"I tolerate the thing with the plantains."
"Liar."
She bites my shoulder through the flannel. Not hard. Then leans against me and breathes in my back for a second.
"Gray."
"Yeah."
"I'm happy."
"I know, baby."
"I just wanted to say it out loud."
I set my coffee down. Turn around. Pull her in.
Kiss the top of her head.
"You say it out loud every morning."
"Well. It keeps being true."
Bean& Bloom at ten o'clock on a Saturday morning is a specific kind of controlled chaos.
Sage is behind the counter in a flour-dusted apron laughing at something Luna just said. Luna is in the corner booth with a notebook and a pen and an air of pretending she's not eavesdropping on the rest of us. Venus is at the long table in the back, honey blonde curls loose, pouring coffee from a carafe and waving at Simone the second we walk in.
"Baptiste. Mercer. Sit down. Simone, sit here. Gray, you get the end, I don't want you hovering over her."
"I don't hover."
"You hover."
Sage yells from the counter, "He hovers, Gray."
Luna, without looking up from her notebook, "Mmhm."
I sit on the end.
Simone slides in next to Venus and gets pulled into an immediate three-way conversation about someone's sister-in-law and an Instagram thing and a new wine Eli Kane just bottled.
I drink my coffee.
Nadia Smith walks in five minutes later with Zara Montgomery behind her, both of them in jackets against the morning. Nadia clocks me first. Lifts her coffee cup in a small salute and makes her way to the table, curvy and confident, braids piled high, a silver key on a chain at her throat that catches the light.
"Mercer."
"Nadia."
"Callum said you got the upstairs wired."
"Callum's got a big mouth."
"Callum can't keep a secret to save his life."
Zara slides in next to her, a nurse on a Saturday morning looking like a woman who has not worked a night shift in six days and is deeply pleased about it. Her hand goes to Nadia'sforearm in the unconscious way it does, and Simone leans over the table toward her.
"Zara. Tell me about the clinic thing."
