Page 75 of Broken on the Mountain
Brooke grins. "We're going to wipe the floor with you."
"Big talk from someone who used to burn her toast every night shift," Piper calls out, joining in the banter.
I give her a high five and pull her closer. "That's my girl!"
I say the words again, watching Piper carefully this time. She’s here, laughing, not denying me whenever I lay claim to her beingmine,but something’s not sitting right under my ribs.
I pull out my phone, flick open the camera and tug Piper close. "Smile."
She leans into me, cocoa still in hand, and I snap the photo. Both of us grinning like idiots, her in my hoodie, the chaos of the cook-off behind us.
"Perfect."
I set my phone face-down on the table beside hers. "No distractions now. Just us and whatever culinary disaster we're about to create."
"Ready," Piper says.
"Okay." I survey our ingredients laid out on the bench. "What did I say? Meat, peppers, and a bad attitude? We've got at least two of those covered."
Piper eyes the pile of vegetables. "Which two?"
"Meat and attitude, obviously." I hand her a knife while winking at her. "You're chopping onions."
"Alright. But you should know… I've never chopped an onion in my life."
"And I'd never had a road blow job until an hour ago." I shrug with smug casualness. "Today's full of firsts."
She smacks my arm and picks up the knife. I move in behind her, wrapping my hands over hers to guide the blade.
"So you wanna chop it like this," I murmur, helping her make the first cut. "Slow and steady. Don't ruin those gorgeous nails. Are they new?"
"Yeah." She glances down at her hands, the blade pausing mid-slice. "Got them done Thursday."
"They look nice," I say, slicing another slice of onions. "Special occasion?"
She hums and thinks about her answer for a beat too long. "No. Just… felt like it."
I nod, but beneath me, I feel Piper start to focus too intently on the onion. There it is again. Thattension.Her shoulders stiffen beneath the hoodie and a swirly feeling makes my stomach squeeze.
I guide her hands again, but this isn't the first thing that feels different this weekend.
I learned to read people young. It's an important survival skill when you grow up watching for signs your mom might pack up and leave.
The way she'd go quiet during phone calls with other men. How she'd fold laundry slower, more carefully, like she was already saying goodbye to the routine. The distant look when I'd talk about next semester's classes.
Military guys like Jamie and Beau? They read enemy positions, micro-expressions during interrogations, the shift in a teammate's breathing before everything goes sideways.
I've been around it long enough now, on adailybasis, I've learned to read people too.
And Piper's showing all the signs of someone hiding something.
The blow job in the truck wasn't spontaneous passion—it wasdistraction.Keep me happy, keep me occupied, keep me from asking questions about her week. The way she just hesitated before saying the manicure wasn't for anything special. How shekeeps touching me like she's memorizing the feeling, savoring it like Mom used to look at me before I matured into a man that resembled the asshole who left her.
I guide her hands through another onion slice, but my mind's already three steps ahead, cataloging every small tell.
Something's coming. Something she hasn't told me yet.
And I'm pretty sure it's going to hurt.
