I shove my phone into my back pocket and stomp toward the kitchen, needing motion, noise, anything. I left my jar on the counter earlier. I’ll grab one of my kitchen fortunes, read something nice my past self wrote, and pretend I believe it. Then maybe I can cook without crying into the stock.
I round the corner into the kitchen.
And freeze.
Boone is there.
Not a little “oh, I didn’t see you in the corner” there. No. Front and center. Big body at my counter, broad shoulders hunched slightly, head bent.
Holding one of my fortune slips.
Reading it.
The jar sits open between his hands, my private little paper ghosts exposed.
Heat shoots up my spine so fast I don’t think, I just react.
“What are you doing?”
It comes out sharp. Too sharp.
Boone jerks. Well, Boone’s version of jerking. His shoulders twitch, his head comes up fast, eyes narrowing slightly. Definitely startled, even if he’d die before admitting it.
He sets the slip down with exaggerated calm, like he’s defusing a bomb.
“It was open,” he says. “I was just looking.”
“Looking,” I repeat. The word tastes of rust. “Through. My. Things?”
His jaw flexes once. Twice. “I wasn’t snooping.”
“Really? Because it looks a hell of a lot like snooping.”
“It was sitting out on the counter,” he continues, every syllable careful. “In the main kitchen. I picked up a piece of paper. That’s all.”
“I left it out in my kitchen station,” I snap back. “Not the Sunridge Ranch Public Library.”
Silence stretches between us. Loaded.
He watches me, still as stone, eyes dark, brows drawn. I can practically see him cataloging everything: my clenched fists, the tight way I’m holding myself, the edge in my voice.
I hate that he sees so much.
“Delaney, what’s going on?”
“Nothing.”
Lie. My pulse is galloping, my chest too tight, anger fizzing under my skin. Anger at Marcus, at the article, at myself, and now at this man standing in my kitchen reading my secret coping mechanisms.
Boone’s gaze flicks to my hand. I follow it. I didn’t even register that I’ve snatched another slip out of the jar and am crushing it in my fist so hard the paper’s wrinkling.
“You’re upset.”
Not a question.
“No, I’m annoyed,” I shoot back. “Big difference.”
“Not really.”
