Page 23 of Carrick
He winked, tilting the bowl toward her.
“Biscuits and gravy. Homemade, every last bit of it. I don’t half-ass things before 9 a.m.”
“Are you kidding me? Sully, you absolute god among men—I’d pledge fealty for a plate,” she groaned, taking the plate like it owed her money. “If I die from bliss, avenge me.”
“With vengeance and butter,” Sully swore, deadpan.
I poured myself a mug of coffee, letting the sound and movement distract from the burning thrum still running undermy skin. I could still feel the ghost of Bellamy’s hip against mine, the smell of grease and warm citrus, the sharpness of her gaze cutting through every layer of armor I thought I had on.
I thought I had armor on.
“So,” Sully said, piling food like he was feeding a battalion, “you’re handy with cars, I hear. Is that a hobby, or should I be worried you’re secretly a Transformer?”
Bellamy shrugged and stabbed her biscuits like it was just another Tuesday. “My foster dad rebuilt engines as therapy. I figured out early I preferred pistons to people.”
That got a round of chuckles, even from Deacon, who’d ghosted into the kitchen and now leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, sniper-eyed and unreadable. “Machines don’t lie,” he said.
The room went quiet—not from judgment, but that rare stillness when someone says something too true and everyone feels it. Bellamy just nodded. “Exactly.”
I took the seat next to her and sipped my coffee, trying not to fixate on the way her fingers played with her fork. She looked relaxed, but it was a calculated calm—bone-deep and battle-earned. The kind that said: I’ve survived worse.
She laughed at one of Sully’s ridiculous comments—something about syrup being the new currency of the apocalypse—and it hit me, hard, how seamlessly she was fitting in. Like she belonged. Which was dangerous. Because she didn’t. She wouldn’t stay. And I wasn’t supposed to want her to.
When the meal wound down, the group dispersed—Deacon to his room, Sully muttering about fermenting cabbage, Niko dragging Maddy back into the woods with a water gun and zero shame. I got up to rinse my plate but didn’t leave. Couldn’t.
Bellamy lingered too, curled into her chair with her coffee like she’d claimed it, loose-limbed and unreadable. She knew I was watching. Didn’t pretend otherwise.
And neither did I.
“You planning on crawling under any more of my vehicles without permission?” I asked.
She gave me a slow smile. “Depends. You planning on leaving the garage door open again?”
I crossed the space between us in two steps. Leaned down, bracing one hand on the back of her chair.
“You’re dangerous, you know that?”
Her gaze lifted to mine, steady and unblinking. “Only if you underestimate me.”
“That ship sailed.”
I could smell her shampoo again. Could see the flecks of gold in her eyes up close. She didn’t pull back. Didn’t look away.
“You going to kiss me, Carrick?” she asked softly.
I stared at her mouth, felt the pull of it like gravity. My voice came out low. “Not unless you ask me to.”
Her lips curled. “Good.”
Then she rose, slow and deliberate, like a challenge unfolding inch by inch, until we were toe-to-toe, breath to breath. Her fingers ghosted across the hem of my hoodie, a whisper of contact that held the promise of more. For a heartbeat, I swore she’d close the distance. For a heartbeat, I wanted her to.
But she didn’t. She stepped back instead, coffee in hand and a smirk curling at her lips like she’d just played me at my own game—and won.
“Then I won’t have to kiss you,” she said over her shoulder. “Your loss.”
She left me there, jaw tight, blood hot, and one second away from throwing every carefully built wall I had into the fucking fire.
I stared after her for a long time.
