Choking down a dinner that, for all of the great scents that came from its creation, tasted like sandpaper was the simplest part of my day.
Doing it while seated across from a man that I wasn't certain I could trust, or at least I couldn't trust him to be honest with me about what he'd been doing when I wasn't at his side was the second hardest.
And by this point I was feeling like I wasn't ready to add to the tally of shitty parts of a day that should have ended after Joe Kessler darkened my office door. Clearly Billy didn't get the memo.
His fork clattering onto the plate should have warned me, but I was clearly in my own world of tasteless food and misery.
"I met Maeve to get intel on how to bring Homelander down," I didn't look up from what was left on my plate, not when I could see how she'd looked when she left the apartment. "And let's just say that push came to shove and -" he huffed out a long breath and I felt like maybe I never knew him at all, not if push could come to shove and - "It was a mistake, Veronica. A one time idiotic -" When I didn't stop him or engage, he moved on. Thankfully. "As for the caped cunt," I had to put my own fork down, the idea of the two of them sitting down to have a face to face made me nauseous after what Homelander had done to me. "He did what he normally does," had tea with the enemy, I almost asked, but he was telling his side of the story so I stayed silent. "He threatened, wanted to know where Ryan was, and then offered a fight to the death end of it all."
"And the vials?" Looking up, I caught the shock passing across his face and realized he had no idea how much I really knew. "Was your mistake with Maeve the cost of business?"
"V24," his lips were barely moving, but I heard him. "Temp V," studying him like both my former mentor and he should be proud as fuck of, I waited him out again. "All the positives," powers, clearly. "None of the side effects." So he wouldn't become more of an obnoxious asshole, or so he thought.
"Have you taken it?" The silence that met my question told me he had. "But the epic fight to the death hasn't happened," I think I'd have seen a breaking news report if Homelander was finally free of his mortal coil. "Wasting the product you paid for with your mistake?" I wondered if he'd have to make another payment for more.
"I should have told you," no, I thought, you should have fucking abstained from the entire idiotic bullshit, but it was my turn for silence. I'd said my peace, gotten answers, and now we were here. Wherever the fuck here was.
Standing, I started cleaning up from dinner and he stayed where he was - which was the safest course for him, since I would be handling knives while putting them in the dishwasher and I'd hate to have my own mistake.
"Where do we go from here?" The dishwasher was loaded and on, and I had wiped the counters down so hard that I was shocked I hadn't rubbed off the veins in the marble. Billy took my pause in finding things to tidy up as an invitation to restart our conversation.
Shaking my head, I truly had no idea. "I don't know." And I didn't. I was afraid that he couldn't be trusted, that I couldn't trust myself to know precisely where he was and what he was doing.
"I love you, Veronica," nodding, I agreed that he clearly wanted to believe he did. "It was a mistake."
"Yeah," it was a mistake, but maybe all of this was. Me and him, this life we were building, even the idea of bringing Ryan into it. How could it be safe or sane if his biological sperm donor was having tea with the man whose last name he shared? "Yeah, a mistake." Nodding to myself, I made a choice, whether permanent or not I couldn't say. Not this close to all of it. "I'm going to stay in the city for a while." He made a noise that told me he planned on arguing, but I went on. "You and Terror can have the house, I just need a little time to myself."
And before he could try to tempt me to forget or talk me out of it, I was upstairs packing.