A tiny rebellion against the weight of this moment. The silence between us was thick, charged, like the air before a storm. He shot me another look—harder this time, but still that unsettling calm and overconfident smirk like I owed him the f*****g universe. His gaze met mine, dark and unreadable.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
No I don't. I need to kill you. Just you wait!
“I am after all your knight in shining armour,” he continued, as though the matter were settled.
THE f*****g NERVE!
“Thank you, I need that,” I replied with the weakest, fakest longing voice I could muster. “You didn’t have to come. But you did. And the girls… we needed someone. You were that someone.”
He was quiet for a beat. Then his hand went to the gear again. “I’ll call my guy first thing in the morning. We’ll
