looked around like she was missing something. Kevin handed her purse to her.
“Thank you,” she said. “I would have completely forgotten it. What would I do without you?”
He smiled back. Polite. Friendly. But I watched how he held his breath, how his shoulders tensed, how his fingers spread open as if trying to catch or hold something fleeting.
Something inside me hurt. That something was my father.
And yes, it worried me. My father was not a nice man when he was in pain.
“You’re welcome, Mrs. Beckstrom,” Kevin murmured.
“Good night, Allie,” she said. “I’ll see you soon. And I’ll call if I hear anything has changed with the . . . project.”
“Night, Kevin,” Zayvion said. Zayvion had been so quiet, I’d almost forgotten he was sitting there. This, I decided, was what it would be like to date the invisible man.
“Night,” he replied. “Coffee on me next time.”
“Let’s make it a beer,” Zay agreed. “Shoot some pool.”
“Pool sounds good. Give me a call, okay?”
I was pretty sure they weren’t really talking about coffee and pool. It wasn’t just Zay and Shamus who had a secret code.
Before Violet could open the door to let herself out, Kevin was there, bending over her, smooth, unhurried, holding the door for her.
They both stepped out into the night.
“What was that all about?” I asked.
Zay shrugged.
“Pool?” I asked. “You play pool?”
“Why do the most mundane things about me surprise you?” he asked.
“Because you never tell me any of this stuff.”
A corner of his mouth quirked up. “I play pool. Shoot hoops sometimes too. Any other sport you’re curious about?”
“Hockey? Polo?”
“Simultaneously. Trick is to keep the horses on their skates.”
I rolled my eyes. “Forget I asked.”
“No, I’ll show you sometime.”
“Deal. Horses on ice skates, Jones. Now, what were you and Kevin really talking about?”
“Business. Someone doesn’t like the idea of your father’s latest wife running the company.”
“I know that. She told me that. I mean the other thing.”
“What other thing?”
“Beer and pool.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “It’s beer and pool. One’s a drink. The other’s a game. That’s all. Ready to go?”
I let it slide since I didn’t want to cast a Mute spell when we could just talk about it at my house in a couple minutes. The coffee shop had quieted some. Enough I could hear the music, something that had a country beat, and a sitar. I took a quick look at the people still in the shop.
And noted Anthony was gone.
“When did Anthony leave?”
“After you sat down with Violet.”
“Did he say where he was going?”
“The warehouse. To see if Davy was there. He wants to apologize.”
“Are you serious?”
“Always.”
Great. If Davy was there—and I thought he’d mentioned he was going to check on the place this evening—there’d be blood on the floor before I could dial 911. I rubbed at my eyes, thinking maybe I shouldn’t have promised Pike anything. Hounds were nothing but trouble.
“Listen,” I said, “if you want to head out, you can. I’ll go up there and mop up the blood and call the cops on someone.”
“When are you going to stop that?”
“Stop what?” I asked.
“Telling me to go away.”
“I don’t do that.”
“You do.” He caught one of my hands. His fingers were warm. His touch radiated a sense of peacefulness, of calm.
I, on the other hand, radiated nerves. Too many things were going wrong: Dad, Greyson, Chase. And now Violet was in trouble over the disks. The whole Anthony-Davy-Pike’s-death thing was one more hassle I didn’t need.
“I’m staying right here, with you,” Zayvion said. “Because I don’t want to be anywhere else in the world.”
I inhaled his words, felt the assurance of that promise reverberate through me.
“Me too,” I said. And I meant it. Zayvion and I had an agreement that we were going to give this relationship everything we could. And that included trust, faith, and honesty.
Not a single one of which was among my strong points.
He gave me that sexy smile that usually got me in bed, then pulled away. It had been a few seconds, us touching. But the absence of him, of the awareness of him in my mind, rolled through me like a cold chill. I took a deep breath to keep from reaching out for him.
Being Soul Complements made letting go difficult.
Understatement of the year.
Zay didn’t appear to have the same problem. He lifted his ratty jacket off the back of the chair, then gathered his empty coffee cup.
But I’d been around him enough to know he was gliding through those motions. Like a mantra, the