“Lexi.” He says my name like it’s both a warning and a plea. “When’s the last time you ate?”
I try to remember. The hotel? No. Before that. Time has gone strange and fluid, days blending together. “I don’t know.”
He sighs, the movement making him wince and press a hand to his ribs. “Come on.”
The kitchen is small and surprisingly clean for a college guy’s dorm. There’s a French press on the counter next to a bag of coffee that looks expensive, and the sink doesn’t have dishes piled in it. The only sign of chaos is the pile of bloody clothes in the corner that neither of us has dealt with yet.
Koa moves slowly, favoring his left side, and starts pulling things out of the fridge. Eggs. Butter. Bread. The normalcy of watching him cook breakfast like this is any other morning makes something in my chest constrict.
I sit at the small table, pulling my knees up to my chest. The chair is cold through my jeans.
“You can’t keep looking over your shoulder,” Koa says without turning around, cracking eggs into a bowl. He pauses, whisk in hand, and finally looks at me. “The threat is gone. Gilbert’s gone. Vincent’s gone. You’re safe now.”
“Am I?” The question comes out more bitter than I intended. “Because it doesn’t feel safe. It feels like I’m waiting for the next thing to go wrong, for someone else to show up and try to use me as a pawn in their game.”
“No one’s coming.” He turns back to the stove, pouring eggs into a pan. “The Reapers cleaned it up. As far as anyone knows, it was two gangbangers who killed each other. You’re not even in the story.”
“Except I am.” I rest my chin on my knees. “I’m in my story. I know what I did. And I can’t just... pretend it didn’t happen.”
The eggs sizzle. He adds butter, salt, pepper, moving with the kind of focus that says he’s thinking about something else.
“I don’t want you to pretend,” he says finally. “I want you to survive it.”
“What if I can’t?”
“You will.” He plates the eggs, adds toast, brings it over to the table. Sets it in front of me with a gentleness that doesn’t match his destroyed face. “Because you’re stronger than you know.”
I look down at the food. My stomach turns, but I force myself to pick up the fork. Take a bite. It tastes like nothing, but I chew and swallow because Koa’s watching.
We eat in silence. The coffee is strong and bitter, exactly what I need. Outside the window, I can see campus starting to wake up—students walking to early classes, cars pulling into parking lots, the world continuing like nothing happened.
Like I didn’t kill my father three days ago.
“Revan and Atticus,” Koa says, breaking the silence. “Went back to Blackridge.”
Something in my chest twists. “They didn’t say goodbye.”
“You were asleep. They didn’t want to wake you.” He takes a sip of coffee. “They’ll be back.”
“They will?”
“Yeah.” He sets the mug down, and I notice his hands are shaking slightly. “We’re not done with you, Lexi. None of us are.”
The words should be comforting. Instead they feel like a weight settling on my shoulders—the knowledge that I’m tied to these men now in ways I can’t undo, that what happened between us can’t be taken back or explained away.
“Hockey needs me,” Koa says, changing the subject. “Coach has been calling. I need to get back to practice.”
“Right. Normal life.” I push eggs around my plate. “You’re going back to normal life.”
“You are too.” He leans forward, elbows on the table. “You still have your dorm, but you can stay with me. I have my drum equipment, but I can move that shit.”
I look up at him. “Koa—”
“Just until you feel safe. Until you can be in your dorm again.” His eyes are intense, desperate almost. “I’m not trying anything. It’s just an offer.”
“Offer to keep me close?”
“Yeah.” He reaches across the table, his damaged knuckles brushing mine. “I can’t protect you if you disappear again.”
