Page 89 of Make Them Cry
“Yes, ma’am.”
We head downstairs together, shoulder to shoulder in the narrow stairwell. Morning air meets us at the door—cool, bright, ordinary in a way that feels almost miraculous. I lock up, scan the street out of habit, then fall into step with her.
She slides her hand into mine. It’s such a simple thing, but it fixes something that’s been crooked inside me for a long time.
“Gage?”
“Yeah?”
“I like this,” she says, giving our joined hands a tiny squeeze. “The together part.”
I can’t help it, and I lean over and kiss the corner of her smile. “Me too.”
We split at the corner so no one clocks us arriving side by side. She takes the crosswalk, and I circle the block to pick up a coffee carrier like a decoy. At the office door we meet again by accident-on-purpose. She bites back a grin when I pass her a cup.
“For the record,” she says under her breath, “youarethe office hottie.”
I pretend to choke. “Defamation.”
“Facts,” she corrects, then lowers her voice. “And you’re mine.”
My heartbeat does a stupid, violent thing. “Yeah,” I say, steady as I can make it. “I am.”
We step into NovaPlay together, masks of a different kind sliding into place—hers the cool of a woman who won’t be rattled, mine the calm of a man who’s already rewritten the odds. Underneath, we’re still warm from the shower, from the coffee, from each other.
And I’m already counting the hours until I can get her back home, lock the door, and put my hands on her again.
TWENTY-NINE
RIVER
I’m trying to focus.
Truly. I am.
The blue light of my monitor pulses like a heartbeat as I scroll through this line of backend code for the third time. It’s an easy fix, a bad loop that keeps crashing the player interface. But my fingers aren’t moving. I’m not thinking about the code.
I’m thinking abouthim.
Gage.
He’s only a few desks away. Sleeves pushed up, brows furrowed, and lips curled in the kind of smirk that ruins women. A smirk I’vetasted. A smirk that was buried against my throat last night while he whispered he needed me.
I cross my legs. Squeeze them tighter. Try to refocus on the lines of text in front of me.
System.out.println(“Focus, River. Don’t be a simp.”)
Gage looks up just then, catches me looking. That damn smile spreads. Not a smirk this time—something softer. Knowing.Intimate.
My pulse stumbles. My face heats.
I yank my attention back to the screen, chewing on my bottom lip like it holds the secret to pretending I’m not wildly obsessed with the man across the room.
But it’s no use. My thoughts are tangled up in the way he washed my hair this morning, kissed the inside of my wrist like it meant something. I’m not used to this. Being wanted. Beingseen.
And then I hear it.
“River, can I speak with you?”
