“At this point?” I barked a short, bitter laugh. “I’d take advice from the bulldogs if I thought it would help. I didn’t mean to f**k things up with Becks. I mean…” It was my fault because she’d been there, and she’d been willing, and she’d been offering me something I thought I wanted. She came with full disclosure, all her baggage right there on the table. Me, I’d been hiding how far gone I was for so long that I… didn’t. She had no idea what she was getting into. I knew that. And I should have known better.

“Are you blaming her?”

“I’m blaming myself.”

“Good.” Maggie nodded, looking satisfied. “You’re both adults, and it’s none of my business what you do, as long as nobody’s getting hurt. Becks got hurt. Maybe she should have been more careful about weighing the risks, but that doesn’t matter right now. You need to apologize to her. You need to make this right, because if you wait for her to get better on her own, I don’t think you’re going to be able to work together anymore.”

“Yeah, I can do that.” I would even mean it. Becks deserved a hell of a lot better than the way I’d treated her, whether I meant to treat her badly or not.

She deserved a hell of a lot better than me.

“I’m glad.” Maggie stepped forward and hugged me. Her hair smelled lie I was fonilla and strawberries. She held on just long enough that I was starting to get uncomfortable before letting go and turning to start taking groceries out of bags, leaving me blinking dumbly after her. Catching my look, she arched her eyebrows, and said, “Well? What are you waiting for? Get out there and talk to her. Go.”

I went.

The grass was damp, probably from some overnight rainfall, and my boots were wet by the time I’d crossed it to Maggie’s van, which sat in the driveway with doors open and groceries on the front seat. There was nobody there. I turned to look around, unsurprised to see footprints in the wet grass leading away, toward Maggie’s vegetable garden.

I followed the trail all the way around the house and to the edge of the carefully tilled plot of ground that Maggie used for growing vegetables and fresh herbs. A few pre-Rising park benches had been set up inside the garden border, providing a decorative touch of retro chic to the place. Becks was sitting on the bench farthest from where I stood, her back to me. I wasn’t quiet as I approached her, and she didn’t move. I guess she’d been expecting me.

“Hey,” I said, when I was close enough. “You mind if I sit down?”

“Yes, I do mind.” She turned in my direction, tilting her chin up as she looked at me. Her eyes were only a little bloodshot. She’d clearly mastered the Irwin art of crying without making yourself look bad for the cameras. That just made me feel worse. “But I guess we have to do this, so you might as well.” She scooted to the side, waving a hand in invitation.

“Thanks.” I sat, letting my hands rest on my knees. Silence fell between us. She was waiting for me to start, and I had no clue how.

Say you’re sorry, prompted George.

She’d never led me wrong before. “I’m sorry, Becks. I mean, Jesus, I’m so f**king sorry, I don’t think I can even say it. I was stupid, and I was selfish, and I’m sorry.”

Becks took a shaky breath. There was an edge of laughter to her voice when she spoke, like she couldn’t quite believe that we were doing this. “So that’s it? You’re sorry? I knew you had issues, Shaun, and I’m a big girl—I thought I could handle them. I guess I was wrong. I shouldn’t blame you for that.” But I do. The subtext in her words was impossible to miss, even for me.

“Maybe you shouldn’t blame me, but I should still have been smart enough to tell you that it wasn’t a good idea for us to be… intimate like that.”

“You mean we shouldn’t have f**ked like bunnies?”

I coughed, partly from surprise, partly to cover the phantom sound of George’s laughter. “Uh, that, too. I just… I guess I wasn’t expecting it and does that sound unbelievably lame, or is it just me?”

Becks frowned, slowly. “You really mean that, don’t you? You really had no idea.”

“No idea of what?”

She stared for a moment before letting her chin drop and saying, “Oh, my God. You really had no idea.”

I was starting to get concerned. Apologizing for something I knew I’d done was one thing—I may not have much experience with girls, but I’m smart enough to know that calling them by somebody else’s name is never a good thing, especially when that somebody else is dead and also technically my sister. Apologizing for something I didn’t know I’d done was a bit more of a problem, if only because I couldn’t be sure I was doing it right. “Uh, Becks, I’m sorry, but you’re kinda losing me here. I’m happy to keep apologizing, but I do need to know what I’m apologizing for.”

This time her laughter was bright and brittle, like broken glass glinting in the sunlight. “I’ve been throwing myself at you for months, Shaun. The flirting, the frilly tops, the requests for hands-on review of my reports—I mean, what the hell did you think I was doing?”

“I don’t know,” I replied honestly. “I figured you just wanted to make sure your facts were solid before you posted, and all that frilly stuff looked like a girl thing. Sort of like the way you wear your hair.”