I glare, but my heart isn’t in it.Instead, I move past her and continue to do my work, snapping stills of things that would never matter to anyone else.Luke making coffee and Laine sweeping his booth, Sky laughing on the phone, and a young girl staring at her navel piercing in the mirror.Simple, candid photos of moments here in the shop that may or may not end up in Skye’s never-ending social media campaigns.
By lunchtime, my nerves are frayed.I pack my camera away, shoulder my bag, and tell myself I’m done for the day.That I can go home, breathe, and reset.But as I pass the counter, my phone buzzes.
Ethan:How’s your day, beautiful?
Safe.Steady.Normal.The reminder I needed.I type a quick reply:Busy.Heading out now, then slip the phone back into my pocket.
“Leaving already?”Luke calls, too loud as always.
“Some of us have lives outside the shop,” I shoot back, trying to sound light but failing miserably.
“Hot date?”he teases.
But I ignore him, pushing through the front door into the sunlight.But as I reach my car, I quickly realize I’m not alone.
Maverick stands just outside the doorway, watching.He doesn’t follow me, just lingers there, shadowed and unreadable.And for a second, I think maybe he’d step out.Maybe he’d say something.Instead, his gaze flicks to the car seat in the back of my car, and my blood turned to ice.
He doesn’t ask.Doesn’t say a fucking word.Just watches as I climb in, my heart thundering so loud it drowns out the cicadas in the trees.
And when I start the engine, I swear I can still feel his eyes on me.
Chapter Five
Thoughts I Can’t Fight
Maverick
I can’t get the image out of my head.
The car seat.Wedged in the back of Zora’s little sedan, pink fabric faded from use, a crayon stuffed in the cupholder.One look at it and my chest locked up tight enough to make breathing hard.I tell myself it isn’t any of my fucking business.I tell myself maybe she babysits for a friend, maybe she has a niece or a nephew I don’t know about.I tell myself a hundred different lies in the span of seconds.But the truth digs in like barbed wire.Zora has a kid.
I don’t know whose, I don’t know when, I don’t know a damn thing.And it’s none of my business, I remind myself again as I set up my station, pulling on gloves and laying out fresh needles like the ritual can scrape her out of my head.
But my mind keeps circling back.A kid means someone had been there for her when I wasn’t.Someone steady.Someone she trusts enough to build a life and raise a child with.The thought makes me grind my teeth until my jaw aches.
The buzz of the shop snaps me out of it.Skye is zipping around with her phone again, narrating her own life like she has an audience twenty-four-seven.Luke is mouthing off about some client who ghosted him, Alistair grunting something that shuts him up quickly, and Laine is talking in a low tone to a nervous walk-in.
