Chapter 6 Eamon #2
"Can you?" He reached across the table. Deliberate. His fingers landed on my wrist, where my hand wrapped around the paper cup. Light pressure. Warm. "What about now?"
My heart raced, and I did my best to remain calm and hide it.
"Can you scan and have a conversation while I'm touching you?" His thumb rested against my pulse point. He had to feel it hammering. "Or does that change the calculation?"
It changed everything.
It was Mac's thumb against my wrist, feeling my heartbeat, watching my face to see if I'd pull away.
"Mac—"
"I'm not trying to make things complicated. I'm just tired of pretending I don't notice when you notice me."
"This is a bad idea," I said finally.
"Probably."
"I'm working."
"I know."
My phone buzzed.
Michael: Status?
It was the real world reminding me it still existed.
I typed one-handed:
Eamon: All clear. Checking in at noon.
Mac's eyes tracked the movement. "You didn't pull away."
"I noticed."
"Why not?"
Because somewhere between the parking garage and this table, I'd stopped being the bodyguard who kept perfect distance and started being something I didn't have a name for yet.
"I don't know," I said.
It was the most honest thing I'd said since I'd taken the job.
He smiled, a slight turn up at the corners of his mouth. "That's okay. I don't know either."
His hand stayed on my wrist. Warm. Steady.
And I let Mac McCabe touch me while the Christmas lights twinkled around us.
Professional distance: Compromised.
Threat assessment: Failing.
His hand stayed there another thirty seconds. Then he withdrew it—slow, giving me time to process the absence.
The warmth lingered.
From somewhere outside, a children's choir started singing. "Deck the Halls" in enthusiastic, slightly chaotic harmony. The kind of performance where half the kids were singing and half were merely shouting "fa la la la la."
Mac's face lit up. "Oh my god, that's the Wallingford Elementary choir. They do this every year. Set up outside and terrorize the neighborhood with aggressive holiday cheer."
"That's terrifying."
"That's Seattle." He grinned, completely unguarded. "When I was a kid, Ma would bring us down here to watch. Said it was good to remember that not everything has to be perfect to be worth seeing."
I thought about that. About children singing off-key and people showing up anyway. About Mac's hand on my wrist and my disintegrating ability to maintain professional distance.
"She might have a point," I said.
I checked the windows. Reflections showed the mezzanine behind us—one other couple, two tables over. No threat.
The woman with the laptop had moved. Now typing. Just someone working in a coffee shop.
My heart rate refused to slow.
"Eamon."
I pulled my attention back.
"I lost you for a second there."
"Just checking—"
"I know what you were doing." He turned his cup in slow circles. "I do the same thing. Scan the room until you've memorized every face. Every exit. Then scan again because maybe you missed something."
He described my process with uncomfortable accuracy.
"It's my job," I repeated.
I made myself actually look at him. Not scan. See.
He turned slightly toward the window. Diffused, soft light shone around him. It caught in his hair and touched the line of his jaw.
His hands rested loosely around his cup. No tension. No performance.
He was safer at the Roastery than I was.
"Can I ask you something?" Mac leaned back. "How long have you been doing this? The hypervigilance. The scanning. The thing where you can't turn it off."
"Since my first job."
"Bullshit." He held my gaze. "How long have you been running from whatever made you like this?"
Three years. Ever since Kyra died on my watch because I hesitated.
"A while," I said finally.
"And it's working for you? This strategy?"
"It's kept clients alive."
"That's not what I asked." He leaned forward. "I asked if it's working for you."
"I'm doing my job."
"I know." His voice softened. "I'm just wondering what it costs you."
Everything. But saying that out loud would crack something I'd spent three years keeping sealed.
Mac's phone buzzed again. He picked it up. Glanced at the screen.
"I have to take this," he said. "Two minutes."
He walked to the far end of the mezzanine. Pressed the phone to his ear. His posture changed instantly—shoulders back, smile appearing.
I watched him talk to his agent. Watched him perform being fine while standing ten feet away from the only space where he'd been fine in days.
He hung up. Stood there a moment, head bowed, breathing.
Then he turned and caught me watching.
"Sorry," he said, returning to the table.
"Don't be."
"My agent. Wants to schedule January interviews."
I checked my watch. 11:43. We'd been at the Roastery ninety minutes. Longer than I'd planned.
"We should go," I said.
"Yeah." He didn't move. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For the coffee. For not laughing when I ordered something goofy—that Chestnut Praline monstrosity. For—" He looked out at a hint of sun peeking through the ever-present clouds. "For remembering I'm from here and that this matters."
"It does?"
"More than I expected."
I stood. "We should beat the lunch rush."
"Pike Place?" he asked.
I set aside my professional concerns. "Pike Place."
His smile could have powered the city.
We headed for the stairs. Mac paused at the railing, looking down at the small tree on the counter below.
"Eamon." He pointed. "That ornament. The baseball."
Hanging from a lower branch—half-hidden behind felt croissants and tiny espresso cups—was a small white ornament. Hand-painted. A baseball with careful red stitching.
And a number: 23.
Mac's number.
"Was that there before?" he asked quietly.
I replayed our entrance in my mind. The tree. The coffee-themed decorations. Did I remember every ornament? No. I'd marked exits, threats, and faces. Not individual decorations on a tree I'd dismissed as set dressing.
"I don't know."
"It wasn't." His voice was flat. "I looked at that tree when we sat down. I notice baseball stuff. That wasn't there."
That meant someone had hung it while we were sitting fifteen feet away. Had walked up to the counter, reached into the branches, and carefully hooked a custom-made ornament onto a tree in a crowded coffee shop.
While I was watching Mac's face instead of the room.
While my hand was on his wrist, feeling his pulse instead of tracking movement behind us.
"We're leaving," I said. "Now."
Mac didn't argue.
I moved first, positioning myself between him and the stairs. Three-step lead, eyes scanning the main floor as we descended. The woman with the laptop was gone and had been gone since before Mac's phone call. The timing registered—gone when the ornament appeared—but I couldn't prove a connection.
"Eamon." Mac's voice was soft and low. "Breathe."
"I'm breathing."
"You're hunting."
I was. Every face was a potential threat. Every person near the tree was a suspect. The barista who'd recognized him. The tourist with the phone. The man in the corner reading a newspaper—who reads physical newspapers anymore?
"We should go straight back," I said as we hit the ground floor.
"I know." But Mac wasn't moving toward the exit. He'd stopped at the holiday pop-up shop near the garage entrance. The rack of Santa hats caught the light, pom-poms swaying slightly in the ventilation current.
"Mac—"
"I'm not letting a stalker win." He picked up a hat with a light-up pom-pom. "I'm not letting whoever that is take this from me. From us." He set his jaw. "When's the last time you wore a Santa hat?"
"We don't have time for this."
"When?"
"Never."
"Never?" Fierce determination took over his face. "That's tragic. And I'm fixing it. Right now."
Every tactical bone in my body screamed wrong move. We'd watched and marked. We needed to regroup in a secure space.
Mac bought the hat—three dollars, cash—and turned to me.
"One photo," he said. "That's all I'm asking."
"Mac, someone just—"
"I know." He put the hat on his own head. The pom-pom blinked red and green. "I know what just happened. That's why I'm doing this. They don't get to make me afraid of Santa hats and coffee shops and Christmas."
He held the hat out to me.
I took it.
Mac's smile was immediate, fierce, and grateful. "Thank you."
I put it on.
He pulled out his phone and held it up for a selfie. He wore a ridiculous expression as he leaned next to me in the hat. "Say 'Merry Christmas.'"
"Absolutely not."
He took the photo anyway.
"Don't post that anywhere," I said.
"I won't." He stared at the photo. "An awesome Christmas memory. Thank you for letting me have this. Even if it's stupid."
"It is stupid."
Mac's smile turned sad. "But it's mine."
My phone buzzed.
Michael: Cameras caught someone at the house. Back door. Triggered alarm. They ran, but we can't secure it until the police clear it. Stay away for at least 2 hours.
I showed Mac the text.
"So we can't go back," he said quietly.
"No. Not yet. Which means we need to be somewhere public, crowded, where a stalker can't make a move without witnesses."
Mac whispered, "Pike Place."
"Pike Place."
When we were both back inside the car, my calm fractured. "I failed," I said. My voice was flat. "Someone walked up to that tree while I was watching you, and I didn't see them. That's exactly what happened with Kyra. I was watching her instead of the threat, and she died."
Mac turned to me. "Eamon—"
"I let myself get distracted. Again. By you." The admission tasted like failure. "By the way you looked in that light. By your hand on my wrist. By wondering what it would be like to—" I stopped.
"To what?"
"To be someone who gets to want you without it meaning someone dies."
Mac was quiet for a long moment. Then: "What if it doesn't have to mean that?"
I didn't answer. Couldn't answer. Not yet.
I pulled out and merged into traffic heading toward the waterfront.
Rare December sun filtered through breaking clouds, making the Christmas lights look less magical but more real. I saw the market ahead—crowds already gathering, vendors setting up, the whole chaotic ecosystem that would make keeping Mac safe exponentially harder.
We were both quiet until Mac said, "Let's go see some fish getting thrown."
I didn't tell him fish-throwing was a tourist show, scheduled at specific times, or that Pike Place would be a security nightmare. He already knew. We both knew.
The Santa hat's pom-pom blinked as I glanced in the rearview mirror. Red, green. Red, green. I was still wearing it.