It was so easy. Too easy. Like they’d decided she belonged before she’d walked through the door.
“All right.” Bear pushed back from the table, pool cue appearing in his hand as if he’d conjured it. “Theo, you ready to lose your money again?”
“One of these days, statistics have to catch up with you.”
“That’s not how statistics work,” Lincoln said quietly to Morgan. “He’s been hustling pool here since we were teenagers.”
She watched them head for the closest pool table—Bear’s easy confidence, Theo’s good-natured resignation, Derek trailing behind to provide commentary that was probably insulting. Lincoln squeezed her shoulder once before following, a silent question in the gesture. She nodded, and he went.
“He talks about you.” Joy immediately leaned forward.
Morgan turned. “What?”
“Lincoln. He’s talked about you.” Joy grinned. “Which, if you know Lincoln, is basically a declaration of love. That man has discussed exactly zero women with his family in the entire time I’ve known him.”
“We just—I mean, we only recently?—”
“You may have just met in person recently, but he’s beenthinking about you for a lot longer than that,” Joy continued, still smiling ear to ear. “You are the only woman he’s ever mentioned to us. I won’t lie, I wondered if you truly existed.”
“Me too!” Becky exclaimed. “But I didn’t want to explicitly ask.”
“Honestly, I thought maybe you were a sex robot he’d created. He’s probably capable.” Eva reached over and patted her hand. “I’m glad you’re a real person.”
Heat crept up Morgan’s neck. At the pool table, Bear was running the table while Theo protested loudly about angles and physics. Derek stood to the side, arms crossed, offering suggestions that were clearly designed to make things worse.
And Lincoln…
Lincoln was leaning against the wall, one shoulder propped against the wood paneling, his whole body arranged differently than she’d ever seen it. Looser. The constant microtension he carried—the one that came from perpetually translating himself for the rest of the world—had simply unwound. He said something to Bear that made his cousin bark out a laugh, and the corner of Lincoln’s mouth actually lifted.
Not almost smiling.Actuallysmiling. Small, brief, but real.
This was who he was when he didn’t have to perform.
“Twenty bucks says Theo loses by at least three balls,” Eva said.
“That’s not a bet,” Becky replied. “That’s a foregone conclusion.”
“You’re supposed to humor me.”
The laughter came easily. Morgan let herself smile, let herself feel the texture of inclusion, let herself pretend forjust a moment that she was someone who belonged in places like this.
Then the coordinates hit.
Not surfaced. Not rose. They slammed into her consciousness like a door kicked open—47.6062, -122.3321—the numbers so sharp and sudden that she flinched.
“Excuse me. I need to use the restroom,” she heard herself say.
“Everything all right?” Eva asked.
“Fine. Just…long day.” Morgan managed a smile and pushed back her chair before anyone could ask more questions.
The bathroom was small and clean and blessedly empty. Morgan gripped the edge of the sink until her knuckles went white.
KILO-SEVEN-TANGO.
She couldn’t breathe. The code pulsed behind her eyes, followed by another—ECHO-FOUR-NOVEMBER—and another—BRAVO-NINE-ALPHA—each one shouldering aside the moment she’d been living in.
David Thornton. Rebecca Vance. Miguel Santos.
