Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97537 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 488(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
“You still…” I clear my throat. Try again. “Last time, when I said ‘touch me,’ you listened.” The memory flashes hot and humiliating and good. “Right now I don’t want comfort. I want truth. Can you give me that?”
“Yes,” he says immediately.
I lift a hand and set my palm against his chest. His heartbeat is a staccato rabbit. “Then kiss me like someone who knows he may not get to do it tomorrow.”
His breath shakes. “Juno—”
“Don’t talk,” I whisper. “Just—truth.”
He steps in. His hand hovers at my jaw as if asking permission. I tip my face up. The first brush is cautious, a question. I press closer and the question dissolves. Heat flickers under my skin, and the world narrows to the slide of his mouth on mine. He kisses like apology and hunger can coexist—gentle then desperate, an anchor then a spark. My fingers fist in his shirt. His body crowds mine to the edge of the table and every nerve ending I have votes we stop being mad and start being reckless.
I break first, breathing hard. His forehead rests against mine. “If we keep going,” I say, voice wrecked, “I’ll forgive you for the next ten minutes and hate myself in the morning.”
He huffs a laugh that isn’t funny. “Standing down.”
I smooth my thumb over his cheekbone, a motion my body memorized before my brain could object. “Don’t think this fixes anything.”
“It doesn’t,” he says. “But I’m grateful for the data point.”
I snort, which breaks the pressure enough to breathe without sobbing. He steps back, giving me space. The room becomes a room again.
“Text me the minute you get home,” he says softly.
“I will,” I say, and mean it.
At the door, I look back. He’s standing with his hands in his pockets like he doesn’t trust them near me. His eyes are the warm-brown espresso I once demanded from a mask. I don’t say I forgive you. I say, “Don’t be late tomorrow.”
“For the plan or for the bagels?” he asks, a ghost of a smile.
“Both,” I say, and disappear into the stairwell before my resolve changes its mind. Outside, the river air bites my lungs and I realize I’m smiling for the first time today. It’s small and stupid and not the same as forgiveness.
But it’s a start. And so is a plan to light Nico Armand’s shadow on fire.
22
Arrow
By the time I lock the Riverside door behind me, the river has turned into a sheet of black glass and the wind coming off it has that metallic bite that sneaks under your hoodie and rearranges your introspection. We have a plan scrawled in dry-erase and digital breadcrumbs in five separate encrypted vaults. We also have a hole where trust used to sit. Both truths ride home with me like passengers I didn’t invite.
Our apartment is dark except for a low lamp in the living room and the soft glow of a laptop. Gage is on the couch with his boots off and two Pelican cases open like surgical trays. He’s building some Franken-rig for Render. It’s a camera body, a pancake lens, a directional mic the size of a pencil. His hands move with careful, monkish focus. He looks up as I shut the door with my foot.
“Hey, bat,” I say, dropping my backpack by the coat rack.
Gage’s mouth twitches. “Don’t call me bat. Bats have better PR.”
“How long you been home?”
He checks his watch without really looking at it. “Hour. Ozzy’s at Knight’s, pretending tacos are a religion. I figured you’d need a pair of eyes not attached to a feelings bomb.”
“Accurate.”
He watches me for a beat, sees the way my shoulders are sitting an inch higher than usual, and folds the laptop shut. “You sure about this?” he asks, and I know he means all of it: the plan, the soft-bait at Atlas, the hard edges, the Juno of it all.
“No,” I say, socking my hands into my hoodie pocket. “But we’re out of sure, and the clock’s been heckling us.”
He nods once, absorbing that like data. “I’ll sit the marina cams tonight. If the plate shows again, I want it before it hits the causeway.”
“Thanks.”
He doesn’t fill silence unless it needs filling. Tonight it does. He tips his head toward me. “How’s the… other thing?”
“You mean the part where the woman I love has one hand on my heart and the other on a flamethrower?”
“That one.”
I drop into the armchair across from him and scrub my palms over my face. “She found out about the spyware.”
Gage’s wince is quiet but comprehensive. “Told you not to cross that line.”
“I know.” The shame burns, steady and clean. “I was scared. I did the wrong smart thing.”
He considers. “People think the smart thing is the thing with the most code in it.”
“It usually is for me.”
“And how’d it go?”