Page 197 of Silent Shadows

“Second breakfast!” Jax cheers.

Miles ignores him. “Final route discussion. Then we pack.”

The levity slips a little. Miles’s gaze finds mine for a quick check-in. A question without words. I nod once. He nods back. And just like that, the morning becomes motion.

This diner sits just as I left it. A bell over the door jingles when we walk in. Half the room turns. Then they look away.

We’ve become recognizable thanks to the mayhem my podcast caused. After all these years of being stopped by listeners while walking around Los Angeles, I’m too tuned into the markers of recognition: the double takes. The quick whispers. A phone lifted too casually.

My stomach tightens. Old reflex. Old panic.

Then Miles’s hand rests on the small of my back, firm and grounding, and I breathe.

We slide into a corner booth, claiming it with the territorial efficiency of people who have spent too much time living in shared spaces.

Miles sits next to me. Knee against mine under the table. No hiding today. That realization moves through me like sunlight. We’re not obvious, exactly. But he doesn’t pull away when our legs touch, and I don’t either.

The waitress appears with a coffee pot and a look that suggests she has no interest in what we’re up to.

“Everyone need coffee?”

“Yes,” we say in near unison.

She looks at Jax. “You look like pancakes.”

“I choose to take that as a compliment.”

“Wasn’t one.”

Maya snorts.

The woman pours coffee with the steady hand of a professional and leaves us with menus sticky enough to qualify as local artifacts.

Miles reaches for the sugar packets, then slides two toward me before I ask.

I stare at it, then at him.

“What?” he asks.

“Nothing.”

“You’re making a face,” he counters.

“I’m being normal,” I say.

“You hate plain diner coffee.”

“I do.”

“You use two sugars here.”

“I hate that you know that,” I say, a smile curling at my lips.

His mouth tips. “I know a lot of things.”

“Terrible for you.”

“Great for science.”