My heart recognized her before my head did.
3
BELLAMY
The steel doorclicks shut behind me as I step out of Marty Vega’s office into the late-afternoon heat rippling off the warehouse asphalt. I slide my sunglasses down from the top of my head to the bridge of my nose and thumb out a text with my free hand.
All good. Heading back.
Tell Beckett to stop eating the good cereal.
I hit send, shove the phone into my back pocket, and turn the corner and collide with a wall of heat and muscle.
“Shit. Sorry.” I stumble back a step, but a hand closes around my bicep, steadying me before I can hit the ground. Not rough or claiming. Just the kind of instinctual reach.
The apology dies on my tongue when I look up.
Blue eyes. Charged, familiar, and impossibly close. For a split second, my brain refuses to cooperate. I shouldn’t be surprised to see him—I saw him a few days ago. But this is different. No shadows and adrenaline.
And a face I’ve spent years trying teaching myself not to miss.
Gage fucking Calloway.
He’s leaning against the sun-baked brick like he belongs there, one foot braced behind him, sunglasses pushed low on his nose. His hair’s a little wild, like he’s been raking a hand through it for hours. And he’s looking at me like I’m a flashbang that went off in his chest.
For a second I forget how lungs work.
His fingers stay curved lightly around my arm, the heat of them burning straight through my skin.
“Bellamy,” he says. My name is low in his mouth. Pressed carefully. Like a bruise he’s testing to see if it still hurts.
My heart slams hard enough to echo.
“What—” I manage, choking on my pulse. “Thefuck?”
A slow breath leaves him, like he’s been holding it since the second I walked into him. He tilts his head, the corner of his mouth catching on something that might be humor—or might be worse.
“It’s been six years,” he murmurs, “and that’s the first thing you say to me?”
My stomach drops.Thereit is. The hit I didn’t brace for.
I pull back. His hand falls away immediately—no resistance, no protest. He lets me go like he always did.
“Fine.” I cross my arms, putting space where my body still feels him. “What are you doing here? Are you following me?”
He huffs a soft laugh and scratches his five o’clock shadow. “Call it a happy coincidence.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences.”
His jaw ticks. “Yeah,” he says softly. “I remember.”
He pushes off the wall and steps closer—slow enough that I almost miss it until he’s right there. Inches away. Heat rolls off him, and sunlight catches on the faint stubble along his jaw. And I hate that I notice.
His hand lifts, hesitating for half a breath, then his index finger hooks the bridge piece of my sunglasses and drags them down to the tip of my nose.
He wants to see my eyes, I realize.
He always did.
