Page 158 of Priest

I stepped out of the truck more carefully than my pride liked, and Priest came around with Jax before I could tell him not to.

“I can walk,” I said.

“You are walking.”

“With unnecessary supervision.”

He shut the truck door. “I hear gratitude in your tone.”

Before I could answer, Lila’s voice cut across the lot sharp enough to stop us both.

“Put that down.”

Priest and I turned at the same time.

Deacon stood near the back of Lila’s rental truck with a box in his arms and the exact expression of a man pretending he hadn’t almost died a few weeks ago. He looked better than he had in the hospital, stronger even, but not strong enough for the particular brand of stubbornness he was currently indulging in.

The box wasn’t especially heavy. That wasn’t the point. Lila knew it. Deacon knew it. The whole lot knew it.

“I’m helping,” he said.

“You’re healing,” Lila snapped back.

“I can do both.”

“No, you can do one, and right now you’re choosing wrong.”

He shifted the box higher. “You always this bossy when somebody’s trying to do something nice for you?”

Her jaw tightened. “Yes. Especially when that somebody got out of a coma ten minutes ago.”

“It was not ten minutes ago.”

“Close enough.”

I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from laughing, but the humor didn’t last. Lila was too tense. Her eyes kept cutting past him toward the apartment entrance, like she was counting on something staying exactly where she’d left it.

Deacon set the box down with the dignified resentment of a man conceding only because he planned to argue again in thirty seconds. “I’m trying to help.”

“I know,” Lila said, too fast. Then her voice sharpened again. “Which is why you need to go home. My dad and Matty already helped me with the big stuff. I don’t need you carrying boxes.”

His head tilted slightly. “Excuse me?”

“You should be resting, not out here lifting things and playing hero.”

His eyes narrowed. “You trying to get rid of me?”

“No.” She folded her arms. “I’m trying to keep you from putting yourself back in the hospital.”

He looked at her for a long second, then glanced once toward the apartment building and back again. “Ghost said you had more going on than I knew about.”

Lila went very still.

I felt Priest shift beside me, but neither of us stepped in.

Deacon moved closer, not enough to crowd her, just enough that she had to hold his gaze or make a point of looking away. “What are you trying to hide, Lila?”

Her mouth parted, then closed again.