“Only if I you’d let me have the bed,” Torrie throws back, like she hasn’t dug her heels in a million times before, like staying with Solomon hasn’t been on the table since the beginning of forever. If he’s going to ignore her inadvertent knife twist she’ll ignore it too. Maybe it’s stupid and stubborn the way she refuses to go back, but she had her reasons for leaving and they haven’t just evaporated over time. Maybe someday. “That couch of yours sucks.” She doesn’t ask about her space and whether it’s been adopted by someone else.
There’s an unbidden stab of fear and concern, honed when she was young and he was so sick, that wants her to tell him he should take the detail. But the larger, older, more mature part of her conscious wins out before she opens her mouth again. Reminds her that Solomon is more capable at defending himself against an attack than she is, that he’s safe and not so reckless to disregard if he was in real danger. In the end she has no right to tell him what to do, not even being his sister gives her the authority to dictate his life. He never dictates hers. Instead she cocks her head to the side, like she’s considering something, then laughs and says, “I would still be prettier.” Like it’s a revelation of some kind.
They’ve never skirted the hard subjects, but she can tell her energy for seriousness is running low. If she thinks about the murderer in UMCB and how close it is to some of the few people she still gives a damn about she’ll only get angry and want to do something about it. She can’t do anything about it, not in the state she’s in, and not where she is.
“Does JP know you cleared out all his soup cans?” she continues instead, changing the subject with a wave of her hand towards her newly acquired pantry on the table. “Will I be getting messages about that?”