Page 89 of Things We Hide from the Light

“You’re too good to let this end you. You need to claw your way out of this darkness if necessary and beat him. And you’re not going to accomplish that by distracting yourself with a woman you can’t trust.”

“There’s a simple solution to this. Both of you stay the hell away from Lina,” Knox said.

“Fuck you both.”

NINETEEN

KHAKI IS NOT HER COLOR

Lina

“The usual, lovely Lina?” Justice called from behind Café Rev’s counter when I walked in.

“Yes, please. Mind if my furry friend joins me?” I asked, holding up Piper in her pumpkin sweater. The dog sniffed the coffee-scented air and trembled at the excitement of the early morning rush.

Justice grinned. “Not a problem. I’ll make something extra special for Miss Piper.”

Of course the beloved barista already knew the dog’s name. And of course he knew my usual. I’d been going to the same café around the block from my town house for the past two years, and they still got my order and name wrong.

“Everything okay?” he asked me over the buzz of the busy café as I paid for my coffee.

I blinked. Thatdefinitelynever happened in my coffee shop.

“Yeah. Sure. Totally fine,” I said.

It was a big, fat lie.

But I wasn’t about to explain to Justice that I was freaked out because there was something so irresistible about Nash Morgan that I was acting completely out of character around him. Snuggling. Confiding. Emotionally supportive. And I certainly wasn’t about to voice my concern that Lucian was about to ruin it all even though I wasn’t sure I wanted “it all” in the first place.

They had been friends for years, and if Lucian said I was bad news, Nash would listen.

I should be happy. Lucian’s interference would extricate me from a situation I didn’t know how to handle and let me focus on what I came here to do. I should be ecstatic. Instead, I felt like that time I’d insisted on going on that roller coaster after four shots of tequila in college.

“You sure? Because your face doesn’t say totally fine,” Justice pressed.

“My face and I are fine,” I promised. “I’m just…trying to work a few things out in my head.”

He grabbed a mug and twirled it around his finger by the handle. “Sometimes the best thing you can do is distract yourself and let the answer come to you.”

I threw a twenty in the tip jar. “Thanks, Justice.”

He winked. “Grab a seat. I’ll yell for you when it’s ready.”

I grabbed the first vacant table I saw and plopped down in the chair.

Justice was right. Nash wasn’t some operation to plan out and execute. He was a grown-ass man and he could make his own decisions. But he should probably make them with all the information. If I told him the truth and he still wanted to believe that I was bad news, then it was his loss. Not mine.

Then why did it feel like mine? The tiny voice niggled in my head. I wasn’t actually falling for the guy. Was I? Prior to this weekend, I’d drunk at a bar with him and patched him up aftera shootout. We barely knew each other. This was just a crush. Nothing more.

“You look like you’re a million miles away,” Naomi said, appearing with several beverages.

“How much coffee do you drink in the morning?” I asked as she took the seat next to me.

“Two of these are yours,” she said. She slid a latte and a paper cup of whipped cream with Piper’s name written on it my way. “You didn’t hear Justice calling.”

Piper forgot to be terrified and stuck her snout into the whipped cream.

“How did you know Knox was the one?” I blurted out the question without even consciously thinking it.