Page 82 of Deathless & Divided

“You didn’t.”

“No,” Damian murmured. “It’s not good to pick sides when you don’t know which one will win, Lily.”

“Win?” She tossed him a look, hoping it voiced her confusion without needing to ask.

“Little things like these have a way of becoming much bigger problems.”

“What does it mean, though?” Lily asked.

Damian’s arm found her waist before he pulled her closer to his side. Lily didn’t mind the closeness. It reminded her that for the moment, she did have someone who cared. “Means I need to keep you close, sweetheart.”

“Close?”

“Very close.”

Lily shivered. “Maybe I should like the sound of that, but for some reason, I don’t think you mean for me to.”

Damian shrugged. “Bad things happen when angry people grieve.”

“Sometimes.”

“But nothing will happen to you.”

Evelina passed Lily another pack of colors to flip through.

“How many different shades of peach can there be?” Lily asked, exasperated.

“A lot,” Evelina said, laughing quietly.

Lily smiled. It was the first time in a week since Evelina’s mother had been buried that the girl actually laughed or anything of that nature.

“I’ll find the right shade,” Lily said, tossing two awful swatches into the pile. “Not those, though.”

“What did you do this week?” Evelina asked. “When you weren’t here, I mean.”

Lily grinned. “I wanted to be here, Eve.”

“Thanks.”

She missed so much time with her friend when she spent those years touring Europe that Lily was trying to make up for what they’d lost. Never once did their friendship feel out of place or like it had grown stale. Some didn’t. Some friendships—the very best kind—picked up where they last left off without ever missing a beat.

That was the kind of friend Evelina was.

“Where’s Damian?” Evelina asked, leaning back on the couch and glancing over her magazine.

Lily frowned. “I don’t know.”

“Really?”

“Nope. He’s been MIA for the last week.”

Which was completely odd. Especially if Lily considered what Damian had told her at Mia’s funeral. He planned on keeping her close, yet Lily rarely saw him all week. He showed up for dinner at her brother’s place yesterday, but that was it.

“I’ve been doing a lot, too,” Lily said in explanation. “Maybe I’m just passing him by.”

“Maybe,” Evelina echoed.

Between Evelina’s place and Abriella’s, Lily had spent more time out of her home the last week than she had inside it. It didn’t make things any easier that Evelina didn’t seem to want to be anywhere near the Trentini family for whatever reason. Evelina and Abriella had always been good friends, too, but the divide separating the men in their families had pushed the girls to separate corners, too.