Page 202 of Override

Apparently, texting my mother a link to an updated home security system isn't an appropriate response to I miss you.

Rachel made me call her. The point is, love doesn't always translate correctly.

I understand that better than most. But this feels different. Maeve's family isn't like mine.

I can't explain how I know that. The research supports it, but it's more than that. I know it in my gut. And my gut is rarely wrong.

"Maeve."

She keeps looking at her hands. "Hmm?"

I reach for her before I can overthink it. My palms settle against her cheeks, and her eyes immediately lift to mine.

I'm becoming alarmingly comfortable touching her face. That's probably something I should analyze later. Not now.

"Do you trust me?"

Her answer is immediate. "Yes." No hesitation. None. She doesn't ask why. Doesn't qualify it. Doesn't remind me that she only learned my real name last night.

She just says yes.

Something blooms beneath my ribs. Warm and expanding, it presses outward until my chest feels too small to contain it.

I don't know what it is. I'm starting to accumulate an unreasonable number of feelings I can't identify. It's becoming irritating.

Maeve's hands lift and wrap loosely around my wrists.

"I trust you," she says again.

That makes the feeling worse. Or better.

I don't fucking know anymore.

I run my thumbs beneath her eyes. "Okay."

Her eyebrows pull together. "Okay?"

"Get dressed."

The confusion deepens. "Why?"

"I'm taking you to see your father."

Her entire body goes still. "What?"

"You think he won't care."

"Keaton—"

"I think you're wrong."

Her hands tighten around my wrists. "You don't know that."

"No."

"Then how can you say that?"

"Because I have a statistically significant amount of information about your family."