Page 21 of No Good Fight

He leans back in his chair, but his body doesn’t relax. One arm rests on the table near his cup while his eyes keep moving. Windows. Door. Street. Me. Windows again.

He does it so naturally I don’t think he realizes.

“Does firefighter training make all of you this paranoid?” I ask.

His attention snaps back to me. “What?”

“You’re scanning the street like the muffins are about to stage an attack.”

His mouth lifts, but the smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “You never know with muffins. But mostly, I’m worried about the blondies. They’re the real enemy.”

“Ryder.”

He looks past me again, toward the front windows where sunlight flashes off passing cars. “Only when there’s something worth worrying about.”

The words are quiet.

Too quiet.

They land somewhere under my ribs and stay there.

I wrap both hands around my coffee because I need something to do that isn’t a reaction to him like a Victorian hero who just saw an ankle.

“I can handle myself,” I say.

“I know.”

That should be the end of it, except his expression says something else entirely.

I narrow my eyes. “You said that very wrong.”

“I said two words.”

“And somehow both of them were annoying.”

This time, his smile is real for half a second. “You want me to lie?”

“I want you to believe me.”

“I do believe you.”

“No, you believe I’m stubborn enough to try to handle myself before I fail spectacularly and need someone to rescue me..”

He studies me for a moment, and the attention makes me want to squirm. Ryder looking at me is not like other people looking at me. Other people glance. Ryder sees. He takes in details I haven’t given him permission to have and stores them somewhere I can feel.

“Those aren’t the same thing,” I add, softer than I mean to.

His hand flexes around his coffee cup. “No. They’re not.”

Before I can decide what to do with that, a male voice calls my name from across the shop.

“Alex?”

My body reacts before my brain has a chance to understand what is actually happening.

My pulse spikes so hard the room tilts at the edges. My fingers lock around the cup. Every muscle in me freezes, and for one horrible second I am not in a warm coffee shop with sunlight through the windows and Ryder sitting across from me.

I am somewhere else.