Page 60 of Riot’s Revenge

I frowned lightly. “I didn’t order this.”

“Yeah, but your friend said you haven’t eaten all night or day, and you’ve been staring at the coffee menu like it’s written in a different language.”

Despite myself, a quiet laugh escaped me. Real enough that something softened immediately in his expression, like he’d been trying to get exactly that reaction.

“There it is,” he said lightly. “You should do that more often.”

I shook my head, suddenly embarrassed. “You flirt with all your exhausted customers?”

“Only the pretty ones.”

Normally, I would’ve rolled my eyes or shut this down immediately, but exhaustion had worn my defenses thin, and for the first time in days someone was looking at me without pity or concern or heartbreak.

Jenna returned to the booth carrying drinks before wiggling her eyebrows subtly at me.

I immediately glared at her.

The cheesecake guy laughed softly before stepping away toward another table.

“You smiled,” Jenna observed as she slid into the booth.

I looked down at the cheesecake. “Don’t start.”

“I’m just saying. You smiled.”

I took a slow bite before looking back out toward the rain-streaked windows. The ache inside my chest eased slightly as warmth and sugar settled through me, enough that I could finally breathe around it instead of feeling crushed beneath it.

25

RIOT

I lasted four more days before I started waiting outside the clinic again.

I didn’t go inside, and I didn’t try talking to her. I just sat across the street on my bike, smoking cigarettes down to the filter, while nurses and patients moved through the clinic doors beneath flickering fluorescent lights.

Ghost called me a stalker twice already. Reaper said worse. Neither of them managed to stop me coming back.

Maria usually finished early after night shifts, somewhere around six or seven in the morning when the rest of the city was only just waking up.

I learned the rhythm of the place without meaning to. I noticed which nurses smoked before heading home, which ambulance crews changed over at dawn, and which doctor always walked out carrying takeout coffee looking half dead.

Every single time the clinic doors opened, I looked up before I even realized I was doing it.

The first morning she noticed me sitting there, her whole body stiffened. She didn’t stop walking or acknowledge me. She just headed toward her car with exhaustion written all over her face, dragging her feet with her shoulders slumped.

Every instinct in me wanted to go after her and force her to talk to me properly, but I had already done enough damage trying to handle things my own way. So, I stayed leaning against the bike while she unlocked the car.

Then she stopped. Her eyes dropped toward the front tire. It was flat. Maria shut her eyes slowly and pressed her palms into them like it was all too much for her. I could see her shoulders shaking.

I pushed off the bike and crossed the street.

“Don’t,” she said immediately.

Too late. I crouched beside the wheel and pulled the tools from the saddlebag.

“I’ve got roadside assistance,” she muttered.

“Yeah?” I loosened the first nut calmly. “Where’s the guy then?”