Page 341 of Bitter’s Sweet

He looks down at me.

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

That still feels new enough to warm me everywhere.

Bitter kisses me beneath the lights.

No audience cheers, mostly because his grandmothers are hiding badly behind a hedge and Mercy threatens them with death before they can.

Later, we sit on the steps outside the School of the Dead with my new support vest folded beside me because I refuse to spill cobbler on it the first night.

Bitter’s phone buzzes.

His expression changes when he reads the screen.

Not panic.

Club.

I know that face now.

“Problem?”

“CSI found something.”

My stomach tightens slightly.

“The leak?”

“Maybe.”

He does not immediately tell me.

Old fear moves through me for half a second.

Then Bitter looks at me.

“Do you want to know?”

The question.

The choice.

I think about it.

“Tonight?”

“No immediate danger.”

“Then no.”

He locks the phone.

“Okay.”

I smile.