All of Me (Inside Out #5.5)(32)

“One could say the same of you and Sara, I believe.”

“One could say exactly that,” Chris agrees, wrapping his arm around my shoulders.

The SUV cuts left onto an empty side street, where Jacob parks. “You have an hour before we have to leave for the memorial. What would you like to do?”

Chris releases me, glancing out of the window. “Chinese food to the left.” He grabs my hand and opens the door. “Let’s eat.”

“What?” Mark demands. “We can’t stop here. We don’t know this neighborhood.”

“I painted it,” Chris informs him. “I know it, so either come with us or we’ll see you at the memorial.”

Crystal says, “We’re coming.”

She slides out of the vehicle and Mark says something to Jacob before he, too, joins us.

Chris arches a brow and Mark replies, “You aren’t getting out of dinner with us that easily. Nice try.”

“I’d try harder, but I’m hungry.” Chris wraps his arm around me and we cross the street, Mark and Crystal right behind us, with Jacob pulling the SUV around to park in front of the restaurant before we even enter.

The four of us step into the tiny dining area that seats ten people at most, and we all shrug out of our coats, taking turns going to the fast-food style counter. In a matter of minutes we’ve settled around the steel table with our food.

As everyone begins to eat, I notice some bruising on Crystal’s jaw. “Oh God. You’re still healing.”

Crystal touches her face. “The changing colors are pretty hard to hide.”

“But you’re okay?”

“Yes,” she confirms, glancing at Mark. “But it’s going to take me a long time to get him to stop worrying.”

“That bastard who helped Ava is still out there somewhere,” Mark all but growls. “I want him caught.”

I wonder if this is what they wanted to see us about. Chris sets his fork down, and seems to feel the same, asking, “What are they doing about it?”

Mark shoves his plate away. “It’s the FBI’s jurisdiction now, and Royce Walker is ex-FBI, which makes him a valuable resource. But this guy has been on the Most Wanted list for years. I’m not confident.”

“He doesn’t want me,” Crystal argues.

“Give it up,” I tell her. “Mark’s going to push this, just like Chris would.”

“What can we do?” Chris asks.

“Nothing,” Mark says. “Or believe me, I’d be calling in a few of the favors you owe me.”

“What favors?”

“Should I start the list?”

“Please do.”

“How’s your mother, Mark?” I ask, changing the subject before we run out of time.

He reaches over and opens a package of hot mustard Crystal’s struggling with, and then hands it back to her. “Cancer-free and planning the wedding of the century.”

Chris arches a brow. “Big wedding, then, I guess?”

“We’d elope if we could,” Crystal says, “but this has made Dana—Mark’s mom—excited to live again.” She goes on to tell us about the wedding in six months, about her father, and about the most recent media frenzy, with Mark interjecting here and there and the two of them often finishing each other’s sentences. She’s no submissive, for sure, and she works magic on Mark. He’s different, more human.

No. Real. He’s real in ways he had never been before.

I reach for my drink and Crystal’s eyes go wide. “Your ring. Oh my God, it’s gorgeous. Can I look closer?”

“Chris designed it.” I hold out my hand and to my shock, Mark grabs it.

“A rose? A f*cking rose? Does he know what they mean?”

“No,” I say steadily. “This isn’t about Rebecca. Chris never read the journals. He refused to invade her privacy.”

“Yet he chose roses?”

“Yes. They have a special meaning to him and to us.”

“They were my mother’s favorite flower,” Chris interjects. “We’re getting married under rosebushes that she helped plant.”

I’m shocked but pleased that Chris, who is inherently private, has shared something so intimate. But it’s clear Mark is struggling with old demons, and if anyone understands such things, it’s Chris.

Mark’s hands flatten on the table. “Talk about irony.”

Crystal’s hand covers one of Mark’s, a silent question in the action that I don’t expect him to answer.

Not for the first time tonight, Mark surprises me. “Rebecca loved roses,” he replies. “She had rose candles, rose bath wash. Roses everywhere.”

I watch Crystal’s face, afraid this is hurting her, and it is, but what I read in her is his pain. His pain hurts her. She loves him. Deeply. Completely.

“I gave her a rose painting for her wall from my collection,” he continues, and the memory of that painting makes her loss feel very real right now. “I sent her roses to convince her to be my damned submissive,” he adds, his eyes meeting Chris’s. “You were right. I should have walked away from her, and my regret cuts through me like knives every single day.”

“If only I could have seen my own errors when I was discovering yours,” Chris replies, his voice thick, gravelly, affected by Mark, but also the rawness of losing Amber.