Page 74 of Last Flame
She’d hate it. Especially with… No.
No no.
I don’t know why I care.
I don’t care.
Done.
In the hinge aisle, Erik grabs the first box on the shelf. Brock’s already three shelves down with a different one in his hand, reading the back.
“Ball bearing,” he says. “Not those. Those will squeak in a few months.”
The kid checks the label over his shoulder. “…He’s right.”
“He’s always right,” I say. “It’s exhausting.”
Brock grins and I push him toward the lock aisle.
He lets me. He could plant his feet and I’d bounce off, and we both know it, but he goes where I put him — and my hand stays on his shoulder too long.
I know it. He knows it.
I take it back.
He doesn’t mention it. Brock not mentioning something is never free.
The lock aisle takes it out of me, personally.
There’s a wall of them. Deadbolts, chains, smart locks, latch guards, an entire armory of locks, and not one of them would stop me. I could get through the best lock on this wall with a shoulder and moderate intent.
“What is the point of a lock that wouldn’t stop me?”
“Most burglars aren’t you,” Brock says.
“Every burglar should be flattered by the comparison.”
He rolls his eyes, and I’m going to leave it alone.
You don’t have to earn every good thing.
It pops into my head. I don’t want it there but the thought doesn’t care.
Somebody wrote that to her. In careful handwriting on nice paper, somebody who’s been close enough, long enough, to know the exact thing she—
I pick up the biggest deadbolt they make and put it in the cart.
“That’s commercial grade,” the kid says. “Like, for pawn shops.”
“Perfect.”
The kid gets sent off for a longer strike plate, which buys us an aisle to ourselves, and Brock appears at my shoulder while Erik and Rayner are two rows over debating trim. He does that. Arrives without arriving.
“You saw something,” he says. Low. Just for me.
“I saw a box.”
“Gunnar.”
