Chapter 670 | Patronizing Croissants

Chapter 670: 670 | Patronizing Croissants

I didn’t have an answer for that.

The silence stretched out between us and I watched her face cycle through expressions I didn’t have names for. Sloane loud was manageable. Sloane loud meant she was processing in real time, that the emotion was moving through her instead of getting stuck, that I could track where she was and meet her there. But Sloane quiet was worse. Sloane quiet meant she was doing math, and the math was not going to come out in my favor.

"The Eastside," she said finally. "That’s where you’ve been going. Every night you stay late at the office. Every time Dralun sends you somewhere and you come back smelling like fryer oil and old brick. You’ve been running rooftops in a district where people get killed, and you didn’t tell me."

"I’m telling you now."

"After."

"Yes. After."

She let go of my jacket. Her hand dropped to her side, and the amber sparks died, and she stood there looking at me with an expression that made my chest hurt in a way the System couldn’t quantify. The bond between us had gone strange, not angry exactly, but raw, like she’d peeled back a layer of herself and was waiting to see what I did with it.

"I hate this," she said. "I hate that you do things like this and I’m not there. I hate that you trust yourself more than you trust me. I hate that you probably think you’re protecting me by keeping me out of it, like I’m some kind of princess who needs to be locked in a tower while you run around playing vigilante with girls who wear wetsuits and kiss you on rooftops."

"Sloane."

"I’m not finished." She stepped closer, close enough that her body heat mixed with mine, and she grabbed my hand and pressed it flat against her chest, right over her heart. I could feel it pounding through her shirt, fast and hard, and the bond amplified it until it felt like we shared the same pulse.

"I love you," she said. "I love you in a way that makes me stupid and reckless and completely insane, and I know you love me too because I can feel it right now, through this thing we share, and it’s the only reason I’m not burning this hallway down around both of us."

"That’s romantic."

"Shut up." She squeezed my hand hard enough to hurt. "I want you to promise me something. One thing. Can you do that?"

"Depends on the thing."

"If it gets dangerous." Her voice cracked, just barely, just enough that I knew she was holding on by her fingernails. "If you’re out there on some roof at midnight and the situation goes sideways and you think you might not come back, you call me first. Not Dralun. Not the snake girl. Me. You understand?"

I looked at her face, at the fear she was trying so hard to hide behind the anger, and I thought about all the ways this promise could break. The Eastside didn’t run on phone calls. The people who operated there, the Lamias and the Draluns and whatever I was becoming, they didn’t have the luxury of backup arriving in time. A promise like this was a rope around my ankle, and we both knew it.

I made it anyway.

"I promise."

Sloane held my gaze for a long moment, searching for the lie, and whatever she found there made her shoulders drop half an inch. The bond between us shifted, the acid burn fading into something warmer, something that felt like relief mixed with the bone-deep certainty that we were both idiots who deserved each other.

"Okay," she said. "Okay. Give me my croissant."

I handed over the bag. She opened it, sniffed the contents, and her expression softened another degree when she found the orange juice tucked in beside it.

"You’re still overpaying."

"I know."

"It’s patronizing."

"I know that too."

"I’m going to eat this entire thing and I’m not going to thank you for it."

"I would expect nothing less."

She took a bite of the croissant, chewing slowly, and some of the tension bled out of her frame. Through the bond I could feel her settling, the anger banking down to coals instead of open flame, and I knew we weren’t done with this conversation but we were done with it for now.

"I have to go," she said around a mouthful of bacon and cheese. "Hale is running drills in twenty minutes and if I’m late he’s going to make me do the obstacle course backwards again."

"Sounds terrible."

"It is. He thinks it’s funny." She swallowed and fixed me with a look that landed somewhere between warning and affection. "Also, I should mention, Mom signed a new client this morning. Some supplement company that’s been courting her for months."

"And you’re telling me this because?"

Sloane’s mouth twisted into something that was almost a smile but carried too much edge to qualify.

"Mantle Recovery Gel. The stuff Grande Dame won’t shut up about on every talk show and morning broadcast. Apparently their marketing team wants to pivot toward the academy crowd, and Diane is helping them build a campaign around student athletes." She took another bite, chewing with the focused intensity of someone who was enjoying her revenge. "You’re going to love this. The launch event is next month. Big gala, lots of press, industry people from every major agency. And Diane has already told me she’s bringing both of us as her plus-ones."

I felt a headache start to form behind my eyes.

"Grande Dame is going to be there."

"Grande Dame is the keynote speaker."

Sloane finished the croissant and crumpled the bag with more force than necessary. "So whatever rooftop adventures you’re planning between now and then, maybe don’t die. Diane would be upset, and I’d have to attend the gala alone, and I look terrible in black."

She kissed me on the cheek and then she was gone, walking through the homeroom door with her orange juice in hand and her pink ponytail swinging behind her.