Zane has never once looked at Cassie as if she were anything other than exactly what she is. He always knew what came with me. He chose it anyway.
Cassie’s voice pulls me back. “You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“You sound weird.”
“I’m drinking coffee.”
“I’ll call you later.”
“Okay.”
“And Sky?”
“Yeah?”
Her voice sheds its last layer of performance. “You don’t have to know what this is today. You just need this. Remember that.”
I look at Zane. He has turned toward the window, one shoulder against the frame, looking out at the street below, his coffee in his hand.
“I know,” I say. “Thanks, Cass.”
I hang up.
For a moment, I just sit with the phone in my lap, the coffee warm in my hand, and the morning doing its quiet, indifferent thing around me.
Zane turns from the window, walks over, and sits on the edge of the bed.
“She okay?” he asks.
“She’s Cassie.” I take a sip of coffee and wince before I can stop myself.
Zane sees it immediately. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“You made a face.”
“I did not make a face.” I look down at the mug. “It tastes like something that gave up halfway to becoming coffee.”
His mouth curves. “My standards for coffee have been a little rough for a few years.”
I bite down on my smile and lose the fight with it completely. For one small, warm, unguarded moment, we are just two people on the edge of a mattress with terrible coffee. Then the smile fades.
I set the mug on the nightstand and cross my knees, causing Zane’s shirt to slide up over my thighs. His eyes track the movement, dropping for just a second before he pulls them back up. That want in him—quiet, present, and entirely undisguised—does something reckless to the parts of me that have been starving.
“What happens now?” I ask.
The question comes out before I can soften it or dress it up in something more manageable.
Zane looks into his coffee. “Don’t know.”
I laugh. “Excellent. Very reassuring.”
“I’m trying this new thing where I don’t lie to you.” He falls quiet for a moment, turning the mug in his hands.
“I don’t want to fuck up my life again,” he says, keeping his eyes on the mug. “I know that sounds stupid because I’ve been out five minutes and I’ve already got a man threatening me, you in my bed, and Rainer probably one bad decision away from throwing a wrench at my head.”
