I shook myself out of it. I had other things to worry about. Like the fact that my face was on fire, and not just from the bruises.
At least the embarrassment made a good distraction.
I spent the next five minutes bouncing between “I want to crawl under the couch and die” and “I kind of want to see him again.” It was a new record for conflicting impulses, even for me.
I made it to the kitchen by following the smell of toast and something meaty, which turned out to be bacon.
Bacon, plural.
The McKenzies did nothing by halves, least of all breakfast. The kitchen was bigger than the entire lower floor of my old house, with two stoves and a table big enough for a boardroom. Knox was standing at the island, back to me, pouring black coffee into a chipped mug.
His shirt had ridden up, revealing a thin slice of skin above his jeans. I noticed it for too long, then noticed myself noticing, and immediately tried to think about global warming, or algebra, or anything that didn’t have to do with how much I wanted to bite that line of muscle just to see if he’d make a noise.
He turned, caught me staring, and raised an eyebrow. “You hungry?”
My stomach picked that moment to announce itself, loud enough to echo. I decided not to dignify it with a verbal answer. Instead, I slid into the nearest chair and tried to look at anything except the person responsible for my current state of psychic undress.
Knox set a plate in front of me. Toast, eggs, bacon. More food than I’d eaten in three days, all of it arranged with the kind of geometric precision that made my heart hurt.
I looked up. He was watching me, arms crossed, eyes dark.
“I’m not going to poison you,” he said.
“Just making sure you’re not a figment,” I replied. “It’s happened before.” I picked up the toast and took a bite, then realized I should thank him. “This is… really good. Thanks.”
He grunted, but I caught the flicker in his eyes—a shimmer of amusement, maybe. Or pride.
Hard to tell with Knox.
We ate in silence. I tried to do it in a way that didn’t make me look desperate, but after the first few bites, hunger overtook dignity and I plowed through the plate like a starved coyote.
Knox refilled my mug without asking, which felt weirdly intimate. I watched his hands, the way he did everything with efficient, minimal movement. No wasted energy. Probably a side effect of being trained by the Marines, or just by living in this house, where efficiency was probably a genetic trait.
I finished the food, then sat back, wondering if it would be rude to ask for more. He was already clearing the table, scraping eggshells into the compost bin.
“So,” I said, “what’s the plan? For me, I mean.”
He wiped his hands on a towel and turned to face me full-on. “You stay here. Get your head on straight. Rest up. If anyone comes looking—” He shrugged. “I’ll take care of it.”
“That’s—” I didn’t have a word for it. Insanely generous? Stupidly reckless? Suicidal? “—not necessary. I mean, I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“Too late for that,” he said, and the corner of his mouth almost, almost turned up.
My face went hot again and I involuntarily tugged the hoodie tighter. The movement brought the scent back, and I had to repress a shiver.
“Thanks,” I said, voice small. “I mean it. I know you don’t owe me anything.”
He stared for a second, then shook his head. “You don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
He set both hands on the island, leaning in so the muscles in his arms flexed in ways I’d only ever seen on fitness ads or torture devices. “You’re not a burden, Newt. You’re family. Maybe not by blood, but close enough.”
The word made something in my chest vibrate. Nobody had ever said that to me before—not and meant it.
Knox must have seen something on my face, because he straightened, rolled his shoulders, and tried to smooth the rough out of his tone. “Besides, it pisses Luther off. That alone’s worth it.”
I laughed, a small, rusty sound. “Yeah, he doesn’t really like me.”
