Page 102 of Shades of Grey & Gold
“Today feels different.” I match his smirk, but mine aches to break into a full grin.
Something moves across his face that I don’t have a word for yet, but I am beginning to recognize when it happens. Like he’s filing something away. Like he’s keeping a memory of a moment for later.
He reaches into his jacket pocket for his wallet and the fabric catches—just for a second—on the holster attached to his hip.
This is the first time I’ve ever noticed it.
He must not wear it at home.
The sight of dark metal makes my stomach drop—it feels like another punch of reality, like getting more security and changing cars at school.
It’s there and gone as he rights his jacket with one practiced movement.
I swallow and glance around, checking faces to see if anyone clocked it. First the barista behind the counter, then towards the patrons sitting at tables beside us. No one seems to be paying us any special attention.
I look beyond the lovely people enjoying their drinks—and catch a glint of sun ricocheting off a car passing by the café.
It’s dark and moving too slowly for the street.
The kind of slow that isn’t looking for parking.
The window on the passenger side is already rolling down, and I see an arm and I see what’s in the hand and I don’t think, I just—
“CAL—”
His body is already moving before I even finish his name.
His hand hits my shoulder and I’m going down, the counter edge catching my hip, and then the world fills with shards of glass and noise and screaming that might be mine, and Cal’s voice somewhere above me sayingmove, move, move.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Cal
Thefirstshottakesout the front café window.
It’s a bay window with glass that goes across the width of the shop and comes down in shards and pebbles.
The sound is different from what most people probably expect.
Not a bang.
Morelike the world cracking open at a seam, sharp and immediate. Then the glass is everywhere, and the room is changed—in the half second it takes for the second shot to follow, the air shifts, people shift, my world shifts.
Because my whole world is right beside me.
My body doesn’t wait for my brain.
My hand is on Max before anything else, pushing her down while my other hand goes for my gun.
Max.
Down.
Gun.
My brain catches up.
Her hip hits the counter edge, and I feel her sharp intake of breath against my chest as I hold her close but get her low, and I’m already scanning before she hits the ground.
