Page 246 of Lost Then Found
For the first time, I’m not just holding my ground—I’m rooted in it. Certain. Steady. A little dangerous, maybe.
And I don’t just feel good.
I feel powerful. Sure. Steady.
Unshakable.
Miller appears like she was summoned, a cup of coffee in her hands, her eyes sweeping the floor before they land on me. She spots the plate, then me, then the empty booth across from me. Her brows lift.
“Did you kill him, bury his dead body and then steal his breakfast all within the hour?”
I pick up my fork. “No comment.”
She slides in across from me without asking, reaches across the table, and tears off a piece of the biscuit while reaching for a fork. “I would’ve been impressed. Did he at least cry?”
“Not visibly.”
“Heard the ghost of it in his footsteps though, didn’t you?”
“He left without touching his breakfast. I’m guessing that says enough.”
Miller hums, tossing the biscuit in her mouth. “You’re glowing. It’s either from the adrenaline or vengeance and I respect the hell out of it.”
I lean my elbows on the table and drag my fork through the syrup pooling around the pancakes. “I thought I’d feel shaky after. I don’t.”
Miller points her fork at me. “That’s because you didn’t back down. You looked him in the eye and reminded him this place doesn’t run on fear. It runs on grit and coffee and whatever the hell you put in those lemon bars.”
I let out a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. “I kept thinking about Alice.”
Miller’s chewing slows. “Yeah?”
“She always said I was soft in all the right places, but that didn’t mean I was weak.” I glance down at my plate, the edge of a scrambled egg dangling off the side. “I used to think if I just kept my head down, worked hard, did the right thing, people like Tate would just…go away. That I could outrun them with goodness or whatever.”
Miller grabs a strip of bacon, shrugs. “That’s a beautiful sentiment. Utter bullshit, but beautiful.”
I crack a smile. “Yeah. I’m done being quiet, I think.”
She raises her coffee cup, mock-toast style. “May every little girl grow up to terrify the mediocre men who underestimate her.”
I clink my fork against her cup. “Amen.”
She takes another sip of coffee, still grinning around the rim, and I watch her for a second. Just sit with it. With her. With everything she’s been to me—not just in this, but in all of it. Every breakdown, every plan, every impossible day I thought I couldn’t make it through.
I set my fork down. “Thank you, Mills.”
She glances at me, eyes narrowed, suspicious of the sentiment.
“For what?”
“For backing me up,” I say. “For helping me with everything. For being there when I didn’t even know how to ask.”
Miller rolls her eyes, but her mouth softens. “Careful with that mushy shit, Westwood. I didn’t wear forty dollar mascara to sob over a sausage biscuit.”
I nudge her leg under the table. “I’m serious.”
“I know,” she says, quieter now. “I know you are.”
She holds my gaze a second longer, then picks up her fork again. “Now eat. You earned this. Nothing tastes better than revenge and carbs.”
