Page 54 of Broken Blades

I parked along the curb. Cut the engine. Didn't look at her yet.

The cameras swiveled toward us like predators catching scent.

I stepped out. Shut my door. Walked around the hood with deliberate calm. No rush. No hesitation. Just a man picking up his girlfriend for coffee.

I opened her door before she could reach for the handle. Not chivalry. Control.

The flashes erupted immediately. Rapid-fire bursts of light. Voices overlapping. Questions shouted from too many directions at once.

She flinched. Subtle. But I saw it.

Her hand shot instinctively toward her purse strap—some kind of nervous anchor. A tell she didn't know she had.

I took her hand before her fingers found the leather.

Her breath stuttered. A soft, sharp inhale that I felt more than heard. Her palm was warm. Delicate. Smaller than I'd expected, though I had no reason to have expected anything at all. She didn't pull away. Didn't fight it. Just stood there blinking against the camera flashes, fingers trembling slightly in mine. More affected than she wanted me to see.

Authenticity sold better than acting.

I leaned down slightly. Close enough that my voice stayed private. Low. Just for her. "Relax. We practiced this."

Her response came through gritted teeth, barely audible beneath the noise. "You practiced. I panicked."

Something almost resembling amusement flickered in my chest. Brief. Unwelcome. I crushed it immediately.

But the corner of my mouth threatened to curve, anyway.

I didn't let it.

We were surrounded. Watched. Recorded from a dozen angles. Every micro-expression would be analyzed. Dissected. Captioned and shared within the hour. So I squeezed her hand once. Grounding. Steadying. And pulled her forward into the storm. The cameras closed in. The questions grew louder. Someone shouted her name. Someone else shouted mine.

I kept my expression neutral. Bored, even. Like this was routine. Like she'd been beside me a hundred times before. Like I wasn't acutely aware of the exact pressure of her fingers against mine. Performance had begun. And she was holding on tighter than either of us had planned.

I guided her inside with a hand at her lower back. She stiffened immediately. Body going rigid under my palm. Every muscle locked tight like she'd been shocked. Then—slowly—she softened. Not surrender. Not seduction. Something worse.

Trust.

Her spine relaxed incrementally. Her breathing evened out. Like my hand there steadied her instead of threatened her. Like she'd decided—consciously or not—that I was safer than the chaos behind us.

I hated how much I noticed.

The exact moment her shoulders dropped. The way her weight shifted slightly toward me instead of away. The warmth of her body through that cream sweater that looked even softer up close than it had across my kitchen.

I shouldn't have been cataloging any of it. This was choreography. Performance. A transaction with a thirty-day expiration date. Nothing more.

I stepped up to the counter. Ordered. Black coffee for me. Something complicated and sweet for her—caramel latte, extra foam, because girls like her always ordered things like that. Predictable. Safe. Exactly what the cameras would expect.

She didn't correct me. Just stood close because she had to. Because the café was crowded and the phones were still pointed at us through the windows. Because distance would break the illusion we'd spent last night building.

Then—without prompting, without direction, without me telling her to—her fingers curled around my arm. Light. Delicate. Just above my elbow.

Her thumb brushed against the fabric of my jacket once. Twice. A small, unconscious rhythm that had nothing to do with cameras and everything to do with needing something solid to hold onto.

People were watching. Phones were recording. She thought this was expected. Thought she was playing her part correctly.

But the touch was soft. Genuine. Not fake. Not rehearsed. Something in my chest did a small, unwelcome shift. Like a bone settling wrong after a hit. Uncomfortable. Unfamiliar. Dangerous.

Too natural.