The question hits wrong enough to slow the panic. “What?”
“At Ardor. What did you bake today? I want your brain somewhere it knows the steps. Tell me what you made.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Cinnamon rolls.”
“Good. Tell me about them. I’m sure your bakery has a few secrets that make them better than the diner down the street.”
That brings a smile to my face because the diner down the street is awful. Some of the panic ebbs away as I grip the phone alittle tighter. “They’re not hard if you don’t rush them.” My voice shakes, but the words come a little easier because dough makes sense in a way nothing else does. “The milk has to be warm, but it can’t be too hot. There’s honey in the dough and the glaze, but not too much or they get sticky in the wrong way. Priya hates when I say sticky in the right way because she thinks it sounds gross.”
Skylar makes a low sound, and I hear a car door open on his end. “Keep going.”
“You have to watch the texture. Honey changes it. If you add too much flour, the rolls get heavy, and Clarence complains even more than usual. He already thinks every loaf was bigger in 1998, so we don’t need to give him help.” My breathing catches, then eases a little. “There’s the cinnamon mixture but that’s a secret recipe. I’m not allowed to tell anyone.”
“That’s too bad. It just means I’ll have to come and try one,” he says. “You’re doing good. If you hear another sound, tell me, but don’t open the door.”
“I won’t.” My fingers dig into the blanket. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t apologize for calling me. The man who attacked you is the problem. You calling because you feel unsafe is exactly what you’re supposed to do.”
My throat closes again, but it is different this time. I press my forehead to the closet wall and breathe. “Skylar,” I whisper.
“I’m here.” His engine hums through the line. “Stay on the phone,” he says, his voice almost coming out as a purr. “Give me ten minutes, and I’ll be there.”
Skylar
The lobby of Emrys’s building smells like old carpet, lemon cleaner, rainwater tracked in from the street, and the faint trace of vanilla that has settled into the walls because he lives here.
I pause inside the front door long enough to listen before I move. Pipes knock somewhere above me. A television murmurs behind a second-floor door. The entry light buzzes overhead, and the narrow hall sits empty except for stained carpet, mailboxes, and a row of apartment doors that have all seen better paint. Nothing shifts near the stairs. Nothing moves at theside entrance. I check anyway, twice, because Emrys called me from his closet twenty-two minutes ago trying not to cry, and if this building wants to take that personally, it can get in line.
His door opens before I knock the second time.
Emrys stands there in an oversized gray hoodie with the sleeves pulled over his hands, curls flattened on one side and eyes red-rimmed from crying or lack of sleep or both. The bruise along his cheek looks darker under the apartment lighting, and the relief that crosses his face when he sees me is so naked he drops his gaze before I can do anything with it.
“Hi,” he says, voice rough.
“Hi.” I keep one shoulder angled toward the hallway instead of stepping in too fast. “I was going to go over case notes anyway. It’s quieter here than the station, and your hallway has already annoyed me professionally, so this counts as efficient.”
He lets out a breath that almost becomes a laugh. His shoulders lower, and he steps back without having to ask me to stay because he’s scared. “Right. Case notes. That makes sense.”
“Deeply boring case notes,” I say, walking in only after he gives me the room to do it. “I brought a laptop and everything.”
His apartment is warm and softly lit, with books stacked on the coffee table, a cardigan over the arm of the couch, and folded blankets near the bedroom door. The kitchen smells faintly of honey and cardamom beneath the sharper edge of fear. Vanilla lives in the curtains, the couch, the blankets, and the air itself. My own scent answers before I can stop it, amber and sandalwood lifting under my skin while I close the door and set my bag by the couch.
Emrys locks the door, checks the chain, and then tests the handle. He notices me watching and pulls his sleeves lower over his hands. “It’s excessive, I know.”
“After all you’ve been through, it’s understandable, Rys. It’s okay.”
He holds onto that tiny bit of normal for a second, then slips toward the kitchen. “Do you want tea? It won’t take that long to make.”
“Tea sounds good.”
He reaches for a mug without looking at me. “Plain, right? You seem like you take it plain.”
“I have a tea face?”
“You have a black-coffee face.” Color rises faintly under the edge of his bruise. “It felt like a safe guess.”
“Plain is right.”
