Ugh.
“Kind of odd timing,” Sam forced herself to say.“I came across something in my research today that led me in the direction of Hayes.”
“Of course it fucking did,” Nate muttered, pushing into the bathroom.
She trailed after him.“What’s wrong?It’s more than just Jake and the ticket.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, which was a relief that he wouldn’t try to deny it.“Between the Hyatts and my brother, it’s a lot more than just that asshole giving me a ticket.”
He flipped on the shower to the hottest setting, which was when she realized his leg must be bothering him.He didn’t like to admit that it still hurt him after all this time.Sam didn’t know if that was some weird macho bullshit or like a PTSD thing, so she didn’t poke at it.She just left the bathroom, retraced her steps to the kitchen, and got him some painkillers and a glass of water.
When she got back to the bathroom, he was in the shower, steam billowing into the small room.
“Start with your brother,” she told him.
She set the glass and the two ibuprofen on the bathroom counter for when he got out.She half expected getting the information out of him to be a lot more difficult than the demand, but Nate spoke.
“Cal got a threat.This weird envelope with his name on it stuck into the back door of Honor’s Edge.A vague kind of threat—this weird drawing—but it’s clearly a threat.I’ve got a picture on my phone.”
He’d put that on the bathroom counter, too, so she picked it up and typed in his code.His background picture was a selfie of the two of them that she’d taken when he’d closed on the house.Every time she saw it, it still gave her heart a little flutter.
But she ignored that and pulled up his pictures.The first being the drawing.Clearly of Cal if the little briefcase in the figure’s hands and the exaggerated widow’s peak were anything to go by.The numbers with theXs.
“What’s with the numbers?”she muttered.“Why isn’t eight exed out like the others?”
“I think it’s like… a riddle.Meaning his days are numbered.”
“Oh.Wow, that’s clever.”
“Great.We’ve got a clever threat.”He stepped out of the shower and took the towel she handed him, doing a piss poor job of toweling himself off, per the norm.Still not a bad view, but the threat against Cal… well, that was concerning.
“I guess we’ve got another case to look into.”
Nate sighed heavily, water dripping from his hair and the beard that was starting to accumulate because he hadn’t shaved in a while.
He downed the pills and the water.“Yippee.”
*
He took thepills, trying to work through all the different emotions assaulting him about that.
That she saw through him and understood he was in pain.
That she wasn’t put off by the fact he was kind of being an asshole.Or at least she wasrefusingto be put off by it.Maybe out of spite.
He liked her spite.
He lovedher.Mostly he saw that as a net positive in his life, but when he was feeling like a jackass, he wondered why she bothered putting up with him.Why he put her through what he did.
Thiswas why.After he’d been medically discharged, he’d found himself a loner in a cabin in the wilderness of Tennessee and set about building a life where he had no interaction with people.
He might have let that spiral.Might have leaned into the dark, edgy need to hurt, to isolate.
But he knew she felt the same way.That she was too sharp and dogged and mean, and thathedidn’t deserve that fromher, even though she couldn’t always stop herself from dishing it out.
Maybe that was love.The ways you tried to be better for each other and worried it wasn’t quite good enough.
She handed him some pajamas, so he pulled on the boxers and pulled the T-shirt over his head.
