She blinks. “What?”
“Derek. He blindsided me after practice today. He’s onto us.”
Her eyes grow wider. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, he basically accused me of using you to boost my reputation…which is only off base because he doesn’t know how true it really is. We gotta know everything about each other if we’re going to survive the next few events.”
Chloe straightens, a slight blush creeping into her cheeks. She brushes her hair behind her ear. “Um, all right then. What do you want to know?”
“Your middle name. How you take your coffee. Your biggest fear. What you do when you’re stressed.” I lean forward. “For starters.”
The waiter stops by, dropping off the patatas and vermouth. Chloe picks at the food, dishing some onto her plate before diving into answering my questions.
“Middle name’s Rose. Chloe Rose Dawson,” she says, covering her mouth with a hand.
“Chloe Rose,” I say, pulling out my phone to take notes. “That suits you.”
She smiles. “Does it? I didn’t like it so much when I was younger. But it’s grown on me the last few years.”
“It does.” I scoop a forkful of patatas and keep going. “Coffee order?”
Chloe’s lips part, but I jump back in?—
“Wait, don’t tell me. I already know this one. Candy cane latte.”
She chuckles a little, and my chest tightens at the sound. “Well, now it is. I used to be all about oat milk lattes, but then—” She stops. Colors slightly. “You bought me that candy cane latte after the coffee shop collision, and I got addicted. So now that’s my order.”
I can’t help but grin. “Maybe I got a little too confident about that one. I think it still counts for a point though.”
She raises a brow. “There are points?”
“Oh, there are always points.” I take a sip of the vermouth. It’s good. Warming. “Biggest fear?” I ask, setting down my glass.
“Being run over.” She says it matter-of-factly.
“Like, literally? By a car? Train? Bus?”
“My family.”
I pause, recalling her words from Saturday night.I’ve gotten used to being a little…invisible.
She’s paused too, looking at me with that vulnerable expression, and it does something to me. Something primal, like when I see an enforcer go after one of the rookies. Even if I don’t like them, I don’t like to see them crushed.
“What do you do when you’re stressed?” I continue, needing to keep moving before this gets too heavy.
She pulls her gaze away, shrugging off the heaviness of the moment. “Oh, you know, the usual. Bread. Cookies. Just about any carb will do the trick. Ironclad’s velvet smash cookie is particularly soothing after a stressful day.”
I grin, trying to envision her buried in a cookie skillet after a hard day’s work. Maybe we’ll have to get dessert after this.
I try to think up another question, keep things light. But instead, I hear myself say, “I saw the dragon.”
Chloe freezes. “What?”
In hindsight, without context, that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. “In your sketchbook back in Barcelona.” It’s not breaking the rules—the topic’s not anywhere near the kiss that shall not be named. But still, my pulse leaps as I keep going. “It fell open for a second after I got your purse back. I saw your drawings. They’re really good.”
Her face flushes. “You never said anything.”
“You closed it so fast, I figured it was private. But I remembered it when I saw the sketch in your apartment earlier.” I pause. “What’s with the dragon?”
