Cohen-pain-in-my-ass:You’re still at the office? Hoping I’ll come over? ??
Me ??:Dream on, Becker.
Have I mentioned how much I can’t stand him?
Arrrrgh.
I shut everything down.
Turn off the Mac.
And remind myself—again—that this is all going to end badly.
10
Coffee, Dates, and Other Terrible Ideas
Cohen
Morning light filters through the tall windows of Voss’s villa with the precision of a divine punishment.
I have no idea what time it is, but my brain informs me it’s way too early to be conscious.
At least the day isn’t starting off completely awful. I managed to call my little sister and we had a good chat. She sounds happy—and more importantly, far from home. She’s staying in the dorms for now, which makes me feel a hell of a lot better.
I head downstairs, bare feet on parquet that seems engineered not to make a sound.
The silence is broken only by a metallic clink.
I find Dominic in the kitchen. Gray T-shirt, perfect hair, the haunted look of someone who’s lived too many lives before eight a.m. He’s stirring an espresso like he plans to dissolve all his sins in it.
“You gonna stare at that cup until it evaporates?” I mumble.
Dom shoots me a look that could set me on fire if physics allowed it.
“You gonna talk until I throw you out?”
“Wow, good morning to you too,” I mutter, opening a cabinet.
Everything is tidy, aligned, perfectly symmetrical. Even the sugar and flour jars look like they were placed with surgical precision.
I’ve been staying here a while, but this is the first morning I’ve actually come down for breakfast. Usually I spend the entire day in Dominic’s home gym.
Yes, Dominic has a home gym.
Yes, all I do is think about training.
Getting kicked off the team has left me with too much energy and nowhere acceptable to put it.
And of course I don’t feel like showing my face around town and triggering some small-town meltdown.
“Don’t touch anything,” Dom adds, eyes glued to his laptop.
Nate walks in a minute later, hair a mess, looking like he regrets every decision he’s made in the last decade.
“Please tell me there’s coffee,” he whines.
“On the counter,” Dom replies.
