Page 108 of What We Bury

Milo pales. “Knox,no.I don’t swing your way.”

“Then keep your suggestions to yourself.”

“I could never do that,” Milo whispers.

Knox turns to me. His hand comes up and cups the side of my face, thumb dragging once across my cheekbone, and the whole room goes quiet around it—even Milo, for one merciful second.

“I’m not sure you should leave,” I say, so quiet only he hears it.

“You’re safe with him,” Knox says, low. “He’s a lot. He’s also the best of us at keeping people breathing.” He pauses a beat. “If you want me, you have my number now.”

“I don’t have your?—”

“You will. Milo, make a chat that includes her.” His eyes flick over my head. “Tonight.”

“On it, Captain Sunshine.”

Knox looks back at me. Holds it a second longer than he needs to. Then he leans down and presses his mouth to the top of my head. Then he takes a set of keys from my hand and he’s gone—out the door, down the stairs, back to whatever shadow he lives in when he isn’t standing too close to me.

I touch the spot where his lips were and try to remember how I functioned before any of this.

“He likes you,” Milo says, far too pleased, sliding a plate in front of the chair he’s apparently assigned me. “That was practically a sonnet. I’ve seen that man attend a funeral with less feeling.” He drops into the seat across from me, chin in his hands, eyes bright and bottomless. “Now. Sit. Eat. Tell meeverything about your day and don’t skip the boring parts, I want all of it.”

TWENTY-NINE

MILO

“So,” I say, twirling pasta around my fork. Knox left about ten minutes ago. Sage changed out of her uniform while I plated up and uncorked the wine. “Scale of one to ten, how freaked out are you right now?”

Sage looks up from her plate, a strand of spaghetti hanging from her lips. She slurps it in and considers.

“Honestly? Like a four.”

“Afour.” I press a hand to my chest. “I’m wounded. I worked very hard on this ambush. I expected at least a seven.”

“The pasta’s too good for a seven. Hard to be terrified when you’re carb-loading.”

“See, this is why I led with food. Nobody commits murder on a full stomach.”

She snorts, and something in my chest does a little flip. She’s like a cat pretending to nap while it watches a bird through the window.

I like cats. Their claws are like tiny built-in knives.

“So.” She points her fork at me. “What’s your deal, exactly?”

“In general?”

“In general, and specifically. You work at a hardware store, you know how to break into apartments, and you’re involved in—” she drops her voice to a stage whisper, “—vigilante murder.”

“I like to keep my options open.”

“Are you dangerous?”

“Defined how?”

She looks me up and down, spinning her fork. “Like, if you decided I was a problem, would I end up in a trunk somewhere?”

“Kitten.” I drop the act so she knows I mean it. “I will never hurt you. Couldn’t. You could drop a grand piano on my head and I’d just let you. You are one hundred percent safe around me, unless you’re”—and here I widen my eyes for emphasis—“a corrupt senator, a serial sexual predator, or a squirrel attempting to unionize under my roof.”