“Almost certainly.”
She settled at the kitchen table with her tea, trying very hard not to notice how his gray t-shirt clung when he stretched for the top shelf. The morning light caught the silver threads in his dark hair, and she wondered when she’d started cataloging these details.
“Thirteen days,” she muttered into her mug, the ceramic warming her hands. Thirteen days until the trial. Until this ended. Until he went back to Boston and she went back to… what? Her shop with its broken window? Her old life that had started feeling too small the moment he’d walked into it?
Marcus set a fresh cup of coffee in front of his usual spot: black, no sugar, in the chipped blue mug he’d claimed on day two. He’d finally given up complaining about the lack of a proper espresso machine three days ago. Now he drank Folgers like a normal person who’d been roughing it in a dated safe house.
“Something on your mind?” He glanced at her over his shoulder before returning to whatever he was doing at the counter.
“Just thinking about the trial.” Not entirely a lie. She was thinking about what came after the trial, which was trial-adjacent, which meant…
Sweet goddess, when had she started rationalizing half-truths to herself?
“I’ve been reviewing our testimony prep.” He turned, holding… was that toast? Marcus Hawthorne had made toast. Successfully. Without burning it. “Your delivery yesterday was much improved. You found the balance between natural speech and court requirements.”
The toast was golden brown. Evenly golden brown. Hazel stared at it like he’d performed actual magic. Which, technically, he had. The man who’d incinerated bread for five days straight had achieved toast.
“Did you just…”
“Make adequate toast? Yes.” He set the plate down with the same precision he brought to everything. “I’m capable of learning, despite what my previous attempts suggested.”
She hid her smile behind her mug. “Miracles do happen.”
“Mockery before noon violates safe house protocols.” But his eyes crinkled at the corners, another detail she’d started noticing.
“Pretty sure those protocols don’t exist.” She flipped open her grimoire, needing something to focus on besides the way morning light played across his features. “Also, pretty sure you make up rules when it suits you.”
“I would never.” He leaned against the counter, coffee in hand. “I simply interpret existing guidelines creatively.”
“That’s called making things up.”
“That’s called legal expertise.” He set his coffee on the counter and loosened his shoulders. “Speaking of expertise…”
He dropped into a perfect push-up position on the kitchen floor.
What. Was. Happening.
“Morning routine,” he explained, as if demon lawyers regularly started doing push-ups in tiny kitchens while their witnesses tried to read. “I’ve been neglecting my training.”
Training. He called that chest and those shoulders training. Hazel gripped her mug tighter and fixed her eyes on her grimoire. The words swam meaninglessly as her peripheral vision betrayed her, tracking the smooth rise and fall of his form.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight. Twenty-nine.
Not that she was counting.
His breathing remained perfectly even, because of course it did. Marcus Hawthorne did everything perfectly, including exercises that made his back muscles shift under that thin shirt.
“You’re staring.”
Her eyes snapped up to find him watching her from his plank position, one eyebrow raised and that infuriating smirk playing at his lips.
“I’m reading.” She gestured at her grimoire with theatrical emphasis. “Ancient texts. Very absorbing.”
“Your book is upside down.”
Goddess take him. She flipped the grimoire right-side up with as much dignity as she could muster. “I was testing a new reading technique. Very advanced.”
“I’m sure you were.”
