Page 13 of Cruz

“No.”

“Hmm. I guess it doesn’t matter if you don’t. You can still sort of understand. Probably…” She trails off but picks the thread back up after a long silence. “I’m going to keep doing dangerous yoga unless you tell me a poem.”

Of all the things I’ve been asked to do over the years, staring down a fucking poem shouldn’t make my palms sweat and my stomach roils. It’s not just that it’s words. They’re supposed to be beautiful. Lyrical. The complete opposite of what I am.

A hundred words jam up in my mind. A thousand. More. My mind races. Thoughts tumble and twist. Maybe I should describe the sheer panic of being asked for such a ludicrous thing. I can protest that none of my training prepared me for this, but shockingly, the words tumble out. “We’re all here because someone else isn’t. We’re a collection of memories. Of moments. A life. Like constellations. Like a star burning out. Blinding, and then gone.” The words don’t trip. They don’t stop and restart. They don’t panic, and they’re not a cement mixer gone wrong.

My mouth has never been so dry.

My t-shirt is soaked in sweat. Thank fuck I shed my leather jacket earlier.

Sloane’s lips part and for just a few amazing seconds, her face transforms into raw, vulnerable, amazement. She quickly shakes herself and clasps her hands tightly together in front of her. “I guess I’m going to bed then. I’d prefer you weren’t creeping the door all night, but I get it. I’ll try not to have disturbed dreams about all of this, if I get any sleep, but I make no promises.” She reconsiders that. “I promise to give you no more trouble until morning, when I’ll wake up and we’ll no doubt start fighting about all of this again, because I’m stressed, this is our lives, and it’s a lot.”

“Yes,” I agree, back to one word answers, but even that’s an improvement.

She takes a few steps and turns. There’s nothing locked down about her face, and seeing her struggle with her emotions to the point of being completely vulnerable, presses hard on my protective gut response again. It’s all I can do not to move. I shut my body down and just as quickly, slam all the doors in my mind that want to go right back to all those unruly thoughts.

“I didn’t mean to be glib about what I asked you. About… the PTSD and stuff. Or if there’s another reason… Please don’t think that I was trying to make fun of you about it. I wasn’t. That would be terrible. I might not like this situation, and unfortunately for you, you’re a big part of it, but that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have any compassion. I just—wanted you to know that.”

I’ve spent years working on myself, but Sloane just about undoes me with her liquid eyes and her heartfelt words. I can feel something trying to slip, something aching to burst out and get loose. I just don’t know what it is.

I give her a tight smile to reassure her and watch her walk down the hallway. Her steps are quiet, but not totally silent, and neither is the click of her door.

It’s odd, being seen. Most of my life, people were content to ignore me. Teachers, adults, other kids. I did have a few friends, and once I made them, they were pretty much for life, but even they sometimes forgot I even existed. It was so easy for me to blend into the background. That never came in handy until I got some real training and worked as a team.

I had zero doubts that this was the right move when Tyrant asked me to do it, but after tonight, I know there are hairline fractures. I don’t know what’s cracking either and that undefined part scares me as much as I’ve ever been scared. I can count on one hand the number of times that I’ve truly been afraid.

If I ever tell Sloane that, will she laugh? Not at me, but in disbelief? Probably. She wouldn’t understand. Or, maybe she would, and that would be even worse.

An idea comes to me. It’s probably a bad one, but I don’t immediately dismiss it. Once it gets traction, it doesn’t let go. I have no doubt that in a few hours from now, a few hours after that, or when morning finally rolls around that I’ll still be figuring out how to make it happen, and gathering up every single spare word I’m going to need as reinforcement.

Chapter 6

Sloane

I’m not much of a leaf turner, as the saying goes, but I don’t like tense silence. I’m okay with quiet, just as long as it’s the right kind.

Despite the late night, I’m far too used to getting up early to open the café to sleep in. I find Cruz exactly where I knew that he’d be—sitting in one of the wooden chairs in the kitchen, watching the door, his phone right in front of him.

It’s clear that he didn’t sleep. Doesn’t he need a break? He isn’t really superhuman, is he?

I’ve showered, brushed my teeth, put on my usual bare minimum of makeup, picked out today’s sweater, and I still have half an hour to spare before I need to print out a sign and go stick it on the door downstairs. I think. I still haven’t decided if it’s the right move yet.

I pull out a frying pan and my big green mixing bowl and get to work making a batch of pancakes. The least I can do after this man sat up all night long, is feed him breakfast and give him a cup of coffee. After the batter is mixed, I get a second pan heating for bacon and eggs.

I can feel Cruz’s eyes on me, burning a hole in my back. The tense silence gets more oppressive. “I’m not sure that closing down the café is the right call,” I find myself saying, facing the window over near the stove. “Liam never said that he’s not planning on going to work at the garage, so I assume that the club is okay with life going on as normal? Then again, that’s them. They’re likely used to handling threats of all variety.” I freeze with two eggs in my hand, halfway to the sizzling frying pan. “Liam probably didn’t want to tell me anything because he was worried I didn’t want to hear it.”

“Hmm.”

There’s that noise again, the low hum that’s almost a growl. I don’t like how the sound moves through me as a shiver that ends up in my belly.

“Should you call someone and ask?”

I get the eggs cracked and go back for another two, and have them frying, as well as a big scoop of batter into the other pan, before Cruz makes a sound. Not that I’m expecting him to. “I was thinking we should go to the clubhouse this morning. All three of us, to check in.”

I drop an egg in shock. I scramble to pick it up, goop leaking out of the crack in the shell. I’m very glad that I’m not facing Cruz so that I don’t have to worry about what my face is doing.

“You can meet some of the others. Maybe see that not everyone is bad. And you could ask all of your questions. After, I could show you the club’s gym. When I started training, I was in charge of redesigning it. I could teach you some basic self-defense. I would feel better knowing that you know how to protect yourself, even if it’s not needed because I’m here.”