Page 38 of Things We Left Behind
“You’re irritating,” he shot back.
I gripped my straw like it was a weapon capable of stabbing.
“Careful, Pixie. We have an audience.”
The nickname had me flinching.
I managed to tear my gaze away from his stupidly beautiful face and glanced around us. There were more than a few sets of eyes glued to our table. I couldn’t blame them. It was part of town lore that Lucian and I couldn’t tolerate each other. Seeing us “enjoying” a meal alone together had probably already ignited the gossip chain. Any one of those people would have no qualms about reporting back to my mother.
I carefully returned the straw to its whipped cream home base. “Look. Since you’re too stubborn to leave and you’re not inclined to tell me why you and my mother are besties, let’s find some topic of conversation that we can both agree on to get through this interminable breakfast. How do you feel about…the weather?”
“The weather?” he repeated.
“Yes. Can we agree that there appears to be weather outside?”
“Yes, Sloane. We can agree that there is weather.”
His tone was so condescending I wanted to take the ketchup squeeze bottle from the stainless-steel carrier and empty it all over him.
“Your turn,” I said.
“Fine. I’m sure we can agree that you dress like a deranged teenager.”
“Better than a moody undertaker,” I shot back.
His lips quirked, and then his expression smoothed into its baseline of irritated boredom.
The bell on the diner door jingled, and Wylie Ogden lumbered in.
Conversations cut off as gazes swung away from us to Wylie.
Lucian didn’t move a muscle, but I still felt a chill descend on the table.
I hadn’t seen much of the former police chief since the incident when Tate Dilton, an ex-cop gone rogue, teamed up with Duncan Hugo, the mobster’s son, to shoot Nash Morgan. Wylie, whose long reign as chief of police was marked with good ol’ boy cronyism, had been friends with the disgraced officer but redeemed himself when he shot and killed Dilton. My opinion of Wylie had risen several points after that. I’d even almost smiled at him the one time I’d seen him in the grocery store.
The former police chief’s gaze landed on our table. He froze, except for the toothpick in the corner of his mouth, which moved up and down, then he made an abrupt about-face to find a seat at the opposite end of the diner counter.
Lucian’s cool gaze remained glued to the man.
I felt something. Something that seemed suspiciously like guilt, which made me defensive.
“You know, if you had told me everything, I wouldn’t have—”
“Don’t,” he interrupted as if he were telling a toddler to stop trying to put their finger in an electrical outlet.
“I’m just saying—”
“Leave it alone, Sloane.”
That was what we did. We left things alone. The only acknowledgment of our shared past was the bitter aftertaste that colored every interaction.
Neither one of us was going to forgive or forget. We would just continue pretending it didn’t still eat away at us.
“Here’s your breakfast,” Bean said loudly. He slid steaming plates onto the table with forced cheer and then oh so casually slid both butter knives into his apron pocket.
7
The Evil Corporate Empire
