Page 103 of Double Bucked

I chose the least frightening descriptor. “A precaution.”

She seems too exhausted to argue. She has something in her hand and she sets it on the table.

“I found these in my bag,” she says. “A spare.”

She pushes a small case across the table. I thumb it open and find a pair of new, working AirPods inside of them.

Thank God.

“Thank you,” I say. I put them aside.

“Aren’t you going to put them on?”

“Not now. I don’t need them now.”

Everything feels better when Claire is in the room.

She watches me. There’s a deep, curious intensity in her gaze.

It makes me feel like a dragonfly on a pin.

“Your pancakes smelled…really good this morning. I’m sorry I didn’t eat them.”

The edges of my eyes crinkle. My heart fucking explodes.

But my tone remains, somehow, neutral. “Stay put,” I tell her.

She obeys like a child. I clear the weapons from the table and set them aside. Then I go into the kitchen, wash my hands, and start pulling out pans.

I make Claire three blueberry pancakes, two slices of bacon, two sausages, a mushroom-and-onion medley, and a bell pepper, onion, and cheddar cheese omelet. Then I sit at the table across from her and watch as she carefully uses the edge of her fork to slice the fluffy pancake into small, square pieces.

Each bite she takes heals something inside of me.

I could watch her eat all night.

She finishes her meal in silence, minus the clicking of her fork against the plate. She swallows down half the glass of orange juice. She looks more herself now, her skin rosy and warm, the blues of her eyes brighter.

“Thank you for cooking,” she says.

“Thank you for eating. Feeling better?”

She sets the glass down on the table with a soft thump. “I think I’m taking this admirably well.”

My body prepares itself by quietly turning to steel. “I agree.”

Those gray eyes stare at me from across the table. In the soft lamplight of the night, there are no hard walls between us.

For the first time since my confession—Everett, agent, Wolfpack—I feel an openness from Claire. Not anger. Not pain. Her gaze is a quiet, genuine invitation for honesty.

One I am willing to accept. Even if it means removing the mask.

Even if it means being more exposed than I’ve been in a very, very long time.

“You lied to me,” she says plainly. “Thousands of times.”

“One thousand, five hundred, and thirty-eight times, to be exact.”

She blinks. “What?”

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