Alle Kapitel von Never. Say. Yours.: Kapitel 11 – Kapitel 20

Friday. His kitchen. The pan he'd bought was still in the box. He'd ordered takeout from a Thai place on Holloway Street and served it on real plates and pretended he'd cooked it."The pad thai is very good," she said."Thank you.""But you didn't make it.""I supervised.""You supervised a delivery app.""I have standards."She laughed. He almost smiled. That crack in the stone, wider now, happening more often. She was getting through. Slowly. Chipping at the wall with a coffee spoon.After dinner, he washed the dishes. She watched him from the kitchen doorway. His sleeves were rolled. His forearms were strong, corded, the tendons moving under skin as he scrubbed. His back was to her and she could see the scar again, the four lines from shoulder to hip, pink and white. She wanted to touch it. She wanted to ask him again what had made those marks.She didn't. She just watched.He turned off the

It happened on a Saturday night at a place called The Meridian, a rooftop bar on Calloway Street that Josie had never been to because it charged eighteen dollars for a gin and tonic and she worked at a coffee shop. Patsy had gotten them invited through Gary the plumber, who turned out to have a brother in event planning, who had gotten them on the list for some kind of harbor revitalization fundraiser."Free drinks," Patsy said, pulling on a dress that made her tattoos look like art. "Rich people free drinks. Those are the best kind.""I don't have anything to wear.""You have that black dress. The one that makes your waist look like a wasp.""Patsy.""Wear the dress, Josie. We're going to drink expensive gin and look at the harbor and pretend we belong."She wore the dress. She wore the boots, because she wasn't going to wear heels to a rooftop bar where she'd have to stand on concrete. She let her hair down. She put on earrings

Dane's apartment. No pierogi. No cooking. Just him, standing by the window, looking at the harbor lights, and her, standing by the couch, looking at him."Tell me," she said."We know each other. Harlan and I.""I know that. I saw you. At The Meridian. Sitting together. Like friends.""Not friends." He turned from the window. His amber eyes were dark. "Rivals. But not the kind you're thinking of. Not business rivals. Something older.""Older how?""Josie, I can't.""You said you'd talk.""I'm trying." He ran his hand through his hair. His ring caught the light. "There are things about this city. About the people who run it. Things that go back a long way. Harlan and I are part of that. We've been part of it for longer than you'd believe.""How long?""Long enough that the answer wouldn't make sense.""Try me."He looked at her. Really looked. The way he always did, that too-lo

The rain came on Thursday night. Hard. The kind of rain that turned Ash Harbor's streets into rivers and made the gutters sing. Josie sat on Harlan's couch with a blanket and a book she wasn't reading and listened to it hit the windows.He was in the kitchen. Making tea. Actual tea, not coffee. He'd bought a kettle. He'd bought tea bags. He'd bought honey because she'd mentioned once, in passing, three weeks ago, that she liked honey in her tea. He remembered.He brought her the mug. Sat beside her. His body was tense. She could feel it through the blanket, through the couch cushions. A vibration. Like a tuning fork struck and held."You're vibrating," she said."I'm fine.""You're literally vibrating. The couch is shaking."He looked at his hands. They were trembling. Not with cold. Not with fear. With something else. Something building."It's the equinox," he said. "It's close. Three days. The pull is stronger this clo

She found it by accident. Or maybe not by accident. Maybe the city led her there, the way it led her to Grindstone, to Ash Harbor, to the coffee shop where two beastlords ordered their drinks at different times and pretended not to know each other.It was Sunday. One day to the equinox. She was walking. Not to anywhere. Just walking. Away from her apartment, away from Holloway Street, away from Drayton Street. Away from the two men who had told her they loved her and who had also, not coincidentally, turned her into a pawn in a territorial game between ancient monsters.She walked south. Past Mercer Line. Past the part of the city she recognized and into the part she didn't. The buildings got older. The streets got narrower. The harbor smell got stronger, salt and rot and something else, something organic, something alive.She found the door in a wall. An alley off Harbor Street, between a shuttered fish market and a building that had been empty long enoug