Page 92 of What We Bury

“Good?” he asks, and his voice has dropped even lower.

“So good.” I let the syllables linger, unashamed.

Who even am I?

We stare at each other. A bright spike of adrenaline hits, but it’s not the oh-shit-run kind. It’s the thrill of knowing we’re both thinking about the line between threat and desire, and neither one of us cares if we cross it.

“Shift ends soon?” he asks, not even pretending it’s about a ride or safety.

“No, I’m on till close.”

“Break?”

I glance at the clock. “In about ten minutes.”

He stands, drops his money on the counter.

“I’ll be in the alley.” He lets his eyes drag down the length of me and back up to my eyes. “Maybe I’ll see you.” Then he’s out the door and I’m trying not to hyperventilate.

I make it through the next ten minutes the way you make it through the last mile of a long drive—eyes forward, hands moving, brain refusing to think about the destination. I cash out customers. I refill coffees. I drop a check at table four and smile at the lady when she compliments the pie.

Then Rosa jerks her thumb toward the back and says, “Go. Before you start vibrating through the floor.”

I blink at her. “Am I that obvious?”

She gives me a deadpan look. “Honey, if I held a tuning fork to you right now, I could set off a tsunami.”

I snort, wipe my hands on my apron one more time, and thank her. My pulse is already in my throat by the time I push through the back door.

The alley smells like fryer oil, wet cardboard, and cold ocean wind.

Knox is there exactly where he said he’d be—leaning against the brick wall, one boot braced behind him, arms folded over that massive chest like he’s got all the time in the world. The afternoon light catches the hard lines of him and makes him look even bigger somehow. Meaner. More unreal.

His eyes find mine immediately.

Everything in me tightens.

“Now what?” I blurt.

He smirks. “That would be up to you.”

“I . . .” I take a step closer. Stop. My heart hammers in my ears. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Sure you do.”

“You asked me here,” I say, because if I don’t say something I’m going to combust right here between the grease bin and the back step.

Knox’s gaze drops to my mouth. “You could’ve said no.”

“I know.”

“And?”

“And I didn’t.”

His jaw flexes once. A tiny movement.

The alley goes still around us. A gull screams somewhere overhead. Cars hiss past on the street out front. Behind me, the kitchen door thumps as Danny moves around inside, but it feels far away—another world entirely. In this one, it’s just me and Knox and the foot of space neither of us is closing.