Page 63 of Dissonance

The kid’s enthusiasm could power all of Taunton Falls if someone figured out how to bottle it. Still, his messages told me what I needed to know. Gunner was fine. Didn’t mean I wasn’t going to check in.

Hitting his number, he answered on the second ring.

“Tell your rock star he can keep me,” he said without preamble.

“So, the wee shit’s there with you?” I asked, no bite in my words.

“I heard that,” Cooper whined, and I’d let myself smile just because he couldn’t see me.

“How’s everything going?” I asked once Gunner had stepped somewhere quiet.

“Dude, honestly? For an international rock star, he’s pretty chill.”

“Good, I’m glad.” Meant I could stay here without worrying.

“Bit nosy, though, isn’t he? I swear, all he does is ask me questions.” He chuckled, not sounding at all put out by Cooper.

“I don’t give him much, so this must be a change for him.”

“It’s constant. During breakfast, while we’re walking, then again when we’re at his man’s bar.”

“But you’re okay?” I asked again, wanting to double check.

He laughed. “I’m having a blast, Highlander. Don’t worry about me. You just take care of whatever you’re doing in LA. I’ve got this.”

We talked for a bit longer before hanging up, and after a promising call that I’m not ready to share with Thea just yet, I was later than usual bringing her coffee this morning. But the moment she’d looked at me, I knew. Her eyes were tired, shoulders carrying the day before it properly started, jaw set in that way she gets when she’s running on stubbornness and not much else.

She smiled at the melon—the one thing she could apparently stomach—but it was a thin smile, there and gone in the blink of an eye, trying to push through something she didn’t have the energy for.

Which is why I’m standing in my kitchen finishing dinner instead of getting ready to go out like we’d planned, my door left ajar so I can hear her come home. Wiping my hands on a towel, I toss it onto the worktop and cross the room when I hear her footsteps reach the hallway.

“Shit,” she mutters, startling when she sees me, hand deep in her bag. “Have you been waiting for me?”

Up close, she looks worse than this morning. The exhaustion has settled deeper into the lines under her eyes, her face more ashen than it was earlier too.

“Rough one?”

“You have no idea.” Her shoulders sag as she lifts her bag higher up her arm, gesturing with her keys behind her. “Give me thirty minutes to freshen up, and then we can go.”

I wrap my hand around hers and gently tug her inside.

“Lockie…” She starts to protest, trailing off when she sees the apartment. The lights are dim, music drifting through the kitchen speaker—jazz, similar to what she had playing the last time we had dinner at her place. The oven’s already on, candles flickering along the counter.

She blinks at me, eyes a little glassy, a frown pulling between her eyebrows.

“You looked like you needed a night in.”

I take her briefcase, slide her bag from her shoulder, and set them both by the sideboard. My fingers trail up to the collar of her jacket, easing it off. She lets me, standing quietly in the middle of my apartment as I fold it over the back of a chair.

“You didn’t have to do this,” she whispers, stepping farther inside.

My hand comes to the small of her back, nudging her forward. “Come on.”

She lets me guide her toward the bathroom, her breath hitching when she reaches the doorway. Tealights line the vanity, steam rising in lazy spirals from the tub, the warm scent of lavender from the bubble bath I’d picked up while grabbing groceries filling the room. Glancing over her shoulder, her big green eyes sparkle, a little dazed.

“You ran me a bath?” A quiet laugh escapes her as she brushes the towel hanging on the warmer. “You’re aware this is dangerously close to setting unrealistic expectations.”

I lean against the frame and cross my arms over my chest, watching as she dips her hand into the water. “Get in, Thea.”