The Vanishing Season (The Collector #4)(99)

Nearby, Deshani and Jenny sit with Marlene and Abuela Cecilia, listening to the women trade recipes. Priya, Inara, and Victoria-Bliss have absconded with Vic’s girls and descended on the blanket holding Alberto and the boy cousins around his age. There’s a lot of blushing going on in that direction, and the girls are doing precisely none of it.

Vic sits with Paul and Xiomara, the Matsons, and Karwan, watching everyone with delight as the stories fly by. Tears follow laughter, chased by food and more laughter. After a month—a lifetime—of grieving, this is a celebration.

Pulling me back against his chest, Bran rests his chin on my shoulder and laughs, helping Rafi pin a squirming Manny to the floor with a story from a middle school dance that has Lissi in stitches.

It isn’t until we’re getting ready to leave hours later, when the rain is finally looking to get serious, that I see the back of the tombstone.

Karen Coburn

Diana Shaughnessy

Erin Bailey

Faith Eddison

McKenna Lattimore

Caitlyn Glau

Tiffany King

Lydia Green

Emma Coenen

Miranda Norvell

Joanna Olvarson

Melissa Jones

Andrea Buchanan

Riley Young

Shelby Skirvin

Kendall Braun

Extraordinary kindnesses.

The Quantico contingent flies back the next day, and Bran comes with us. He’s been off for most of the month, staying with his family and working through all the arrangements. Helping his parents close the reward account, which was an emotional day for them all. Except for a flight to Chicago for Erin Bailey’s funeral, he’s been in Tampa since shortly after the press conference. He just shakes his head at Vic’s reminder that he can stay longer if he wants to. His extended family has been in town for a couple of weeks, for Thanksgiving and the masses, and he’s developed a bit of a twitch whenever a tía or prima asks him when he’s settling down and having children with his gringa.

It’s possible the extended family doesn’t know that I learned Spanish.

Shira and Illa are at the airport with us, their flight to Denver a couple of hours later. Shira and Ksenia have become fast friends, somewhat to Mercedes’s surprise, and they exchange contact info in the security line. When we settle into our seats on the plane, Bran pulls a book of baseball-themed crosswords from his messenger bag and hands it to me.

“Really?”

“I’m out of paperwork.”

“I can fix that,” Vic says from the next row up.

“Please don’t.”

Given that Vic and Jenny are housing not just their own Hanoverians but also the Sravastis, Inara, and Victoria-Bliss, they’ve got too many for even Jenny’s faithful minivan to hold. We help ferry everyone back to their house, and it’s a shock to precisely no one that Marlene uses that to gently bully the rest of us into staying for dinner.

All in all, it’s almost midnight before we leave the Hanoverians. Bran’s car is at The House, but when I get to the light where our paths home usually diverge, he points straight ahead in the direction of my apartment.

Works for me.

We trudge up the stairs, bags bouncing behind us. There’s a plain white envelope taped to my door. I pluck it off, unlock the door, and drop both envelope and keys on the kitchen counter.

Bran pokes at it. “Shouldn’t you open that?”

“I already know what it is.”

He pokes it again.

“It’s a renewal reminder,” I laugh. “I have to tell them by the end of the month whether or not I want to renew my lease.”

“Ah.”

“I’m going to go shower the airport off of me.”

It’s still strange to go into my closet and not have my old wedding dress hulking in the corner like a clown with a knife. Good strange, but strange nonetheless. I’d never realized how much like an obnoxious roommate The Dress was, taking up space and causing problems and never paying rent. I shower quickly and brush my teeth, then change into leggings and the “Female Body Inspector” shirt that was a gift from Mercedes, intended purely to make Bran choke, back when he was still just Eddison. When I come back out, he’s already in bed, the renewal notice in his hand.

I move the FBI teddy bear to the nightstand and slide in beside him.

He flutters the paper. “What do you think?”

“I like the apartment, but I’m sick of having to scramble to pay rent because they refuse to allow early payments or use an online payment system. I don’t know.”

He takes a deep breath. “What if you move in with me?”

“Into The House?”

“Are the capitals really necessary?”

“Probably not, but I’ve been saying that about hockey for years.”

He thwaps me gently with a pillow, and I retaliate with the knowledge that I am absolutely never, under any circumstances, to share with Mercedes or Priya: his one and only ticklish spot. He squirms away, laughing, and wraps his arms and one leg around me to pin me to the mattress. “Enough, woman!”

“Never.”

The kiss that follows is slow and bone-melting and very, very thorough.

“Move in with me,” he whispers against my lips.

“You’re sure?” I ask, giving that question the weight of everything that’s been holding both of us back.