Page 8 of Fury

Fury: Tonight. 8 p.m.

I frown. He’s always been blunt and bossy.

Me: Okay. Where?

Fury: Your place.

Me: Actually, I was thinking dinner might be nice.

Fury: I’ll bring food.

I sigh heavily, unsure how I feel about having a biker in my home. I laugh to myself. This is Reese. He’d never hurt me. But I don’t reply with my address and instead decide that when he texts back to ask for it, I’ll arrange to meet him at a bar.

I must have driftedoff because I wake with a start and sit up, looking around. I’m still wrapped in my towel from the shower, and my hair is damp. A loud bang makes me jump, and I get up off the bed and pull the blinds back from the bedroom window to see Fury at the front door. He looks up before I can step back, and I groan out loud. I can’t exactly ignore him now, but how the fuck did he find my address?

I grab my dressing gown and swap it from the towel, then I head down to open up. He grins. “Thought you were hiding from me. I’ve been knocking for ages.” He holds up a bag of what I assume is food. “I got Chinese.”

“How did you get my address?” I ask as he steps past me and goes straight for the kitchen with me rushing after him.

“Plates?” he asks, and I point to the cupboard. “You just woke up?” he adds, looking me up and down.

I tug the robe tighter. “Erm, I must’ve fell asleep after my shower. I’ve been working a lot lately. I’ll just go and get dressed.” He nods, and I go upstairs, reeling with confusion.

I tug open my drawers and rummage through, trying to find something that’s casual but not ugly. I settle on leggings and a short vest.

When I get back downstairs, Fury is sitting at the table, tucking into a mix of Chinese on his plate. The containers are laying open on the table, and he points to my plate. “I wasn’t sure what you wanted, but I remembered you like variety, so I grabbed plenty.”

I smile as I take a seat and begin to spoon different things onto my plate. “It’s weird,” I state, and he pauses eating to look at me. “You haven’t really changed, but at the same time, you have.”

“That makes no sense,” he replies, continuing to eat.

“You’re acting like we were never apart,” I state. And the words hit me hard as my mind conjures up a slideshow of the times I watched Reese shovel food into his mouth like he was starved. When he came to us, he would grab it up in his hands like someone was about to snatch it from him. It used to break my heart.

He stares at me for a few silent minutes. “It doesn’t feel like we were.”

I stare down at my food. “You never came to say goodbye.”

“Drink?” he asks, pushing to his feet and heading for the fridge. He retrieves two bottles of beer that I assume he brought with him.

“You still hate to talk,” I point out.

He places a bottle in front of me and unscrews the cap. “What’s there to say? It was a long time ago, and I can’t remember it.”

“Really?” I push. “None of it?”

He shrugs as he lowers back into his seat. “Tell me about your life now, Xanth.”

I sigh, hating that I’ve let myself cloud this reunion with bad memories, memories that until now, I’d managed to squash. “I’ve been nursing for ten years,” I say. “I love it.”

“Boyfriend?”

“Can you stop doing that?” I ask briskly, and he glances up again, this time placing his fork down. “You just keep firing words at me like you’re interrogating me.”

He swallows the food in his mouth. “Sorry.” And I see a glimpse of the vulnerable kid I once knew. “Habit.”

“I met someone, but it’s very early days,” I admit. “What about you and the waitress?”

He shakes his head. “We’re not a thing. She’s a . . . a club girl.”

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