While her best friend Cassidy snacks on brie and boys in France, Darcy Li-Quinn must face her last year of high school and the unpredictable wrath of her sister, Danica, alone. Darcy's plan for dealing with Danica and her heinous friends is simple-b...
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"Her name's Audrey Mae Viera. She's the most amazing little thing, Arch. Here." I hand my phone across the aisle to Darcy, and she angles it so my brother can get a better look at the photo.
"Can you believe you and Lily created her?" Darcy says to Archer. "She's lovely."
Darcy pauses, listening to my brother talk. She's super cute when she's concentrating—dark eyes focused, head cocked slightly to the side, fingers playing with the ends of her inky braid. The old me would have chased this girl hard. The new me just hopes she'll still want to be my friend when all this is over.
'Friends' is good, Viera. You could use a friend.
"He wants to know how Lily is," Darcy tells me. Rather than answering all Archer's questions herself, she relays most of them to me so I can respond. It's typically Darcy: thoughtful and understated. It's also clunky as hell, but, given this is as close to an actual conversation with my dead brother as I'm going to get, I'll take it.
"Lil's doing really well," I say. "She had to have one of those C-section things in the end, but it went smoothly. You know Lil—she's a warrior."
Darcy cocks her head to the side again and stays that way for so long I start to worry.
"What's going on, Darce? Is Archer okay?" I ask.
"He's fine. He's just giving me a message for Lily." Darcy shifts weirdly in her seat like she needs to pee and avoids meeting my eyes. My brother is clearly saying things meant for my ex-girlfriend that I don't want to hear.
Don't think about it. Don't think about it. Don't think about it.
Crap.
Thought about it.
Archer and Lily love each other and I salute that. Really, I do. Audrey is extraordinary and I'll protect her with my life. But the thought of my brother and my ex together-together? Still not ready to go there.
"Hunter?" Darcy's frowning at me.
"Huh?" is my eloquent response.
"I was just telling Archer we have a theory to share with him. Did you want to..."
"Sure. Right. Theory." I'm dragged out of my own unhelpful head and back to the important stuff with a painful thud. Because really, what else matters but this? I tell Archer what we know. "The night you died, Arch, you were supposed to meet Shane after work. Lil says you hoped to gain his approval, or at least convince him of your genuine intentions?"
My brother's silence thickens, the air between us humming with all the things I can't hear him say. Darcy gives very little away. Her naturally expressive features are impassive and perfectly still. If hope is a solid thing, it's stuck in my throat like a golf ball.
When she does eventually turn back to me, Darcy's first words are the only ones I really need to hear. "He remembers."
