Page 48 of Cross Checked
“You were about to.”
Emmitt pointed at me. “Mercer, hypothetical.”
“No,” I said.
Bliss smiled smugly. “See? Project subject has sense.”
“I’m not sure I like being used as legal precedent.”
“Too late. You’re part of the system now.”
Part of the system. She said it lightly, already moving toward the patio with the potatoes while Katie dragged me by the hand to inspect a chalk drawing on the driveway. But the words stayed with me.
Part of the system. That was the problem because I was starting to want it.
Not the noise exactly, though even that had become less abrasive than I expected. I wanted the way Bliss relaxed in pieces here. Not completely. Never completely. But more. She rolled her eyes at her brothers, kissed her dad’s cheek, let the kids hang off her, stole a roll from Ryker’s plate, and laughed when Daniel told the same story twice with different details and the confidence of a man who considered accuracy optional.
I stood at the edge of it, holding a paper plate and watching her exist inside all that love with one hand still occasionally finding her pocket.
Then the side gate opened. No one else reacted at first because they expected it.
Daniel called, “Luke, you want a burger?”
Bliss went still.
That was how I knew.
Not because she screamed. Not because she backed away. Not because anything visible happened to the average eye. She simply stopped being the version of herself she had been two seconds earlier.
Her smile stayed but her body changed. Shoulders just a little higher. Chin just a little tighter. Fingers sliding into herpocket, curling hard around whatever she had brought with her today.
I looked toward the gate. Luke Dempsey stepped into the backyard like he belonged there.
Former hockey player. Local favorite. In his thirties, blond, easy grin, athletic build starting to soften in a way he probably hated. He had the kind of face people trusted if they didn’t know better. The kind of charm that made older men slap his shoulder and younger women laugh too loudly. His eyes moved over the yard, over Daniel, over the brothers, over me.
Then Bliss and they lingered there a fraction too long. My grip tightened around the paper plate.
Luke smiled wider. “Bug.”
I didn’t like that.
Daniel called her Bug. Her brothers sometimes said it when they were being annoying. Luke saying it sounded different. Too familiar. Too claimed.
Bliss’s smile brightened another watt, which by now I understood meant nothing good. “Hey, Luke.”
He crossed the yard easily, accepting Daniel’s handshake, Ryker’s nod, Knox’s cool glance. Everyone treated him like part of the place. Like an old chair no one questioned anymore because it had always been in the room.
Luke’s attention slid to me. “Mercer, ” he said, holding out a hand. “I guess you’re a guarantee these days at the Bennett circus.”
I shook his hand like I did every week. Firm grip. Too firm. The kind men used when they needed other men to know they were men.
“Cade,” I said.
“Old habit calling last names on the ice.” His grin sharpened. “Used to play.”
“I know.”
Something flickered in his eyes, pleased. “Careful, you sound like a fan?”
