Page 87 of Cinder
“You say shit like you don’t belong here, but try telling that to my kid who looks for you before she looks for me every morning.”
My chest tightens, and I shake my head. “That’s not the same thing.”
“No?”
He takes one more half-step forward, and we’re close enough that I can see the faint stubble along his jaw.
“Elle sleeps better,” he says. “She laughs louder, and I wake up to music.” His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “That doesn’t happen when someone doesn’t belong.”
“That’s different,” I whisper.
“Is it?”
The hallway hums around us, and I can hear the charger on the wall and the faint clatter of cutlery from the bay. I become very aware of the way my hand is resting against the doorframe, and my fingers flex against it.
His eyes dart down to my hand, and then his fingers reach out, brushing lightly against mine.
“Pen,” he whispers.
That nickname lands softly in this narrow space between us, and I open my mouth to make a joke, but no words come out. Evan exhales through his nose, but he doesn’t move immediately.
I’m acutely aware of how close we are. The warmth of his bod and the rough graze of his fingers. The weight of his eyes on my mouth.
How dangerously easy it would be to lean forward and brush my lips against his.
He looks like he’s thinking the same thing, but somewhere down the corridor a locker door slams, and someone starts talking. The sounds and rhythm of more of the crew mid-shift break over the moment before it can become anything else.
Evan steps back first.
“C’mon,” he says. “Before they think something’s going on here.”
Something is definitely going on here.
All I can do is nod, because my mouth needs a second to remember how to form words.
As we walk back toward the bay, the tension between us is turbo-charged, and when we step into the noise of the bay again, I swear every sound lands sharper than before.
Mason’s mid-argument about seasoning ratios while Frankie heckles him, and Colt’s laughing at something Luke said under his breath. Max is sprinting in unpredictable loops with a bread roll clutched in his fist while Elle chases after him. Both of them are giggling so hard the sound seems to bounce off the walls.
It’s the happiest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
Evan slows half a step beside me as we approach the table, recalibrating from whatever the hell just passed between us in the hallway. Remi looks up first.
“Well?” she asks, eyes dancing. “Did he show you the glamorous side of firefighting or just theequipment?”
“He has a tour voice,” I say, sliding back into my chair and ignoring the innuendo. “You were right.”
“I do not,” Evan mutters, sitting down beside me.
Mason swings around with a grin. “Did he do the hand gestures too?”
“He did the hand gestures,” I confirm.
Luke nods. “Told ya.”
Evan glares at them and reaches for his drink, his knee brushing mine under the table as he does so, but he doesn’t move it away.
And damn it, I feel it everywhere.
