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I felt my lips curling up at that, finding it perfectly appropriate for that to be Kai’s drink of choice.
“And one with cream and three sugars,” Quin said suddenly, making me aware he knew of my presence even though I hadn’t said anything, and was still a few feet behind. “You can come closer, babe. I did invite you here after all.”
“Whaaaaat?” Gala asked, popping out from behind the massive coffee machine with six active pots, three brewing, three seeming just made. “You invited a girl here?”
“Don’t read into it.”
“Me? Read into the fact that I have seen you around this town for years now, and have never seen you with anyone but Jules? Why ever would I do that?”
“Ease up, or I’ll have Jules start ordering in from that place with the bird name instead.”
“You wouldn’t,” Gala insisted, small-eyeing him.
“Wouldn’t I?” Quin asked as I moved in beside him at the counter.
“The thing is,” Gala went on, looking at me, “he will. He’s a real jackass that way. Stay clear of him. You look like a nice girl.”
“What are you saying, Gala?” Quin asked in that same somewhat amused tone, “that I am not a good guy?”
Her only response to that was a snort as she pushed two to-go coffees across the counter, and took Quin’s cash. “I’m keeping the change just because you threatened me,” she told him, but he had already been reaching for the coffees, clearly not planning on taking it anyway.
“Sit?” Quin asked, jerking his chin toward the lone empty table in a back corner.
“Sure,” I agreed, feeling like an awkward teenager on her first date as I followed him across the room.
Except, you know, this wasn’t some kind of date or anything.
I wasn’t sure what this was.
A meeting, I guess.
“The makeup covered well,” he said as he pulled out my chair, a show of old-fashioned manners I was completely unaccustomed to. “I can notice a slight shadow, but that’s likely only because I know it is there.” He moved across the table to sit down, pushing my coffee toward me. “You slept in your bathtub, didn’t you?”
“What?” I whisper-shrieked, jerking back in my chair. “How did you–”
“It’s just something many women do when they don’t feel safe in their houses,” he said, shrugging it off. “Finn would like your critique of his cleaning job.”
“Are you… serious?” I asked, brows drawing together.
“About cleaning, Finn is always serious.”
“It’s the cleanest I have ever seen my house, even after I scrubbed it myself for hours. I’m kind of getting used to the minty chemical smell.”
“Fucking Finn smells like that ninety-percent of the time.”
“The carpet is gorgeous. I know he asked about that. And the bedspread. It’s all nicer than I had before. I just…”
“Can’t bring yourself to sleep in there yet.”
Or maybe ever again.
I didn’t say that, though. I didn’t want to be that weak, whiny, pathetic girl who needed someone to hold her hand. No matter how treacherous the landscape might be. I could learn to be sure-footed.
“I’ll get there,” I said instead, with perhaps more determination than I felt.
“Or you’ll make do until the market turns, and you can move. But, just for the record,” he said, sounding a little more serious suddenly, “you can’t do that for at least a year. This has to settle first.”
“I figured as much.”
“You’ll get through it,” he assured me.
“Of course I will,” I shot back, nodding. I didn’t doubt that one day, someday, I could go through a twenty-four-hour period without it being in my mind. Today was simply not that day. Tomorrow wouldn’t be either. “Was there something you needed to talk to me about in person?” I asked, taking a quick look around, noting a rather complete lack of privacy with how closely the tables were all situated.
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Nothing has changed since before. No progress today.”
“Then, why the coffee?” I asked, wrapping my hands around the cup.
“Figured maybe you needed to get out of the house.” Right, but he could have simply encouraged me to do so, right? He didn’t need to invite me out himself. Especially when he seemed to say that we would not be in contact save for the burner cell he gave me. “And maybe with someone who you don’t have to pretend around. If you’re feeling like shit, feel like shit. No need to put on a mask with me. I know what went down.”
That was true.
And it was refreshing to have that freedom.
That being said, I felt like I needed to keep it together with him. Because he was helping me for free, sure, but also for a reason I couldn’t quite put a name to. I just didn’t want him to think less of me, I guess. As odd as that was. He was just a stranger. Just a fixer. That was it. He wasn’t a friend, a confidant.
