Not even when I wanted to.
This morning, I’d woken up buzzing with something—need, hunger—but it wasn’t only the fire this time. It was Killian. It was the space he’d left behind and the way my chest kept caving in around it. I didn’t like the spiral I was falling into, didn’t like the way every quiet second made me wonder if he was done with me, or worse, in danger and not saying.
I was supposed to be working. The clutch rebuild on a manual 1973 Dodge Challenger sat in pieces on the lift in Bay 2, and I’d already stripped two bolts trying to force parts into the gearbox casing that weren’t lined up. My hands were shaking—not a lot, but more than enough to throw off the torque and make my grip falter.
I exhaled hard, scraping grease off my palm with the edge of a rag, and glanced over at Rio. He was ass-up in the trunk of a rust-riddled Chevy, muttering curses at a seized latch. I should go over and talk to him. Explain to him how I was feeling, but… Hadn’t he made a big show about passing his responsibility over to Killian? Rio was my best friend… he’d listen to me and stop the noise.
Right?
I reached for the torque wrench again, tried to focus, but ended up cross-threading the bearing sleeve. Metal clicked and ground wrong, and I hissed a curse through my teeth.
“Fuck this,” I muttered, tossing the tool down with more force than necessary. “Taking a break, Rio.”
Rio jerked upright at the sound of my voice and cracked his head on the lip of the trunk. “Shit!”
I winced. “You good?”
He grunted, rubbing at his scalp without turning around. If he bruised himself, no one would notice—not under the lingering mess from two nights ago. The cut under his eye had bloomed into a spectacular bruise, all jaundiced green and coppery orange, the kind you couldn’t fake.
Maybe it had come from a fight. Or maybe it was the aftermath of the enthusiastic sex I’d heard echoing down the hallway from his room. I hadn’t asked. Didn’t want to. But it hadn’t stopped me from thinking about it. From wondering what the hell Rio was burying under that usual swagger of his, and whether I was doing the same with my work, my fire, my silence.
Everything felt off.
The car, the air, my head. As if every gear in me was misaligned, and I was two steps from shearing my own bolts.
That was when Robbie wandered in, hands in the pockets of his hoodie. “Coffee and cookies in the kitchen. Fresh.”
I blinked at him. I didn’t need sugar. Or caffeine. What I needed was a walk around the block to clear my damn head. Maybe a call to Killian, even if he didn’t pick up. Maybe just screaming into the void.
But instead, I muttered a thanks, pulled off my gloves, and followed Robbie out to the kitchen.
The second I stepped through the door and smelled the bitter roast and warm vanilla, I gave in. Fuck it. I was spiraling anyway—might as well spiral with coffee in one hand and a mouthful of cookies. Ifell on them like a man starved, shoving two into my mouth before the pot had finished brewing.
Determined now, I poured myself a mug, sloshing some over the edge, and made it my mission to clear the tray of cookies before anyone else had a chance to walk in. A tiny part of me knew it was dumb, that it wasn’t about hunger at all. It was control. Distraction.
Robbie didn’t say anything else. He just sat at the other end of the table, sipping his drink, watching me like I was a spooked animal, and he didn’t want to startle me further. Fair enough. I think I unsettled him sometimes, despite trying not to, and he wasn’t wrong to tread carefully around me.
“So, I have a question?” Robbie asked as he nibbled on his single cookie. He had his knees bent, feet flat on the floor, looking all neat and presentable—as if he was gearing up to welcome clients again. It was something he was trying, and to be fair, he looked the part.
And okay—he was cute. Enzo would kill me for thinking it, but there it was. Not that it mattered. Robbie wasn’t my type. It wasn’t a twink who did it for me. Robbie wouldn’t take control. Wouldn’t grab me by the collar and drag me out of my own mess. He wouldn’t pull me out of the chaos in my head when the walls started shaking. He was careful and kind inways that would never be enough to calm the storm inside me.
But yeah. Cute.
“Go for it.”
“Is the dark web open to anyone who knows how to look for it?” Robbie asked, tilting his head. “Like, why don’t the authorities just shut it down? And how do you even get on it?”
I froze mid-bite, the cookie crumbling in my mouth like ash.
Fuck.
Enzo would murder me if I answered that. Actually murder. Because just the fact that Robbie was curious—genuinely, naively curious—was enough to set every one of my alarm bells blaring.
“Why do you want to know?” I asked, wiping my fingers on a napkin. My voice stayed light, but tension coiled through my spine.
“Dunno,” he said with a shrug. “You guys talk about it sometimes, and I just… I don’t know what it is.”
I sighed, pinching the bridge of my nose. “It’s real. It’s open to anyone, yeah, but only if you know what you’re doing. And no, the authorities can’t shut it down. Not entirely. It’s like… hundreds of tunnels under the internet, decentralized, hidden. You use something like Tor to get there, and even then, you’re walking blind.”
