Page 37 of Cohesion

A head belonging to Gideon Clark, one of Riley’s detectives, popped in. He smiled sheepishly at Peyton. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt.”

Riley waved Gideon in. “What is it?”

“I need to talk to you about a few warrants Ange and I want to throw at people. Like paper aeroplanes, but y’know, official.”

Riley sighed. “If I find you folding any of your warrants in the shape of anything that resembles a plane, you’re fired. Sit down.”

Gideon immediately plonked down in the seat next to Peyton and grinned at him. “The key is to bend the nose a little bit. Gives them a fun loop and lands them on target, every time.”

Riley rubbed his twitching eyebrow. “Are we done, Peyton?”

“For now.” Not even fucking close.

Peyton expected to feelsomething different on his last night bartending. Loss, maybe. Sadness. Endings always held some kind of bittersweetness.

Aubrey, Will’s older brother, had done him a huge favour by giving him the job when he’d been discharged from the military, and he’d enjoyed it. It was a mindless way to earn money. Not mindless in that it waseasy,because he’d learned over the last twelve months that bartending was not for the faint of heart. But mindless in that he did his job, and he went home. No one died—and not athishand. There had been a calmness to it, a regular everyday life where his work didn’t haunt him, and his actions didn’t give him nightmares.

There had been an emptiness too.

Getting people drunk, helping drunk people get home, and being an ear for people with woes, didn’t have the same sense of fulfilment as serving his country did.

He didn’t want to go back to who he had been when he’d worn his military uniform. The cold killer he’d been. That didn’t mean he didn’t want something else,needsomething else.

Jericho and the men he worked with could give him that. Fuck, he hoped they could give him that. Make him understand what was wrong with him. How he could be a better person given the monster that he carried inside.

Riley was right: he didn’t know what he was doing. Buttheydid. And he needed to trust them, so he could learn to trust himself.

“Peyton, try this,” Will said, coming up behind him, holding a small quiche in his hand. “Careful, it’s a bit hot.”

Abit? It was steaming. How was Will even holding it?

Peyton dutifully opened his mouth anyway and ignored the searing pain. Once he got past theholyfuckingshitthathurtsowowowthere was a pleasant tang of egg, tomato, and an unfamiliar sweetness. He grabbed a napkin from under the bar and took the rest of it off Will’s hands. No use letting it go to waste, and he’d earned the right to eat it all when he’d lost the first layer of skin on the top of his mouth.

“What’s in that?” he asked, already taking a second bite. The pain was worth it. Waiting for it to cool down was for smarter, more patient people.

“Eggs, cheese, pastry, tomato chutney, mascarpone, mustard, basil, and cream.”

Peyton blinked. “Okay.” What the fuck was mascarpone? Whatever. It was delicious. “How many did you make? I’ll take seven.”

“I’ll take five,” Leigh, the other bartender on shift, called from the other side, his crisp British accent clear over the light rumble of the other occupants speaking. He paused. “Make that eight. Can’t have Peyton upstaging me.”

Peyton discreetly flipped him off, making sure no customers could see, and Leigh cackled in response.

“I’ll take two,” a random patron said, near Leigh.

“Three,” someone else said.

“Fifteen,” another declared loudly.

Peyton snorted. “You made like a hundred, right?”

Will stared, wide-eyed. “I made twenty-four,” he whispered. “That’s how many the recipe had. They were for me.”

Peyton patted him on the side gently. “You can have some of mine. But you might want to make some more. I think Aubrey has the board around here somewhere if you want to charge for—”

“No,” Will interrupted. “I’m making two more batches, and when they’re gone, they’re gone.”

“Not very hospitable of you,” Peyton drawled, grinning. “Where are your manners?”

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