Page 57 of Unwrapping Deviance

“Just two coffees, please,” I say.

She casts Christian a longer side eye. “Nothing to eat?”

I shake my head, but she’s not interested in what I have to say.

Christian grins at her that way girls find weirdly irresistible. “What are you offering?”

The girl’s cheeks darken and she stammers something about the special being soup, and I have to resist the urge to kick my brother under the table.

He must have caught my annoyance because he finally says, “Coffee is just fine for now.”

Clare, according to her nametag pinned neatly to her uniform, flutters her lashes and promises to be right back with our coffees before hurrying off.

“What?” Christian mutters when I raise an eyebrow.

“Flirt on your own time. I have to get back to Mira. I don’t like her being there alone this late.”

“All right, so, talk.”

Christ, where to even begin? It feels like we have a decade of unresolved shit we need to sort through and about five minutes to get it all sorted. I almost regret not saving this chat for the morning when I’m not anxious about Mira. Maybe I should have brought her with us. It’s not like we’re talking about anything top secret.

But we might.

Maybe not top secret, exactly, but there’s so much I haven’t told her, so many dark pockets of past I’m too scared to let her into. But I’m going to have to. Now that we’re back in Jefferson, it’s only a matter of time before someone says something.

“Danny?”

I suck in a breath and face my brother. “Sorry. Just...”

“Thinking about Mira?” he finishes when I trail off.

My chuckle is weak. “Always, it seems. She’s the only thing on my mind most days.”

“You really love her, huh?”

I drop back against my seat. “It’s hard not to. I don’t know what it is, but ... I feel lost without her.”

He seems to consider my words a moment before asking, “Do you think it’s because her mom died? You guys were really close, right?”

I’d thought about that after Sam passed and Mira became my responsibility. I thought maybe it’s because I missed Sam that I was deflecting my feelings onto Mira, but...

“That’s not it.” I scratch my chin, trying to collect my thoughts. “Did I ever tell you how I met Sam?”

Christian’s face scrunches up in thought. “I don’t think so.”

Memories of that dark, snowy night is always so clear in my mind. I can still feel the sharp bite of winter cutting through my clothes, despite the heater in the truck blasting at full speed.

“I took a wrong turn in a snowstorm,” I suck in a harsh breath and exhale it equally hard. “It was one of those wild ones that blind you to everything past the hood of your car, you know? I was leaving the jail after visiting a client and got myself all turned around. Wound up on this random bridge.” I frown and drop my gaze to the table. “She was on the wrong side of the railings.”

I don’t look up at the sound of Christian’s sharp hiss.

“She’d lost everything. Life kept kicking her down and she couldn’t find her footing. Somehow, I managed to talk her over and the whole time ... the whole fucking time, all I could think about was Mom. If someone had been there to talk her off the ledge, would she still be here?”

“Danny...”

I wave his quiet murmur away. “I know, but I had to help her. Maybe a selfish part of me thought maybe it would make up for not helping Mom.”

“Jesus.”

---