“Safe as in physically safe, or safe as in emotionally about to throw yourself into a burning building because the flames have nice arms and a criminal record?”
Zane glances back at me from the counter as he fills the kettle.
One look, but the heat in it makes my throat go dry in a way that has no business happening before coffee. That want is still there in him, dark and alive, just under the surface as he stands in the kitchen in low-slung jeans with sleep-rough hair and an expression that says he is very aware of exactly what he is doing to me and has no intention of stopping.
“Sky,” Cassie says, and her voice has shed its armor.
I blink. “I’m here.”
“I know where you are now.” The joke is gone. In its place is the Cassie beneath all the wit, the sharp edges, and the perfectly delivered burns. “I’m asking if you’re okay.”
The question slips past my guard before I can get anything up to stop it.
“I don’t know,” I say, honest. It’s the truest thing I’ve said out loud since I walked back through that roller door last night.
Cassie is quiet.
Then, “Okay. That is allowed. You are allowed to feel that.”
Zane moves around the tiny kitchen, opening cupboards and grabbing two mugs.
The simple act of him making coffee should not be intimate. But it is. Maybe because this room once knew us young and half-starved, running on bad decisions and each other. Maybe because there were mornings when he made me instant coffee too strong and watched me drink it as if it was the most important thing he had ever done.
“You can come home whenever you want,” Cassie says. “No judgment.” A pause. “Well, limited judgment from someone whowants every single detail in chronological order, with emotional annotations.”
A laugh slips out of me before I can stop it. It sounds strange in this room at this hour.
Zane looks over. His face softens when he hears it, enough that I have to look down at the sheet on my legs instead of at him.
“I’ll come back later,” I say.
“Later today?”
“Yes.”
“Before I send a search party?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because my search party is just me and one can of pepper spray and I will absolutely use it on the wrong person.” She pauses. “Tell Zane I said hi.”
Zane is already walking toward me with two mugs, his eyes finding mine as I look up.
“Cassie says hi.”
He hands me one of the mugs, his fingers brushing mine as he passes it over.
His mouth curves. “Tell Cassie she is one well-timed insult away from being registered as a public safety concern.”
“I heard that,” Cassie says loudly and without shame over the phone. “And tell him that public safety concerns are powerful, memorable, and impossible to ignore, so I will take it.”
I relay it.
Zane leans one shoulder against the wall, mug in hand, all bare chest, and ruined beauty. He smirks into his coffee. “Sounds about right.”
I watch him for one dangerous, specific second.
The years seem to thin again until they are almost nothing. Until it is just this, just him in a kitchen making too-strong coffee and trading barbs with Cassie over the phone as if no time has passed. Because he knows her. He has always knownCassie’s rhythm and her teeth and the loyalty beneath all that wit she would die before admitting out loud. He knows where she fits with me, what she means, what it costs when someone treats her like an inconvenience rather than a fixture.
