Page 96 of The Exit Strategy

“Morning.”

It’s the most ordinary exchange we’ve ever had.

Fen, who has the situational awareness of a cat and the subtlety of a foghorn, swivels away from the waffle iron on Cole’s left and grins so broadly my entire body flushes.

“The first one’s done,” Fen announces to the room, using a voice that’s painfully loud for no reason other than to draw attention to himself. Or in this case, to draw attention to me and Cole.

“It’s raw in the middle,” Nana Mae says. “You have to let it cook until it beeps.”

“It’s a stylistic choice.”

“It’s salmonella waiting to happen.”

Glancing over my shoulder, I catch Nolan’s mouth twitching over the top of his laptop. But it’s Hudson whose attention is evenly dispersed between me and Cole.

My spine straightens, and I carry my mug to sit at the far end of the island and try to remember how to behave normally in a room full of people who love me. It’s harder than it sounds because my instinct is still to catalog the exits, the retaliations, the weapons I can organize and use to protect myself with but am trying not to.

“Eat up,” Nana Mae says, patting my arm on her way by. “We leave for the farmer’s market at 9:30.”

She uses the same energy on me that she used on Cole when she told him she’d entered him into the competition to finally beat Paula Van Holten—cheerfully, without asking, and in a way that makes refusal feel like an unsolvable equation.

“Katie’s meeting us there,” she says, handing me a tote bag with a rope shaped like a heart on it. “You’ll carry this.”

My appetite is gone, so I hold up the bag. “What’s the rope for?”

“Decoration. Mostly. Finish up,” she says. “I’ll meet you outside.”

Nolan chuckles, drawing my attention. He instantly holds up his hands in surrender when I scowl at him. “Don’t mind us. Nana Mae gave us all jobs today too.”

“Come on,” Cole says, cutting the weird tension that’s fallen over the room. “I’ll get you the…stuff you’ll need for the market.”

He grabs a hoodie off the hook by the door, then walks me to the end of his driveway in silence.

“I don’t need anything, do I?”

Cole shrugs as though he can’t quite admit out loud thathe just wanted five minutes of my time. “Don’t let Nana Mae buy the preserves from the third stall. They’re overpriced, and she’s been arguing with that vendor for three years and always ends up buying them anyway.”

I frown at him.

He stares back, but there are a million untold stories behind his eyes.

“Okay,” I say. “Is…that it?”

He glances over my shoulder, then jerks his head to the side before hitching at the waist to bring his mouth too close to my ear. “No, but Nana Mae’s watching and there’s too much still between us to say more with an audience. Just…don’t run, okay? Not yet.”

An unidentifiable sensation fills my chest. It’s not warm, it’s not cold, it just…is…sitting there, making me slightly uncomfortable.

“I may run from my feelings, Cole, but you’re the only one who has ever truly run, so perhaps you should be taking your own advice.”

Plus, telling me he has something to tell me without actually telling me is just fucking annoying.

And childish.

His shoulders pinch up toward his ears before he quickly corrects course.

His gaze sweeps over my face, studying me as though he can pull all my secrets into his orbit, but that’s not how this works.

“True, Viper. I’m working on it.” He thrusts his hoodie into my hands, then takes a step back and waves at Nana Mae. Cole stares at the clear blue sky, then shrugs. “Might get chilly when the sun goes behind the clouds.” Then he turns on his heel and stalks back to his home.