Page 282 of What We Bury

Knox came back close to dawn the next morning, which is later than he normally gets home after his work shift, and I could smell Eli when he climbed into bed and held me—some stupid trace of safety my body recognizes even when my heart wants to spit in his face.

I didn’t say anything.

Knox didn’t offer.

He just tucked himself behind me, one huge arm banded over my waist, and held me with a tension in his body that made it obvious he’d done something. Or almost done something. Maybe both.

I let myself be held anyway.

Which probably says something deeply unflattering about me.

“You missed a spot.”

I blink and look up. Jamie is pointing at a table I’m wiping with the kind of distracted determination usually reserved for exorcisms.

“That’s because I’m providing abstract cleanliness,” I say.

His mouth twitches. “Bold new business model.”

“Very upscale. People pay extra for implied sanitation.”

That gets a laugh out of him, low and warm. It unties a tiny knot in my chest.

The bell over the diner door jingles.

My whole nervous system reacts before my brain catches up—spine straightening, shoulders tightening, pulse kicking once, hard.

Not Eli.

Just a family of four. Summer tourists by the look of them—sunburned shoulders, sand on the floor, kids sticky with soda. I put down my cleaning rag and take them some menus.

The house feels bruised now. Micah has kept me laughing when he could. Milo’s been feeding me and hovering and making obscene jokes at strategic moments. Holden watches me like if I blink wrong he’ll drag the whole town into interrogation rooms one by one until somebody confesses to something. And Knox?—

He’s gone even quieter.

Which is saying something, because Knox already treats words like they’re a nonrenewable resource. But now there’s a stillness to him that feels sharpened. Honed. Like all that violence he keeps folded up neat inside himself is sitting closer to the surface, waiting for the first excuse.

It would be hot if it weren’t terrifying.

It’s still hot. Obviously. I’m not dead.

I get the family settled, put their order in, and when I glance out the diner windows, Knox’s truck is still there. Parked across the street. Engine off. Dark silhouette behind the windshield.

Watching.

Protecting.

Lurking, if you wanted to be less charitable about it.

My phone buzzes in my apron pocket.

Milo:

Eat something on break or I’ll come in there and breastfeed you myself.

I stare at the text.

Then another comes in.