his smiles and laughter came quicker, easier when his club was around.
Tru cleared his throat.
I moved to introduce him, but Heath beat me to the punch. “Oh!” he said. “Sorry, everyone, this is Tru. He’s from Liberty Crew as well.”
“He will not be assisting,” I said. “He’s just here to get in the way.”
Tru shoved my shoulder, and then did a flashy little bow as his introduction. “Thanks for letting me crash the party. I’m the Liberty sergeant-at-arms, but today I’m here as a student.”
Chaotic introductions ensued, with everyone greeting Tru and cracking jokes at each other’s expense. Tru clearly loved it: the attention, and the relentless teasing, even chiming in when he saw an opening. Finally, though, the noise settled down, and everyone turned their attention to me.
“All right.” I brandished my arm at the enormous bowl of chopped apples in the middle of the kitchen island. “We’re doing apple pie today.”
“Oh, hell, yeah,” Coop muttered.
“We’re covering the basics here,” I said. “Prep, assembly, handling dough, what to look for in a proper bake. We’re really starting from scratch. Excuse the pun.”
Tru booed. I threw a towel at him. Siren cackled, and Heath hid a laugh behind his hand.
The lesson went about as well as I expected. It was like wrangling kittens—flour everywhere, shouting, apples flung across the room, dough stuck to foreheads. Siren got so fed up rolling out her dough, she gave up and made Coop do it. Coop was surprisingly good. Raven spent most of the time bending over his making a detailed lattice pattern while Gunnar ate bits of apple from the bowl.
Blade and Logan showed up just as the pies were coming out of the oven.
“Good timing,” I said. “You can be the judges of these creations.”
“Oh, no,” Coop said morosely. “I didn’t know they’d be judged.”
“Come help me.” I gestured for Heath, and he hurried over at my instruction, which sent—as it always did—a little thrill through me. Together we pulled four pies out of the oven: one with an elegant lattice pattern that held together surprisingly well (Raven), one that split open because it was overfilled (Coop), one that was unevenly baked because the dough was rolled out hastily (Siren), one that was boring-looking but acceptable (Tru), and one that looked… Almost perfect. Heath’s. It was clear he’d followed my instructions to a tee.
(Gunnar hadn’t made one at all. He’d simply eaten the raw apples and chucked the dough in the freezer.)
“Wow, it smells good in here,” Logan said with a dreamy sigh.
“That’s a hell of a lot of pies,” Blade said. “Who’s gonna eat all those?”
“Have you seen the people in this club?” Coop asked incredulously. “We’ll take them to Ballast tonight and they’ll be gone in under ten minutes, I swear.”
Heath barked a laugh. It was so bright and unexpected—he was brilliant like this, open and laughing. He caught me watching him, and his cheeks flushed pink as he ducked his chin. But then he looked back up, a smile curling his lips. The rest of the room seemed to fade into static for a moment, and that sweet smile was all I could see.
Tru knocked his shoulder against mine. “Earth to Dare. Time to slice open one of these bad boys and see how we did.”
“You should do it,” I said, without taking my eyes off Heath. “I’m sure they all came out all right.”
As soon as the words were out of my mouth, Heath leaped into action with a chef’s knife and the best-looking pie. As I watched him work carefully on the task I’d told him to do, affection flared warm in my chest.
And that feeling was distinctly, dangerously, not friendship.
13
Heath
The sudden quiet in the kitchen once everyone cleared out—loaded up with pies to carry over to Ballast—was a relief, leaving behind a cozy, peaceful stillness. Dante hummed to himself as he wiped down the kitchen island. His idle humming was a calming sound behind me as I began to rinse the immense pile of dishes to load into the dishwasher.
Dante was a natural leader. He’d been so kind with everyone, and patient, yet able to keep the class on track despite the incessant chattering and jokes of the Hell’s Ankhor members. Even with his best friend trying to distract him, Dante had easily kept everyone under control and on track.
But even before the class, it’d been so easy to just… listen to him. Follow his instructions and advice. It was so easy to relax around him