❝death is only the beginning.❞
Mara El-Masri's fascination with the long-ago world of ancient Egypt started with the stories her stepfather would tell her when she was a child. Her brother Talib El-Masri is missing, left after their mother's funera...
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☾ ☽
"HAVE I KISSED YOU TODAY?"
The corners of Evy's mouth twitched before Rick leaned forward to kiss her, arms going around his neck as she leaned into him. They stood on the second level of their home, newly returned from Egypt with a chest that contained a legendary bracelet in their luggage, unaware that just below them their son now wore the bracelet on his wrist.
Evy narrowed her eyes at him as he pulled back. "I hate it when you do that."
Rick grinned. "Why?"
"Makes me feel like agreeing to anything."
"Anything?"
She nodded, smile widening as he wrapped his arms around her and dipped her in the hallway, intending to kiss her again. And he would have, too, if Evy hadn't spotted out of the corner of her eye a cloche hat that didn't belong to her angled on the corner of one of the bookcases and a man's belt that didn't belong to her husband hanging off a chair. Neither of those things had been there before they'd left for Egypt.
She already knew the answer as she asked, "Is that Mara's hat?"
"Jonathan's belt," Rick muttered as he pulled Evy to a standing position again, letting go of her. His eyes lowered to the floor around them and he bent to grab what looked like a black button from a shirt, adding, "And I think this is a button from one of his shirts." It didn't exactly take a genius to figure out how the hat, belt, and button had gotten where they did. "You're the one who said we should let them stay here."
"Well, they are newlyweds," Evy said, wincing still. As much as she loved that they were together and happy after everything they had gone through in Riyadh five years ago, it was still a bit odd, for lack of a better word, to think about—her brother and her best friend. "And I suppose we should just be glad it's nothing worse."
"Yeah."
"You remember what we were like in the beginning. And now."
Rick chuckled lowly. "Trust me, I do. But still, this is our house. I'm going to go talk to them."
As he dropped the button on the nearest flat surface and started to head down the hall that led to the room they were staying in, she started, "Oh, I don't think they're back yet—"
He turned back, brows raised. "You think Mara and Jonathan went to a ballet and stayed the entire time?"
That was a good point, she relented. She'd left them the tickets for the sole reason of the date falling on exactly six months since their wedding and considered it a bit of a belated present to them in addition to what they'd given them half a year ago, but she'd also known that neither seemed like people who liked ballets. She agreed, "I'd be surprised if they went at all. Oh, fine, go see if they're here."
