Page 32 of Keeping Kasey (Love and Blood #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Kasey

Four months later

I jump at the knock on my door.

The urge to ignore it is strong, but I can’t.

I can’t let myself wonder.

With one hand hovering over the fingerprint-activated safe—disguised as a hyper-realistic English dictionary—that houses my gun, I open the door.

“A heads-up text would’ve been nice,” I say, dropping my hand when I see the visitor.

Mark pushes into my apartment with his usual goofy grin and a bag of takeout.

“You love it when I drop by unannounced,” he says, dropping the bag on the table. He grabs the plates and utensils like he lives here, and not the apartment next door.

“I can promise you that I don’t.”

His smile grows. “Well, you’ll forgive me when you see what I got us for dinner.”

“Wasn’t it my turn to pick?”

“I revoked that privilege after you chose the absolute worst burger place in the world last week.” He takes the to-go boxes out of the bag, and I recognize the logo from one of the local Italian restaurants.

“At least I don’t choose the same three places every time.”

“Why fix what isn’t broken? Besides, I would double that list if you liked Mexican food. I mean, seriously, Katie. Who doesn’t like tacos?”

Suddenly, I’m not hungry anymore.

“You interrupted my work,” I say in a bid to change the topic.

Predictably, Mark goes for it.

He gestures down the hall, where he knows my office is located. “Be my guest. I’ll just watch.”

“I’m not sure sales support is dinnertime entertainment material.”

“Who says I’ll be watching the work?” he asks, falling into a chair with a playful grin.

I point to the door. “You know the rules: you hit on me, you leave.”

“I’m done,” he says, hands lifted in surrender. “Man, you’re a ray of sunshine today.”

Mark is a Clark Kent type: slicked-back hair, black glasses, and a friendly smile. He’s a fairly handsome man with tanned skin and all dark features, and every time I see him, he’s in casual wear despite his work as an associate at a law firm.

And he definitely has a Superman complex.

Since the day I moved here two months ago, Mark has been out to save me.

It started with relentless offers to help me move boxes and furniture—all of which I declined.

Then, it was attempted conversations when we ran into each other outside—all of which I ignored.

After an entire month of being blown off, Mark finally asked what it would take to get me to talk to him.

And I blame my complete and utter loneliness for the fact that I gave him an answer—two conditions for my company.

No questions about my life, and no hitting on me.

I should probably feel guilty for being so harsh, but I don’t.

Mark might be a harmless companion, but I won’t let myself get attached—not when there’s a chance I’ll have to run again.

I don’t say a single word throughout dinner, but that doesn’t discourage Mark. He goes on and on about how his mother has been trying to set him up with her yoga instructor.

One moment, I’m half-listening to Mark drone on. Next, everything fades into white noise.

I don’t even see my kitchen anymore—just flashes.

Dark alleys.

Hooded figures.

Burning buildings.

Muffled cries.

Pain.

So much pain.

“Katie? Are you okay?”

Mark’s voice cuts through the images, and I blink my vision clear.

“Yeah,” I say, pushing my half-eaten dinner away. “I’m fine. Just had a long day, and I think I’m all peopled out right now.”

He gives me a knowing look. “You take introversion to a new level.”

“Not all of us grew up with twelve siblings and no privacy.”

Mark’s eyes light up. “Right, because you have… no siblings?”

“Threatening both rules in one night?”

“Oh, come on,” he says, disappointment melting his smile. “I get it, you’re a private person, but not even telling me if you’re an only child? It’s been weeks , and all I know about you is that you work in sales support and like disgusting burgers.”

“I told you from the beginning what this friendship would look like.”

“You set those standards for a stranger, but I’m not a stranger anymore, Katie.”

It probably makes me a heartless person that his dejection doesn’t inspire an ounce of sympathy—and I’ll be the first to admit that it should.

Mark is right. He’s not a stranger anymore. He’s a good person who’s been a consistent companion in a time when I needed it. He’s always up for dinner. He’s not swayed by my moodiness. He always tells me that he’s here if I need him.

But I’ve never called on Mark for help—and I never will—for the same reason that I can’t bring myself to feel bad for him now.

I’ve already experienced the worst pain this world has to offer.

Guilt doesn’t even register.

“No,” I tell him. “You’re not a stranger anymore. But I set those standards because it’s all I have to offer, and I made that clear from the beginning.”

Mark draws in a deep breath. “Fine, I’ll drop it. I just want you to feel like you can tell me things.”

“I do feel like I can tell you things. Like how dinner sucked. I’m picking next time.”

“Or I could cook next time.”

I give him an unimpressed once-over. “You cook?”

He rolls his eyes. “Yes, I cook. What do you say? Tomorrow night?”

For a moment, I just stare blankly at him.

When it’s clear he isn’t kidding, I sigh. “Are you seriously asking me on a date? This is strike three, Mark. Leave.”

“Oh, come on. It’s not any different than what we’re doing now. It’s just a meal that comes from my kitchen instead of a restaurant.”

I lift an eyebrow, crossing my arms over my chest.

He lifts his hands in surrender with an easy smile. “No ulterior motives. No expectations. Just dinner.”

I know better than to believe that. Mark may be harmless, but he definitely has a crush on me. It’s not my fault he doesn’t believe my boundaries are permanent—that he believes I’ll come to trust him more as time passes.

I won’t.

But him cooking dinner really isn’t different from what we’re doing now. It’s just sitting through another meal with the only human whose company I can stand.

“Just dinner,” I relent.

A grin nearly splits his face in half. “I hope you like salmon.”

“I don’t. Now, go before I change my mind.”

Mark stands, biting back a triumphant smile, and gestures to the food. “Then you can clean this up by yourself.”

“Gladly,” I say and follow him to the door.

“My place at six tomorrow?”

I allow a small smile. “Six it is.”

I close and lock the door behind Mark, leaning my back against it as I force a deep breath into my lungs.

The exhaustion that comes over my body is absurd. No one should be this drained from a dinner, especially when it was the only human interaction I’ve had in almost forty-eight hours.

It makes me wonder how I ever survived living with a whole family of strangers.

I stop the thought as fast as it comes to mind.

Not today.

Once dinner is cleaned up, I go to the only place that actually feels like it belongs to me—my office.

It takes deactivating a lock to even open the door—something Mark has luckily never noticed. When it clicks open, the four-monitor setup calls to me like a beacon.

I fall into my desk chair and turn my brain off.

Work like this doesn’t take energy the way dinner with Mark does. It relaxes me.

My brain works on autopilot, operating in zeros and ones rather than spiraling into hopeless oblivion. I surrender to the things that make sense, not the what-ifs that haunt me.

I pull up the software that I’ve made my latest project and pick up where I left off.

Memories, thoughts, and questions creep along the edge of my consciousness, where I leave them unacknowledged. I only allow myself to focus on what is directly in front of me, and it’s a way of losing myself that no alcohol or drugs could provide.

And I would know because I tried those, too.

This —falling into the process of software creation—is the only thing that truly eases the stress, the worry, the fear.

The pain.

I don’t even glance at the time because it’s not like I’m going to stop, no matter what odd hour of the night it is. Sure, it means I’m exhausted in the morning, but it also means my sleep is so deep I can’t remember any of the dreams that plague it.

And it’s a lot better that way.

My fingers suddenly go still over the keyboard.

I force myself to survey the code— twice —and focus only on the technical implications, not the personal ones.

It’s time to run test trials.

I create a document, type out a nonsense paragraph, and save it.

I take the same document and delete it from my hard drive. When I’m sure it’s gone, I go to the software and describe the document in detail.

Then, I hit activate .

I watch, frozen in place, as the progress bar ticks along. The coding behind it rolls, and it feels like hours, not minutes, as I stare at the screen. It takes longer than I hoped—twenty minutes in total—but it happens.

The document appears on the screen, exactly as I saved it.

“It works,” I whisper to myself, just to hear the words spoken.

I go to the software’s name, where a series of numbers and letters currently identify it, and I type in its new name.

Seeker: Series One.

It needs work—a lot of work—but this is a huge first step.

I start making a list of the changes that need to be made and the tests that still need to be run. It may work on a small scale with recently deleted documents, but that’s nothing compared to what it needs to do.

When I started this project, the concept was entirely hypothetical, and now, I have an operating model.

I focus on the list of things that still need to be done, but the voice in the back of my head demands to know what I’m going to do when it’s completed.

I used to know the answer, but now?

I have no idea.

If someone told me a year ago that the flea market would become one of my favorite places in the world, I would’ve laughed in their face.

But here we are.

The crowd is large enough that I can easily blend in, but never so large that it’s overwhelming. The people are kind, the stalls are interesting, and there’s something about being in a safe public space that soothes me.

I’ve never been one to leave my apartment much, but I make a habit of going to the flea market every Saturday like clockwork. Aside from dinners with Mark, it’s the only way to ensure I don’t completely lose touch with reality—a real possibility these days.

I’m perusing the stalls and trying to decide if I should stop at a store to pick up dinner so I can cancel on Mark.

He claims it’s just dinner, but I’m not sure it’s a good idea. It’s not even his feelings that I worry about, but whether he’ll grow suspicious when I don’t change my mind about him.

Will he move on? Or push for answers that I cannot give him?

It’s the same debate that got me into a friendship with him in the first place. I allowed it then out of desperation, but I need to make sure things don’t go too far.

The last thing I want to do is start over again .

I also need to figure out what I’m going to do when the Seeker is done.

Until now, the idea of finishing it had seemed so far-fetched that I never worried about making plans, but it’s different now that I know it’s possible. As much as I try to ignore it, a day will come when the Seeker is complete, and I’ll have to decide what to do with it.

Suddenly, a night of listening to Mark ramble about his family doesn’t sound so bad. Maybe it’s exactly what I need to distract myself.

I head back to the apartment, a short walk, thankfully. It’s February, and with a sharp breeze whipping around me, I’m glad I opted to wear my windbreaker. The winter in Payson, Arizona, is much nicer than what I’m used to, so I can hardly complain about this being the worst of it.

By the time I get to my door, I’m feeling oddly at ease, like the chill was enough to remind me that I’m here for a fresh start, and it’ll all be for nothing if I don’t actually live my life.

I open the door and turn to close it, setting my bag down so I can secure the deadbolt.

“That won’t be necessary.”

The voice is cold, low, and unmistakable, turning the blood in my veins to ice.

Slowly, like maybe I can stop time altogether, I turn around.

Logan Consoli sits on my couch, looking every bit the deadly mafia boss that he is.

“Told you I’d find you.”