Page 60

“Stop interfering in my life, Saxon,” I hiss, eyes locked on his infuriatingly calm face. “You can’t just show up here like this?—”
My voice rises, but I don’t care. He’s too close. Toocalm.Like he hasn’t been gone for three weeks. Like he didn’t leave me spiraling in silence and then walk back in like he still owns the air I breathe. He can’t keep doing this to me.
“My boss is already on my ass and?—”
“Maxine, sweetheart.”
Right on cue, Mrs. Raymond’s voice cuts through the air—sweet but sharp, that practiced middle ground worn into her over a decade of babysitting baristas. She steps behind thecounter with the kind of calm that makes my nerves itch, her lips pressed into a line that isn’t angry—just tired.
“Maybe take ten, huh?” she says gently, eyes flicking between me and Saxon. “Some customers are looking a little… tense.”
She gives Saxon a once-over. It’s that measured, watchful look she reserves for the type of men she claims should be avoided.
“You know how it is,” she adds, shooting me a look that isn’t condescending, just… concerned. I swallow hard and nod.
“Yes, Mrs. Raymond,” I mutter, trying not to sound like I’m about to cry or punch a wall.
She straps on an apron with quiet grace as she resets the espresso machine before she moves to help the next customer, her presence filling the space like a warm buffer between chaos and collapse.
I don’t even take off my apron as I shove through the back door and step into the alley beside the building, arms folded across my chest like a barrier I wish could hold back my emotions.
Saxon follows without hesitation, then leans against the wall like he has every right to exist in this moment—shoulders relaxed, hands in the pockets of his trousers like he isn’t a walking pressure cooker about to explode.
I want to scream at him. Ask where he’s been. Why he disappeared after lighting every nerve in my body on fire and walking away without looking back. But I don’t get the chance. Because instead ofexplaining, he drops a bomb on me.
“He left drugs in your apartment, Max.”
I blink. My mouth opens. Then closes.
“What?”
“Zack,” Saxon says, like the name tastes like acid on his tongue. “He dropped a vial of drugs in your apartment.”
“You went through my apartment?” I ask, my voice low, brittle,cracking down the middle. I mentally roll my eyes at myself; just like me to be more concerned about Saxon going through my apartment than the fact he claims to have found drugs in it.
“I sat on your sofa. The vial was pretty hard to miss,” he corrects, stepping forward. His eyes are bright with something between self-loathing and guilt.
“You want to warn me about what others are leaving in my apartment, whenyou’rethe one breaking in?”
“I think you’re trusting the wrong men,” he growls, eyes flashing.
“And you’re therightone?” I snap. “You disappear for weeks, and now you’re interrogating my life like I’m some dumb little girl who doesn’t know better?”
“I’mprotectingyou.”
“No. You’re controlling me. There’s a difference.”
His jaw tics. His breath flares from his nose, and I know he wants to yell. To pace. To grab me by the shoulders and shake sense into me. But he doesn’t. Instead, he steps back. The distance feels colder than it should.
“Zack’s not who he says he is,” he says quietly, voice gravelly. “And I don’t care if you hate me for the rest of your life, but I won’t let you get pulled into this shit again.”
I look at him, really look at him. At the bruised skin under his eyes. The light brown waves falling messily across his forehead. The growth on his jaw that should make him look tired but somehow makes him look dangerous.Like he hasn't slept in days because he’s been chasing demons. And maybe one of those demons looks a little like me.
And in the quiet corners of my mind, I know that I still want him. Still want to run straight into the fire with him. And if I had a hundred lifetimes to live, I would choose him every time.
And somehow, he knows it. It’s in the way his gaze softensjust slightly when he looks at me, like maybe he still wants me too. Like maybe this isn’t just war. It’sours.
My throat closes. I shake my head, needing to push back, needing to breathe.