Page 3 of Redline Communion

“No.”

“You could at least lie better. For sport.”

“I don’t lie for sport.” He pauses. “Besides, I wouldn’t dare.”

It should sound sanctimonious. Instead, it just sounds tired, which is somehow worse because it makes me want to keep pulling at him instead of letting it go.

“Good. Threatening me before breakfast feels a little ambitious, even for this family.”

“Again, I’m not threatening you.”

“You’re doing a remarkably accurate impression.”

Cassian looks at me for a long moment.

Then he says, “I brought you a clean cloth.”

The shift catches me off guard.

“What?”

“Last night.” His gaze drops briefly to my hands again. “You’re asking what I did while Marcus was being taken away. I brought you a clean cloth.”

“In front of your father. Folded and everything. Very efficient.” I take another drink because it’s easier than admitting I’ve spent an unreasonable amount of my morning tracking the line of his jaw when he isn’t looking at me. “Didn’t say a single word to go with it.”

“I knew he was watching.”

The answer lands differently than I expect.

Cassian’s expression doesn’t change.

“Would the words have changed anything?”

“That’s not the point.”

“Then say the point.”

I have an answer somewhere. Something reasonable and adult about human decency, or checking whether somebody is okay after something traumatic.

Instead what comes out is, “You could have said something.”

Cassian goes quiet, the real kind this time rather than the polished silence he wears while deciding how much of himself other people are allowed to see.

I look away first.

Annoying.

“You could have asked if I was okay.”

“I knew you weren’t.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t check on me.”

“No.” His voice lowers. “It doesn’t.”

I glance up.

Cassian is leaning against the counter, close enough for me to notice the rolled cuffs of his shirt and the faint shadow beneath his eyes. A plain silver band circles his right hand.