“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Reece quickly hung up. He set the phone on his chest, face down, and looked up at the ceiling.
Wouldn’t matter how good a time I wanted to give you.
Hypothetically. Grayson had been speaking hypothetically, just like Reece had been speaking hypothetically when he talked about making Grayson feel so amazing they broke the bed.
Because he had been. Speaking hypothetically. Obviously.
He snatched up his phone and lit the screen, which filled with the gym selfie Grayson had sent. No hint of the emotionless Dead Man in a picture, just Grayson, easy for Reece to take in every detail of his body, his eyes, his lips.
Reece took a breath through his nose. Grayson was attractive. Reece could admit that. And so obviously yes, the picture was hot; hot enough someone else might shamelessly save it as his background so he could enjoy the sight every time he picked up his phone.
Someone else might do that. But not Reece. Reece was an emotionally sophisticated empath who knew better than to pine after an empath hunter. He wasTeam A.
He stared at his picture of Grayson, flushed and sweaty, his hair mussed, probably exactly like he’d look if Reece spent a night wrecking him.
“Son of a bitch,” he muttered out loud.
CHAPTER EIGHT
...but subject so far remains unconscious. Until he wakes, we cannot be sure exactly what changes have—
Hello? What’s that sound?
...is someone there?
—PARTIAL RECORDING, MADE AT [REDACTED], TEXAS
Gretel pulled intoa metered spot near her favorite brunch place, idling for a moment as she checked her makeup in the rearview mirror and whether it was at least somewhat camouflaging how little she’d slept last night. She’d posted the article about the empath’s murder in Vermont, but her dad’s comments about agood offenseagainst the empathshad stuck in her head and next thing she knew, she’d spent six hours down a research rabbit hole, from Cedrick Stone’s roots in defense contracting to the Empath Initiative appointing a former general as director to Vivian Marist’s master’s degree in strategy and foreign policy.
She’d made notes for a new post. It wasn’t the kind of thing she would normally write for her blog; not the wild theories and Dead Man stories that got her the most traffic. But it just seemed odd, to keep turning up military ties and funding connected to the organizations that monitored pacifists.
As she stepped inside the restaurant, her gaze went past the hostess to a table along the window, and she broke into a smile. “Alex,” she called.
But he’d already stood up, waving at her. When she joined him, he got her chair for her. “I want to protest this archaic ritual of the patriarchy,” she said, as she sat. “But it kind of feels like you just did this automatically.”
“Guilty as charged,” he said, his words shaped by that subtle accent she’d noticed at the AMI meeting. “My dad was really strict about manners. It’s kind of a thing, where I grew up.”
“Where was that?”
“Texas.” He flashed her an apologetic smile. “Would it make it better if I told you I do it for boys too?”
She had to smile. “Maybe,” she admitted.
They ordered brunch—California omelet for her, avocado toast for him. As the waiter left, Alex held up his phone. “I just finished your latest post. Who’s killing Canadian empaths in Vermont?”
“You saw that already?” she said. “I just got that up. You’re so fast.”
“You’reso fast,” he countered. “The news doesn’t even know about that yet. How did you find out so early?”
Gretel shrugged. “Local gossip blogs, that type of thing.”
Alex propped his chin in his hand. “You don’t have to lie to me, you know,” he said wryly. “I care about the information; I’m not gonna ever scoop your stories or judge how you got it.”
How had he known that wasn’t the truth? She probably should have been annoyed, or angry, but Alex’s wry tone and smile made her feel like they were coconspirators, and she’d never really had one of those. She pursed her lips, but then admitted, “I find out from AMI. Well, usually my dad. He makes me send out notes to AMI as if they’re from him, so I have his email password and I read all his emails.”
