Page 40 of Stone Cold Touch

“You know he’s a Warden, right?” Sam whispered, leaning forward. “I think we told you once at lunch, but I can’t remember.”

“Sam!” Stacey hissed.

He frowned. “What?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but it seems rude to point that out.”

“It’s not rude.” Roth’s golden eyes twinkled with mischief. “I said before, I think it’s epic.”

Zayne smiled tightly as the hand on the table curled into a fist. “I bet you do.”

I wanted to bang my head against the table.

“Oh, it is. You out there, helping fight crime and all that good stuff,” he replied, and I swallowed a groan. “It’samazing.I bet you lay your little—er, not so little—head on your pillow every day feeling like a hero. Wait. Do you even sleep in beds? I’ve heard that Wardens—”

“Do you really need to be sitting here?” I interrupted, losing my patience. Goading Zayne wasn’t going to help anything.

“Well,someonedid ruin my lunch.” Roth looked at me pointedly. “So I am hungry.”

Sam grinned. “Yeah, you kind of do owe him a meal.”

My shoulders slumped.

Zayne sat back, staring straight ahead.

“This just got real awkward,” Stacey murmured, but her dark eyes glimmered with interest.

Not as awkward, surprisingly, as when I’d licked Zayne’s thumb like... I didn’t even know what. But dinner was painful. Roth and Zayne spent the whole time trading snide remarks, Sam and Stacey were too busy watching them as if each word they slung at one another was a tennis ball, and by the time I asked for a check, I was ready to throat punch someone.

Mainly myself.

Roth was currently asking Zayne how much he weighed, being that, according to Roth, Zayne was made out of stone. Meanwhile I stared over the back of the booth, praying our check would arrive pronto. When Sam returned from the restroom a second time, a patron at the tiny bar in the back of the restaurant fell off the stool. My eyes widened as Sam glanced over his shoulder and then looked at me, nose wrinkled. Damn, they were getting sloshed back there. Must be some good happy-hour specials.

“I weigh enough,” Zayne replied. “What about you? Look about a buck and twenty soaking wet.”

He snorted. “You might want to look again, or better yet, get your eyes checked. Do Wardens get degenerative eye diseases?”

I sighed as I scanned the mostly empty tables and rocked back and forth like a total mental patient. I’d already gone to the bathroom once but was considering hiding out in there until we left. The eatery didn’t seem to get a lot of business, but it was right before the dinner rush. Zayne and Roth’s out-snarking contest faded into background noise as my gaze slipped over an occupied table. Something drew my attention back to the two men sitting at one of those tables for two. Both were slightly older than me. I’d peg them as around Zayne’s age. Both had brown hair cut in identical buzz cuts—like the kind cops or military guys wore. Their white dress shirts looked pressed, if not tucked in. From what I could see, they were wearing light-colored khakis. Obviously, there wasn’t any kind of weird aura business since I couldn’t see souls now, but something about them snagged my attention.

It might have had something to do with the fact that they were staring at our table, the unblinking stare of a psychopath that had you in his crosshairs.

I shivered as my gaze locked with Khaki Guy on the right. His expression was bland, cold even. A robot’s.

Roth’s hand landed on my thigh, causing me to jump. “What are you looking at, shortie?”

“Nothing.” I went to remove his hand, but Zayne beat me to it.

“Hands off, buddy.” He practically tossed Roth’s hand back at him. “If you want to keep it attached to your body.”

Roth inclined his head, his expression sharpening. Ruh-rohs. He opened his mouth, but the waitress finally arrived with the check and I snatched it up. “You guys ready?” I said to Stacey and Sam. They looked transfixed as they nodded. Zayne quickly took care of our tab and I all but pushed Roth out of the booth.

He bent low, his breath warm in my ear as Zayne slid out behind us. “Don’t run off,” he whispered. “The three of us need to talk.”

Zayne’s eyes narrowed and he slipped between Roth and me, a huge barrier that caused Roth to grin like a cat that just spotted a mouse trapped in the corner of a room. I pretended I needed to use the restroom yet again to get Stacey and Sam to go ahead, giving us privacy. I figured whatever conversation we needed to have was better held here and not somewhere too remote where the two guys would likely try to kill one another.

As soon as Stacey and Sam dipped out the front, Roth took a seat where Stacey had sat, motioning us down. I sighed as I slid back into the booth. The little bit of spaghetti I did eat wasn’t doing well in my belly as I hazarded a glance at the table from earlier. The two men were still there, watching us.

“You need to make this quick,” Zayne said. “Because I’m not sure how much more of your presence I can stomach.”

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