The words leave my mouth before the rest of me has agreed to them. They just escape. Like they've been waiting behind my teeth and saw an opening.
Liam's stride doesn't break, but his right hand twitches against his thigh.
"For the cover," I add quickly.
"Right."
"Nina's watching."
"I'm aware."
Neither of us moves.
Then his hand finds mine.
Not tentatively. Not gently. He takes my hand the way he does everything — directly, without preamble. His fingers close around mine and his palm is warm and dry and enormous — my hand disappears inside his like a set of keys dropped into a coat pocket — and every nerve ending from my wrist to my shoulder lights up like a circuit board that just got plugged in.
My breath catches. Just barely. A small hitch I cover with a cough, which I then have to commit to because he glances down at me with something that might be concern.
"Fine," I say. "Just — dust. Or pollen. Seasonal."
His hand stays. My hand stays. We walk. We are two people holding hands on a sidewalk and it is completely, entirely, one hundred percent an act.
My pulse is doing something inconvenient in my wrist, right where his thumb rests against it. I'm almost certain he can feel it. I'm almost certain this is some skill they teach at security school — reading someone's heart rate through their skin — and mine is telling him things I don't want told.
"Relax your grip," I murmur. "You're holding my hand, not a weapon."
His fingers ease. Fractionally.
"And maybe don't walk in formation."
"I'm not walking in formation."
"Your shoulders are squared, your stride is exactly even, and you haven't blinked once."
He blinks. Deliberately. It's the most aggressive blink I've ever witnessed.
"We'll work on it," I say.
The hardware store is small, overcrowded, and smells like sawdust and machine oil — two of my favorite scents in the world. The owner, Walt, knows me by name and by project.
"Kari! More wood filler?"
"And caulk. And a new putty knife — I bent the last one."
"How do you bend a putty knife?"
"Determination and poor technique."
Walt spots Liam examining the exit locations with barely concealed professional interest.
"This your guy?" Walt asks.
"This is Liam."
"Handy?"
Liam, who installed a deadbolt yesterday with surgical precision, says, "Somewhat."
