Page 20 of The Reaper
“I’m not even looking for a date. I just …” I trailed off, then shrugged. “I’d settle for some hot sex with someone who doesn’t talk about food for once.”
Finn raised an eyebrow. “That’s your bar?”
“Low, isn’t it?”
“Manageable.”
I grinned. “I’m not hard to please.”
He opened his mouth, then closed it again like he’d thought better of whatever he was about to say.
“What?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
He turned the key in the van, the engine coughing to life. “Just thinking that you talk like you want casual, but you don’t do anything halfway.”
I pulled my seatbelt across my chest. “You’re not wrong.”
“Never am.”
“You think I’d scare him off?”
“Who?”
“The man from the Battery.”
Finn shifted into drive, his eyes steady on the road. “Only if he scares easy.”
“Somehow, I don’t think he does. I didn’t get that vibe.”
“Then he’s already halfway yours.”
That made something twist in my stomach. Hope or hunger—I couldn’t tell the difference.
I stared out the window, Charleston’s early-morning streets sliding past, brick and wrought iron bathed in rising gold. My pulse beat a little faster, and I hated how easily I let it. Because I did this. I always did this.
I got something in my head—some idea, some flicker of possibility—and I let it grow wild. I fed it details, imagined conversations, filled in all the blanks with assumptions that felt like facts. I built whole stories out of scraps. Scenarios where this stranger on the Battery wasn’t just watching me—he was watching out for me. Where the note wasn’t just a curiosity, but a breadcrumb. A hint. A beginning.
And I clung to it like it meant something. Like it had already happened.
Finn glanced sideways. “You’re doing it again.”
“Doing what?”
“That thing. Where you spiral into a full-blown novella inside your head and cast yourself as the leading lady.”
I scowled. “I’m not casting anything.”
“Please. You’ve already decided he’s some secret power player with a dark past who came to Charleston on a mission to fall for a chef with control issues.”
“He could be,” I said defensively. “You don’t know.”
“I don’t,” he agreed, lips twitching. “But I also don’t build conspiracy theories out of recycled parchment and a brooding glance.”
I rolled my eyes. “It wasn’t just a glance. It was a moment. And I’m not building anything. I’m just … curious.”
