Tyler glances over at me as the lights drone overhead.
“You’re quiet.” He states bluntly.
“I’m thinking.”
“That’s usually when I start obsessing over where your head is at.”
A faint smile threatens on my mouth but never fully forms.
“I can’t say I blame you for that.”
His eyes narrow as a cautious edge slips into his expression.
There’s apprehension in the way he monitors me lately. I cansense he’s worried I’ll cross a line neither of us can come back from.
We stop near the back. Divider walls are scarred with years of bullet marks and ricochets. Tyler unzips one of the bags and extracts my Glock before checking the chamber.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
“Cass, don’t shut me out.”
“Can we not do this right now?”
The words come out more hostile than I intended.
But Tyler doesn’t flinch. In fact, he never does.
Instead, he hands me the gun grip first.
His fingers brush mine, heat radiating from them.
Giving me something real to focus on in a way nothing else can anymore.
“You got too close to the edge last night.” His tone even.
I level him with a plain stare and launch into loading a magazine.
“You’ve seen me do worse.”
“Not like that.”
Bullets click into place one after another between my fingers.
If I let myself fall into the repetition, I can drown out the sounds from last night.
Something sour turns in my gut as my mind drifts to the flashbacks.
Tyler reads my face attentively like he knows exactly where my mind just went.
“Cassidy.”
“What?” I snap.
“You went somewhere else in there.”
I slam the mag into place aggressively.
