat what a pleasure it was to meet her … and both headed to the door, Smith lingering a moment longer to wish me good night.
    “It was a great deal of fun introducing you to the realm of D&D,” he said. “I hope we can make this a weekly event.”
    Oh, god .
    Pietr rose and came to where we stood in the foyer. “I intend to set a schedule of that sort,” he announced.
    “What if you get a job and have to work?” I asked, silently hoping. It sucked to spend a Friday night without Pietr, but if it meant spending a Friday night without Smith’s awkward advances and playing a game I somehow missed the point of, I’d send him away.
    “I’ll make it work,” Pietr countered.
    Smith nodded and the three of them left, leaving Pietr and me alone in the foyer.
    He reached over and gave me a hug, pulling away as soon as I started to relax in his grip.
    “You’ll make it work, huh?” I asked, looking up into his eyes.
    “ Da .”
    I hoped the game night schedule wasn’t the only thing he’d find some way to make work.
    *   *   *
    I waited a few more minutes after Smith, Hascal, and Jaikin had gone and I cleared my throat to get Amy’s attention. She looked up from where she sat beside Max, playing with his hair, tugging at individual curls just to watch them spring back into place.
    Her lips pursed. “I know,” she muttered.
    I shrugged. “It has to be your choice. If you want to stay here tonight…”
    “Sleep all alone,” she added, her lips turning down at their ends.
    Max leaned back and shook his head. “We’ve had this conversation.”
    “I just can’t,” she whispered. “I don’t know why.… I trust you, but I can’t sleep in a bed with you. Even though I know nothing’s going to happen.”
    He shrugged. “Like Jessie says: your decision.”
    “I’ll pack a bag.” She brushed the hair back from Max’s eyes and then headed to the basement.
    I pulled out a chair and looked at him. “Hey.”
    “Hey,” he agreed, resting his head on the dining room table.
    “Are you going tomorrow?”
    “To her rapist’s funeral?”
    I waited.
    “You really need me to say it?” He rolled his head so that he could peer at me without lifting it off the table. “Let me say it like this: If he wasn’t already dead, I’d kill him.”
    “You nearly did before.”
    “ Da .”
    “So you won’t go. You won’t be there for her.”
    “I can’t. I’d tear the place apart the moment they started saying nice stuff about the bastard.” He