She had not been fine. His truth-sense had caught the words mid-flight, sour and discordant, a note struck wrong in a song otherwise pitch-perfect, and he had done nothing. Had not pressed. Had not askedwhy aren't you fine, what hurts, what do you need. Asking would have meant standing in that doorway and receiving an answer he couldn't walk away from.
Coward.
He buckled his gauntlet tighter against the cold and stared at the frosted path. It was unnecessary; he never felt cold. Phoebe walked half a step in front of him, exactly where protocol placed her. Eight blocks to the bakery. He counted them.
Block one. Her breath made small white shapes in the air. The vanilla snow from last night had stopped, but its scent stillclung to everything. The awnings, the lampposts, the hem of her coat where it brushed the ground. Mixed with it, threading underneath, was her perfume of amber and bergamot.
Block two. She walked faster. The cold, probably. The pace change did something to the line of her hips that his peripheral vision caught and his brain refused to release. Her coat swung. The fabric pulled. His jaw tightened.
Block three. She glanced back once over her shoulder. He kept his face neutral and his eyes on the middle distance behind her left ear, which was the only safe geography available to him when her face was turned toward his. She looked away. He did not exhale. Exhaling would have been an admission.
Block four. Five. Six. His boots on the frost-covered path, her heeled ankle boots on the same path, two sets of footsteps and no conversation. The silence was not companionable. He preferred the silence to the alternative.
Block seven. She tucked her chin deeper into her scarf. Her hair was up today, her intricate braids wound close to her scalp, exposing the long line of her neck above the scarf's edge. Mahogany skin against cream wool. He counted the eighth block and directed his attention to the bakery's front window, where warm light spilled across the path.
The door opened before they reached it.
Ember Winters came out at a half-run, flour on her left cheek, ponytail already escaping, and collided with Phoebe with enough force to rock them both back a step. The sound Ember made was high, delighted, and completely pure.
"You'rehere! Oh my God, get inside, it's freezing, you lookincredible. Is that new? That coat is just— Look at you!"
Phoebe's armor came apart. Her spine lost its performance-perfect line. Her shoulders came down from where they'd lived since he'd met her at her door this morning. Her chin dipped,and the careful angle she held her jaw at dissolved, and what replaced it was a face he had never seen.
"Em!"
Phoebe reached out and wrapped her arms around the smaller woman and held on, and the laugh that came out of her was not the laugh he'd heard onstage. Not performed. Not calibrated. It was bright and loud and cracked at the edges.
His hands flexed at his sides. He locked them there.
She pulled back, held Ember at arm's length, looked at her, and pulled her in again. Her face over Ember's shoulder was open and unguarded and radiant, and his chest constricted. His hands wanted to be on her so badly that his fingers ached with it.
He was going to see this every morning. This version of her, laughing with her whole body in a doorway that smelled like cinnamon and bread. He was going to stand one step behind her, hands at his sides, mouth shut. Every morning.
Behind the women, inside the bakery's warm gold light, Kaelor's massive frame filled the doorway. The Cinnamite's amber eyes moved from Phoebe to Thorne and held. No words. No greeting. Just a slow, certain look that took in Thorne's shoulders and his fists, and understood.
Kaelor gave him a single nod.
Thorne nodded back.
He opened his mouth to speak, and nothing came. His throat had closed around whatever he'd been about to say. Something professional about schedules and timing. He swallowed it whole.
"Miss Calloway."
She looked back. The laugh was still on her face, her eyes still soft from Ember, her guard still on the floor, and the full force of her unperformed attention landed on him and pinned him where he stood.
He was closer than necessary. The distance between them was eighteen inches and closing, and his hand was alreadyreaching into his jacket for the comm unit before the rational part of his brain could object.
His throat tightened.
"If anything feels wrong." The words scraped on the way out, low and rough. "Anything at all. You contact me immediately."
He placed the comm in her open palm. His icy fingers found her warm ones in the transfer, and the touch was a single bright line of heat up his arm and into his chest. The first touch had been a rescue. This was two fingertips on a warm palm, and it was worse, because this time he'd chosen it.
He pulled his hand back.
He did not look at Kaelor or Ember, or at the way Phoebe's fingers closed around the comm.
He left.
