Page 7 of Veil of Death and Shadow (Order of Reapers #1)

A man walked into Frank’s.

He was my age—maybe a year or two older—white, tall, and carved with lean muscle that caught my attention long enough that my stare was probably noticeable. Dark wavy hair curled across his forehead, landing just above his eyes. It was thick and just a bit crumpled—sticking up in odd directions, like he’d been running his hands through it in frustration. His dark gray eyes latched onto mine for a moment and my stomach tightened under their attention.

There was something unreadable—unreachable—in that look; a darkness, almost, that resonated deep inside of my chest and lingered there, a fishhook refusing to catch and release.

It felt almost like staring into a haunted mirror. One that I usually did my best to avoid.

He sat down on one of the barstools at the counter, just a few feet from me, spinning around until he faced the mess of pots and pans Frank hadn’t gotten around to cleaning since the lunch rush.

For a moment, my gaze lingered on his back, his shoulder blades and lines of lean muscle visible through a thin black T-shirt that left little to the imagination—though my traitorous brain had no problem filling in the gaps. There was a menu in front of him, but he didn’t bother looking. Instead, he buried his head in his hands, elbows perched on the counter.

I felt a strange urge to reach out and comfort him, something I’d usually never do for a stranger. Or even a non-stranger.

“You haven’t touched your food.”

I jumped, nearly upending the glass of water on the laptop in front of me—one that would have had little chance of surviving the spill.

Which would’ve been extra bad because the laptop wasn’t mine.

"Sorry?" I blinked at the screen a few times as the lawyer-speak masked as a rental application came back into focus. Without thought or hunger, I shoved the wilted BLT into my mouth, before peering up at Frank with chipmunk cheeks. "I have. See."

The sandwich was dry, and I'd taken way too big of a bite. I chugged a few desperate gulps of water, in an effort not to choke, while he grunted and turned back to the man who’d come in, leaving me to my work.

With more effort than it should’ve taken, I dragged my attention from the man and back to the screen.

Now that I was eighteen, Sora and I could officially get out of the studio apartment we'd been living in, and into a proper apartment. Maybe even one roomy enough for two beds. Dream big, right?

That’s what we’d been hoping for anyway.

I glanced at the bottom of the application, where the monthly cost of the one-bedroom was listed in bold print. Maybe not.

This was the most affordable option we’d found so far, but the obscene price tag still made me queasy. It didn't even include utilities or Wi-Fi.

I swallowed the obnoxious lump of sandwich and groaned, snapping Frank's refurbished laptop closed.

How the hell were people supposed to survive in this city, let alone furnish an entire apartment? At this rate, I'd need to work twice as many shifts to make ends meet. That, or we'd have to finally give in and move out to the suburbs . . . which would mean a two-hour bus commute each way to work. Not ideal.

But honestly, as much as I loved Seattle, moving out of it was better than spending another month in Oleg's shitty garage. A few years in that shithole was already more than I could stomach.

When Sora and I piled off the train three years ago, bleary eyed, broke, and trying like hell to leave our pasts back in southern Oregon, we'd been desperate.

Technically, we were wards of the state, on the run, and without a responsible adult to cosign for us—let alone vouch for our existence. If we wanted to stand even the smallest chance at staying together and moving on from everything we’d been through in our own way, we had to essentially disappear—from school, from social media, from everywhere—until we were eighteen and could legally live on our own.

For a chance at starting over? We gave it all up. Happily.

That first week had been . . . bad. And our options of where to go from there had been even more bleak. But desperate times called for desperate choices, and we just had to suck it up and suffer through if we wanted to make this new life work somehow. That, or give up, go back, and face what we'd left—something neither of us was willing to do.

Instead, we scoured housing ads at the closest library, hoping for just a sliver of a fucking break. Eventually, we landed on Oleg and his call for a symbiotic living situation in an upgraded studio—rent negotiable.

The ad didn't include pictures—the first bad sign—but we were desperate, and we definitely couldn't afford to be picky.

And the phrase “symbiotic living situation” conjured images that only became more cringe-worthy the longer I let my brain run wild with the possibilities. Second bad sign.

There were, of course, many more.

Oleg had 'upgraded' the shed in his backyard into what can only be described as a studio apartment to someone who'd never actually seen a studio apartment before. The kitchen consisted of a broken microwave and a dorm-sized fridge that never got cold enough to keep perishables fresh for more than a day. Two during the winter.

The bathroom was the size of a closet. Even Sora, short as she was, had to bend and contort to fit her head beneath the shower spout. And the living-room-kitchen-bedroom space was just large enough to fit one full-sized bed.

There wasn't room for anything else, not even a table. We had to set our stuff on top of the mini fridge if we wanted to keep the bed free from clutter—the only stipulation Sora ever had about the housing arrangements. Clean bed, and she could make almost any living situation work.

And somehow, the smell was even worse than the space.

Oleg handled the renovations himself, which largely meant slapping a fresh coat of paint over questionable stains, and the single-paned window he installed was so thin and poorly fit that there was no escaping the mold or unrelenting wet during the rainy season. We were in Seattle, which meant half the year was spent sopping up water and black sludge from the windowsill, the scent of mildew and musk a constant, inescapable perfume that permeated everything.

Truthfully, we should have been grateful for the window at least. It was the only source of ventilation we had. Who knew what would eventually come of our lungs, breathing up all those mold spores?

The place was a shithole, but Oleg only charged us a hundred bucks total a month, let us move in without references, proof of salary, or identification, and, most importantly, he looked the other way when it became abundantly obvious that we were both truant, clueless minors attempting to live off grid until we were old enough to age out of the system.

He didn’t ask questions, which made him the best landlord we could have hoped for.

Plus, he even offered up his kitchen whenever we wanted to use it. All we had to do was dress up in his mother's old nightgowns when we did and tuck him in twice a month before he went to sleep. He'd originally requested nightly lullabies, but Sora was a master negotiator and threatened to report his deeply illegal ‘studio’ to the city if he pushed for more.

Though shitty, the set up proved pretty smooth—it was surprising how much ick you could live with if you cast it out of your mind and pretended like it was normal.

Whenever his neighbors shot curious glances at us, he told them we were his nieces, staying with him while our parents traveled, and we finished school online. Whether or not they ever questioned this white dude's familial relation with the Lebanese and Japanese teens living in his backyard remained to be seen, but if they did, nothing ever came of it.

Oleg's wasn't ideal, but compared to the alternative, it was the best option we had.

Until now.

Maybe.

Then again, now that I saw the prices proper landlords were asking for, I was starting to think that Oleg was the less predatory option.

The door swung open, and Sora rushed into the diner, the smile on her face carved so deep it actually looked painful. She slapped a rain-soaked flier on the table in front of me, the sound reverberating through the entire restaurant.

"Found one," she barked, the soft trembling of her fingers the only sign she was actually trying quite hard to contain her excitement—she just couldn’t. The golden retriever energy was strong with this one.

Frank handed a glass to the man seated at the counter, not even sparing her a glance. He’d grown very used to her theatrics over the years.

"Didn't I tell you?" She jabbed her finger against the paper, smearing the ink. "Things would start looking up for us—and they have."

I shoved another bite of the sandwich into my mouth, chewing slowly as I studied the paper. It was a flier for a punk show at a local dive, covered in Sora's chicken scratch. The ink bled together with the rain, making it entirely indecipherable.

"Sor, it's a shitty band, looks like there's a steep cover too."

Well, to be fair, ten bucks wasn’t necessarily steep in the grand scheme of things, but it was for us.

She scrunched her nose in disgust. "What?" She grabbed the flier from me, shook her head, flattening the paper against the table until it stuck to the surface. "Not the band,” she tapped the flier, “the address. It's Penny's ex's place—Becca. I’ve met her a few times, she’s cool. More importantly, she’s got two rooms available. Well, technically I guess it’s one room and a small office." She arched her brow, the edge of victory in her grin as she studied me. " But we can actually afford it."

I squinted at the paper until I could just start to make sense of Sora's lines and scrawl. "And your girlfriend is okay with you living with her ex?"

"Eh," Sora shrugged, leaning back against the booth, "probably not, but I've been thinking it's time to call it anyway. She's getting too clingy. Even started suggesting I move in with her."

I froze, my body going into panic mode at the mere suggestion that Sora might move out and in with someone else. We’d waited so long for our chance at a normal life. Now that it was finally within our grasp, I hadn’t even considered the possibility that she might want to do something else. That her vision of the future might have changed, expanded—without me.

When I glanced up at her, my body relaxed, the anxiety immediately shifting to guilt when her expression made it clear she hadn't given her girlfriend’s offer more than a passing thought.

"And you say I have commitment issues," I said, voice deadpan as I studied her, silently scouring her face for cues that I was wrong, that maybe she actually wanted to move in with Penny.

The only thing worse than her moving out would be her staying with me for my sake.

"Don't worry, pookie," the corner of her lip curved into a hook, "you're the only one who doesn't send my avoidant attachment issues into a raging death spiral." She grabbed the other half of my sandwich, biting off more than she could close her lips around, as she added, "Besides, Penny eats chips in bed. Can you imagine? Permanently sharing a bed with someone and their crumbs like that? Disgusting. Whenever I stay over, I end up spending half the night debating the pros and cons of dipping out while she’s asleep and coming home. Trust me. That relationship's been on its way to the grave for weeks now, I just haven't gotten around to putting the final nail in the coffin yet." She drummed her pointer finger against the flier again. "This'll do it."

"You're sure?" I asked, keeping my face measured, blank.

"Abso-fucking-lutely I am. Ran into Becca after class." Sora was six months older than me, which meant she’d already reclaimed her identity, got her G.E.D. and enrolled in some cosmetology classes—a maelstrom of paperwork and appointments I’d been working on since my birthday. "She's not terrible. Quiet, works first shift, and spends every weekend in Portland visiting her boyfriend. The common areas are partially furnished. It's literally the perfect setup." She finished off the sandwich half, leaving the crust and a few pieces of wilted lettuce. "We stay there for a few months—a year tops—save up, and then we can get our own place for real—just us. This is like the perfect little lily pad to help get us across the pond, you know? Next lily pad will be even bigger and better. Just you wait—it’s a bright future, kid. No more hiding, the world is our oyster."

I snorted. "Are we frogs or pearls in this scenario?"

Sora had a way with mixing metaphors and turns of phrase. Usually, I just sort of had to close my eyes and go with it, gauge the general vibes.

“Exactly.” She waved a cold fry in the air, pointing it at me with emphasis. "You’re getting there, Kermit."

The man sitting at the counter chuckled, the sound barely a sound, more the suggestion of one.

Sora turned, studying him with interest. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at his back.

It was a damn good back, but she didn’t seem quite as taken with it as I’d been.

She shifted her attention back to me, her smile bright.

I glanced down at my phone and swore. “I’m late.”

I was covering part of a shift at the pub down the street, and I was technically supposed to start in five minutes. Tonight, the manager’s son, Chase, was working—and he hated me with a fiery passion.

I shoved the rest of my fries at Sora, told her to call Becca and tell her I was in, before collecting my shit and shoving the laptop across the counter towards Frank.

“Thanks—you’re a lifesaver, old man.”

He grunted, then grabbed the computer without lifting his head up from where I knew he kept his phone perched, watching whatever local game was playing on the cracked screen.

When I turned to leave, I noticed the amber liquid in the mystery man’s glass—and the half-consumed bottle of Bulleit sitting next to it.

I froze.

“Frank, since when did you get your liquor license?” I turned to him, tapping the counter when he didn’t answer.

Frank’s head shot up, brows pinching as his gaze dipped from me to the bottle. “I, uh—” he pursed his lips, “I didn’t.”

The man next to me went still as ice, his moody eyes shifting to mine as he held the glass—the nice stuff that Frank kept in his apartment, not here in the diner—to his lips.

His upper lip was full, slightly bigger than the bottom, and my mouth went dry when his tongue peeked out against the rim as he took a sip.

I blinked, swiped the bottle, and handed it to Frank.

Frank grabbed it, his face bent in confusion as he held it, like he wasn’t sure how it had gotten there in the first place.

“That’s your good stuff,” I said, more to the man than to Frank. The diner didn’t serve alcohol, and Frank rarely drank, save for holidays and after a particularly bad shift. He went through maybe one bottle of Bulleit a year. I knew, because Sora and I saved up each year and bribed someone to buy one for us so that we had something to wrap up and give him on Christmas that he wouldn’t hate. And this kid looked like he’d already thrown back a few glasses in the few minutes he’d been here.

“It’s fine,” he said, his voice low, smooth, with just a bit of bite—not unlike the bourbon he’d been drinking. He turned to Frank, eyes narrowed. “Isn’t it?”

Frank blinked a few times, then nodded. He set the bottle back on the counter, sliding it towards the man.

“No,” I stopped him, shoving it back, “it’s not.”

The last thing Frank needed was a citation.

The man froze, his full attention on me now as he turned, his kneecaps lightly pressing against my hip bone.

My stomach flipped, but I shoved the sensation away.

I turned towards him, meeting his eyes as I gestured in Frank’s direction. “He doesn’t have his liquor license,” I said, my words slow and clear so that there’d be no confusion. “If you want to drink, there are plenty of other places to do it without risking someone’s job stability.”

Honestly, I was mildly impressed with myself that my voice came out cool and collected, and not at all betraying the way this man’s stare had completely unraveled my composure.

I wasn’t even sure why I was fighting this so much. If Frank wanted to give this dude his booze, that was his business—but for some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to stand down.

Frank may have been a grumpy asshole sometimes—okay, all the time—but he’d been there for Sora and me in ways no one else had. As far as we could tell, he didn’t have anyone fighting in his corner—except for us.

The possibility this guy was taking advantage of him rankled my nerves.

“Everything okay?” Sora rounded the booth, and stood next to me, her arms crossed, signature glare glaring overtime.

“Fine,” the man said, his eyes locked on mine.

I swallowed, inching back from him, but I was caught between his legs, Sora, and the stool at my back.

His lips twitched, the shadow of a smile, there and then gone.

My fingers twisted into fists—whether to punch him or keep myself from brushing that curl of hair from his eyes, I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with me, but something about this dude had my instincts going haywire.

“Okay.” Sora glanced between us, then relaxed. “Great.”

I narrowed my eyes, studying her from the corner of my eyes.

She didn’t usually back down so easily.

“What—”

“Do you have any suggestions?” the man asked, cutting me off. His eyes cut into me, and I found myself getting lost in the bleed of grays that washed against the black of his irises. They reminded me of a thunderstorm on a warm summer night—both chaotic and oddly calming.

“What?” I blinked a few times and took a step back. There was more room this time because I’d been unconsciously moving towards him, until I was standing with his knees bent on either side of my thighs.

“Of places to drink.” He arched a brow, the hair dark and thick—a perfect frame for those haunted eyes of his. “Legally, I mean. I didn’t mean to cause trouble for your friend.”

“Yes. She works at one. In fact,” Sora said, her gaze dipping between me and the stranger, a devious grin on her face, “she’s going there now. So she can take you.”

My breath caught at the thought of spending more time in the man’s proximity—as if a walk down the street was as intimate and vulnerable as showing him to my bedroom.

I swallowed, trying to find a way to politely decline.

“Great,” he said before I could, his lips twisting into a soft, teasing smile. He stood. My eyes were level with his chest and shoulders—both lined with the same smooth muscle as his back. “Lead the way.”

When I didn’t respond, Sora shoved my arm. “You’re running late, remember? Get going.”

“Right.” I cleared my throat, my stomach dropping when I realized that I’d wasted the few precious minutes I had before my shift picking a fight with a stranger. I glanced up at him, not quite meeting his eyes. “Let’s go then. Like she said, I’m late.”

The walk to Mac’s Tavern was a quiet one.

But the quiet did nothing to ease my discomfort.

If anything, it just made me hyper aware of the few times the man’s arm brushed against mine as he matched my stride, step for step.

I felt his gaze on me, like lasers burning holes, even though I refused to look at him. My brain went all loopy every time I did.

Was I breathing too loud? I counted the seconds between each breath that I took, trying to even it out, though I suddenly wasn’t sure how to judge a normal break between inhales. Could he hear the absurdly loud beat of my heart as it drummed against my ribs?

I pressed each of my nails, one by one, into the tip of my thumb, counting to four over and over again, relying on the brief flares of pain to center me.

When I swung open the heavy, wooden door, Chase’s hawkish gaze tracked me instantly—a predator homing in on his favorite prey. There was a grin hidden in the creases of his eyes, not because he was happy to see me, but because he was pleased he’d have a chance to scold me for being two minutes late.

He tossed the bar rag on the table he’d been pretending to clean, then closed the distance between us in three wide steps. “You’re?—”

“Late.” I swallowed back my annoyance, offering a sheepish grin instead, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Sorry doesn’t get your prep work done, does it?” He grunted, his nose curling. It was a more malicious version of one of his father’s tics. “My father might bend over backwards for your excuses, or whenever you bat your eyelashes, but I won’t.”

Never mind that I was doing Chase a favor today. I wasn’t even supposed to work this shift. I got called in because Rick was sick, though judging by the loud music on the other end of the line, he was actually just at a party he didn’t feel like bailing from.

“He took a chance on you,” Chase continued, hitting a stride in his righteous fury. “Always had a soft spot for charity cases. And you—what do you do? You continuously take advantage of his kindness.” That cut like a blade through my gut, and try as I did to hide the sting, the gleam in Chase’s eyes confirmed he was more than aware that his blow had landed. But he wasn’t done. “He might pity you, but I won’t have someone fuck up this business—my grandfather built it ground up, you know? You’re not worth the trouble, not if this insubordination keeps up. Your lateness affects us all, Mareena?—”

“I’m two minutes late,” I snapped, then took a deep breath, fighting back the urge to lash him right back. It would be so easy to point out how everyone who worked here hated him, how the back of house always used shifts with Chase as punishment for whoever lost the biggest bet that week, or how in the quiet of closing, after a particularly busy rush, his own father would often confide in me about how frustrated he was with his son, about how entitled he was, how he wasn’t ready to take over the business. Instead, I dug my pointer fingernail into the flesh of my thumb and swallowed the words back like bile. “I’m sorry, Chase. It won’t happen again. You have my word.”

Three hours. Not even a full shift. I just needed to get through three hours without killing him, and then I could go home.

“Your word is only worth as much as you live up to it, Mareena.” Something about the way he said my name—stretching it out on his tongue—always made me want to snarl. He arched a brow, eyes pinning me like I was a frog he was eager to dissect. “Two minutes or not, I’ll be noting this on the record, and I’ll be sure to have a word with my father about it next time I see him.”

I had no doubt that he would.

I bit my tongue, nodding as I pulled my apron belt from my bag. The dining room was empty. We still had an hour before the dinner rush even started—and it was Monday, our slowest night. Most bars in the area took the day off.

Someone cleared their throat behind me, and I jumped.

One anxiety bled into another until I’d momentarily forgotten about the icy stranger at my back.

Heat crawled up my neck as I realized he’d witnessed all of that.

Well, this guy had been a bit of a dick as well. He and Chase would have a lot to bond over.

I shot him a tight grin, though I couldn’t muster any true kindness behind it.

“Well, welcome to Mac’s,” I said, gesturing absently at the empty room as I tied the apron around my waist, tugging the strings a little too tight. “You can grab whichever seat you want at the bar and Chase will fix you a drink. Legally.”

Though truth be told, I wouldn’t complain if he got Chase in trouble with the city. Of course, then, that would fuck with his dad—who I actually really liked—and my job—which I very much needed. Especially now that a pricier apartment was on the horizon.

“Not in your section?” the stranger asked.

“I’m eighteen. I don’t work the bar.”

Until I was twenty-one, I was technically not allowed to serve drinks. I just ferried them to my tables whenever my customers ordered. And since Chase was on tonight, that meant I’d get most of my drinks about ten minutes slower than if anyone else was working behind the bar. Half because he was a shitty bartender, and half because he was a smarmy dickhole who took advantage of the fact that my tips were negatively affected by his slow and mediocre service.

I fished absently in the wide apron pockets, searching for a pen.

Empty.

Of-fucking-course. Why were my pens always disappearing? I swore it was magic. Didn’t matter if I had five in my pocket or fifty—one way or another, I always ended up with exactly none by the end of a shift.

Chase glared at me, nodding his head towards the man, like I was the rude one in this situation.

I sighed, flattening out the wrinkles in my apron. I wasn’t even clocked in yet but leave it to Chase to refuse doing even the bare minimum of his job.

With a deep, grounding breath, I forced my temper down.

While I’d love nothing more than to break Chase’s nose one of these days, I reminded myself, as I did every shift I shared with him, why I couldn’t. One, I needed this job. Two, as much as I hated Chase, I deeply appreciated his dad. And his dad probably wouldn’t like it if I broke his son’s nose. Three, without his dad, I wouldn’t have a job.

Chase wasn’t entirely wrong—his dad had broken a lot of the usual rules for me. Frank introduced me to him awhile back, and he took a chance on me when no one else would. He was also willing to pay me under the table. Illegal, sure, but it was the sort of law skirting I was desperately thankful for.

"Right, um, follow me I guess." I grabbed a menu and walked him over to the bar, grimacing slightly when I realized it was still sticky.

Chase never cleaned when he knew I was coming in.

I felt both of their stares on me as I wiped the faux wood surface down, then left them to it. Chances were Chase hadn't done any of his own prep work necessary for the dinner service either, which meant that I had more than usual to get through.

As expected, it was a slower night, and I caught myself staring at the stranger more than once in the long stretches between seating my next table. He hadn't moved from his stool once during my shift, but it looked like he’d transitioned away from booze and on to water and food instead. Probably smart and would also explain how he was still relatively clear-eyed.

More than once, I noticed him whispering to Chase, the ever-present frown-lines etched along Chase’s forehead mysteriously absent. That almost never happened when I worked with him. He looked oddly . . . kind when his face wasn’t contorted in constant, righteous anger.

Curiosity peaked, I found myself making excuses to pass by the bar, hoping to pick up on a sliver of their conversation—but whenever I got within hearing distance, they stopped talking.

Generally, I had to run my drinks from the bar to my tables, but Chase handled the drop-offs on his own—a bizarre occurrence in and of itself. He'd even bussed half of my tables, something he literally never did, even when his station was slow and mine was bustling.

In fact, I was usually the one taking his customer's empty dishes to the guys in the back.

I did my best to ignore the man for most of the night, but something about him kept drawing my focus. I caught myself staring at the back of his head while wrapping silverware or peeking out at him behind the kitchen doors while prepping side dishes for my tables.

When I ushered my final table out the door, I expected Chase to kick the guy out or cut him off. He didn't.

We closed early on Mondays, but Chase switched the sign to ‘closed’ a full hour before usual.

He nodded to me. “You can take off when you’re closed out.”

My head shot up. “Really?”

There was a flash of annoyance in his expression, but it dissolved with one glance at the stranger. “Really. I appreciate you coming in and covering tonight. You didn’t need to. I’ll handle the leftover closing work—you go enjoy the rest of your evening.”

I froze, lost for words—my mouth gaping open like a fish.

The stranger glanced at me out of the side of his eyes, the corner of his mouth curving up as he took a long sip of water, draining the glass down to ice.

Chase started shutting down the bar, and I watched him for a full minute, half-expecting him to vomit up whatever alien had possessed him.

But no alien emerged, and when he stopped working to glare at me, I decided to just go with it.

First time for everything, apparently.

I shot Sora a text, letting her know about the extraterrestrial event and that I’d be done in ten minutes.

When I closed out my final tabs and pulled out some cash to tip Chase out, she walked in, ignoring the red “closed” sign at eye-level.

Her eyes were dry, but I could tell from her expression that the breakup had gone poorly. Sora was never the sort to wear her pain where it could be easily dissected by outsiders.

She clutched a bottle in a large paper bag at her side, shooting a wary look at me when she noticed Chase.

“Sorry,” she mouthed, “forgot he was here.”

Typically, Chase kicked her out whenever she came in after closing, but today he just smiled at her and waved her in before getting back to the dishes. As in . . . he was actually washing the barware . . . on his own.

Her brows shot up, shocked, and she waved back, the movement stilted and awkward. Spotting the stranger, her face lit up and she slid onto the stool next to him. She shifted slowly, keeping her attention on Chase, as if afraid that she might jostle the real Chase back into his body with any sudden movements.

"Almost done, just need to grab my bag from the back." I slid the envelope of tips towards Chase, but with a quick glance at the stranger, he slid it back to me, an odd, forced grin on his face. Odd because I’d never seen him smile without a tone of maliciousness behind it. This smile was almost . . . earnest.

"Keep it all, you earned it tonight." His brows bent in confusion, as if his words were as much of a shock to him as they were to me, his tongue unfamiliar with shaping them.

My fingers froze around the edges of the envelope, but I muttered a quiet thanks and shoved it into my apron before either of us had a chance to second guess the gesture. With the move-out drawing close, I wasn't going to question Chase's sudden conscience. Who knew how long it would last, and I needed all the cash I could get my hands on.

Sora’s stare drilled into the side of the stranger’s face until, no longer able to ignore it, he turned towards her.

"You're still here," she said, a teasing lilt to her voice.

He glanced down at himself, then shrugged. "Apparently.”

Their eyes locked, the two of them caught in a silent battle of will that I was way too exhausted to intervene in.

I left them to their riveting conversation while I said my goodbyes to the guys in the back, warned them about Chase’s uncharacteristically good mood—if they wanted to ask for vacation time, tonight was the night to do it—and then grabbed my stuff.

When I made my way back to the dining room, the stranger was standing next to Sora, Chase nowhere in sight.

"Levi's going to join us," she said, mischief sparkling in her eyes.

I swallowed a groan. I knew that look.

It was her matchmaking look.

My least favorite of all.

When I shot her a glare—a clear, silent, knock-it-off—she just shrugged, an exaggerated, oblivious expression on her face.

Great. It was going to be one of those nights, and I couldn’t even fight her on it because I knew the breakup was weighing on her. If this dude hanging around would help ease even an ounce of her grief, I’d suck it up and deal.

“Levi?” I studied him, rolling the sound of the name over the strange man I’d been weirdly fixated on for hours. Figures, I'd barely heard the guy say two words all night, but Sora already had his name and likely his whole life story. She was good at peopling. I, obviously, was not. I turned back to her. "Join us for what?"

"Celebrating." She took a big swig of whatever was in the bottle, before passing it to him. "We got the apartment, I'm newly single, and you got off early. Plus, neither of us has to work tomorrow. No excuses."

Levi glanced down at the bottle before handing it to me. "If it's cool with you that I join, that is?"

I considered him for a moment, then brought the bottle to my lips for a sip, hissing at the sharp burn that clawed over my tongue and down my throat.

Tequila. The cheap stuff. Sora’s go-to for a messy night.

I took another swig, then nodded. Fuck it.

Sora's smile brightened, any of the lingering sadness about her breakup boxed up and compartmentalized, at least for now. She never lingered on disappointment for long. "Canal? It stopped raining and the sun will be setting soon."

“Works for me.” Summers in Seattle were my favorite thing in the world. The sun stayed high in the sky until well after nine, making the day feel like it stretched on forever.

"Chase said he'd lock up and you're free to leave whenever," Levi said, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, like he was unsure what to do with his body.

I nodded. Whatever had come over Chase, I hoped it would last through the next shift we had together. Other than the fit he threw when I showed up two minutes late, this had been the most pleasant few hours I'd ever had with him in the vicinity. He'd been downright amiable.

“What did you two talk about?” I asked, then handed Sora back the bottle. If we were going to the canal with a dude neither of us knew, at least one of us needed to stay reasonably sober.

He shrugged, his expression unreadable. “Just small talk—nothing notable.”

I narrowed my eyes. Something about his general standoffishness told me that Levi hadn’t entertained small talk with a stranger a day in his life.