Page 39 of The Hitman’s Final Job
The bakery has only three tables inside the small space, but it seems that people come in mostly to grab a pastry and go. We pick a table by the window and sit down.
“So,” Rowan starts.
“Good drive up?” I ask.
“Fine. So—”
“How’s work?”
“Silas.”
“What?”
He squints at me. “You seem different,” he says.
“I’m the same.”
“You’re relaxed,” he says, like this is a diagnosis. “You’re never relaxed.”
“I’m on vacation.”
“You don’t know how to be on vacation,” he says. “I’ve watched you try. It looks like a man doing an impression of someone who’s heard of relaxing.” He tilts his head. “This is different.”
Maria arrives with two plates filled with pastries, eggs, and hash browns that smell extraordinary. She goes back behind the counter, then brings us two cups filled with steaming coffee.
“Thank you,” I say.
“You must be Silas, our new visitor,” she says.
“I see word gets around,” I joke.
She puts a hand on my shoulder. “Honey, when someone has a darling face like yours and walks around in the company of the most eligible and mysterious bachelor in town, people notice. And talk.”
My chin practically falls to the ground, but it’s Rowan who speaks. “Ew, Maria. That’s gross. Silas is my best friend.”
Maria gives Rowan a smile that may as well have “Bless you, my innocent child” stamped on her forehead.
I’m five years older than Rowan. We met in college because I couldn’t enroll when I should have. I’m also only thirteen years younger than Vaughn. It’s not even a huge age gap as far as I’m concerned. It just so happens that Vaughn had a son when he was very young. But I’m not about to offer this information to Rowan and plant any kind of seed that there may be something happening between me and his dad in his head.
Instead, I dig into the best breakfast I’ve ever had.
Rowan eats too, but he doesn’t stop peering at me with that expression I know from thirteen years of friendship means he’s suspicious about something. He’s not an FBI agent for nothing.
What’s funny is the thing I always feared him finding out about me the most is not even the thing I’m most scared of him finding out now.
“Come on. Finish up quick,” Rowan says, and drains his coffee. “We have an adventure to get to.”
THIRTEEN
VAUGHN
The lab is at its best in the morning.
There’s this energy from my team as they check their work each morning. The excitement when they find the tiniest change that happened overnight.
In combination with the light coming through the roof windows, which I asked for when the building was designed, it’s one of my favorite places to be.
I’m at my desk, trying not to think of Silas and Rowan getting up to goodness knows what—knowing Rowan, it’ll be some high-adrenaline type of activity.
