Page 10 of The Vigilant

Air whooshed from my lungs, and Tynan’s head snapped in my direction, his gaze like a hot knife wedged right against my throat.

I snapped my mouth shut and swallowed hard. “You waited.” It wasn’t so much an observation as it was an accusation.

“Figured if you decided to eat, I wasn’t going to let you eat alone.” He reached over and grabbed the other stool with one hand and pulled it out for me.An invitation.

Even my mind’s last-ditch pitch for defiance was betrayed by another loud rumble of my stomach.No point in denying it now.

I strode toward him, feeling the air hit along the exposed center of my chest. I climbed into the chair, one edge of my robe sliding off my leg and exposing my thigh.

Nudity wasn’t a thing for me. I understood the puritanical stronghold on society that viewed a woman’s body as a beautiful burden and that baring it revealed a kind of moral weakness. Well, fuck the puritans. Fuck the patriarchy. My body wasn’t a weakness, it was a weapon.

I sucked in a breath when the stool moved under me. With that same single hand, Tynan grabbed one of the chair’s legs and effortlessly hauled it close to the counter like it weighed no more now than when it had been empty.Another cut.

Heat buzzed along my skin, turned on by both the pleasure and the pain of one more small gesture.

He plucked the foil off our plates, and I tried not to focus on the veins on the back of his hand as he balled it up to be thrown away.

Salmon over rice with avocado, and—was that mango?Whatever it was, it smelled too good, and I was too hungry for a good meal to do anything but grab my fork and dig in like I hadn’t eaten in days. Ihadeaten, but it was all shit. Fast food and ramen. Whatever I could afford from what I made as a seamstress.

Graduating high school from a juvenile detention center wasn’t even all itwasn’tcracked up to be. Legal but with no money, no family, no place to stay, and pretty much no skills that wouldn’t end me back in prison, I’d gone to a hostel in the city and begged the owner, Miss Mai, if I could work for her instead of rent. The first two weeks, I cleaned the hostel. The third week, I asked Miss Mai if she had a needle and thread I could use to fix the rip in the lining of my jacket, and her response had been to ask what else I could fix.

Lala had taught me to sew when I was little. I would sit and watch her cross-stitch for hours, more entertained by that than Lolo and his western reruns on TV. Finally, she broke down and let me do it with her, and gave me a wheel of my own. Eventually,we moved our sewing time to her old Singer machine on the desk in the corner of her bedroom. She’d make me costumes, and I watched how she fixed up our clothes from a pile that always seemed endless.

It was a hobby until she died, then it was a necessity because I became her replacement. Mom never wanted to spend money on new things, so I always had to either fix what we already had or alter clothes she’d begrudgingly get from Goodwill.

When I explained the general gist of that to Miss Mai, she was elated. Apparently, she had a side business in clothing alteration and repair, and it was busy enough that she needed help. Meanwhile, I needed money too badly to say anything but yes.

Shit.I let out a heavy sigh. I needed to message Miss Mai. She was going to be so upset I was gone so suddenly.

“What is it?” Tynan’s voice broke the silence.

My fork paused mid-path to my mouth. I didn’t really want to answer, mostly because he made it far too easy to trust him—a man who was practically a stranger to me.A man who should feel like more of a stranger than he did.

But what I’d been saying wasn’t working. I needed Tynan to trust me. To believe that Daws was being heavy-handed in his warning and that there was no reason for him to feel like he had to keep an eye on me day and night. And getting to that point meant I had to stop being ungrateful and guarded and acerbic, and instead try to be…nice.

I shuddered.

“Just remembered I need to message my boss and let her know I won’t be at work tomorrow,” I said and shoved the bite of salmon in my mouth.

“Where do you work?” He tried to sound casual, but there was nothing casual about the tension radiating off him.

I chewed slowly and swallowed. “At a hostel.”

His chair groaned. “You work at a hostel?”

You’d think I’d said whorehouse.

“And live there,” I said, adding smartly, “Having a degree from juvenile detention isn’t exactly in high demand in the job market, so I kind of have to take what I can get.”

“Sutton…” He growled at me like it was an order to behave.

I hated orders, but for some reason, my body liked the rough and tumble tone of his.

“The woman who owns it also has a seamstress business, and when I told her I knew how to sew, she gave me a job.” I shoved another bite of food in my mouth, noting the dwindling amount left on my plate.

“How long have you been there?”

The question was vague, but somehow I knew exactly what he was asking.

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