39. Esperr
ESPERR
I’m so tired, I could probably sleep for an entire week and then some.
And I doubt that would even help—it’s like suddenly my body realizes I’ve been running for three years and has had enough.
So when Zyran tried getting me out of bed this morning, he basically had to carry me—literally.
And now I’m sitting in the passenger seat, my head lying in the middle console on his arm, while he rubs his thumb over my thigh. My feet already hurt, and I haven’t even done anything yet.
I feel Zyran glance down at me, and I groan, not having the energy to talk.
“You know you don’t have to go in,” he says.
Suddenly the sleepiness that was strangling me stops, and I’m frowning, peering up at him. “Excuse me.”
“You could quit.”
I huff out a single ‘ha’, before my eyes drift close again. “You’re living in lala land.”
“You can quit, fuck it, both jobs. I’ll pay your bills.”
Once more my eyes pop open, only this time I’m sitting up, a deep frown etched between my brows. “Again, you’re in lala land; let’s back up, please.”
“I’m being practical.”
“You’re being—” I gesture vaguely around, “—a lot. I just met your family yesterday. And I’m not sure they’re all sold on me; hell, Rhys didn’t even come out of his room, and Cyran was staring daggers at me.
So let’s wait until you at least fart in front of me, or your family likes me, before we start talking about me quitting my jobs. ”
“I don’t fart,” he deadpans, turning onto Main street.
“Everyone farts, Zyran, just like everyone shits, even girls.”
He laughs, raising a brow, and thankfully my phone goes off before Zyran can spew any more nonsense.
Pulling my phone out, Oliver's name reads across the screen, and I’ve never hit answer so fast in my life.
“Oliver—”
“Hey.” His voice is easy, a little too easy, but I’m so relieved to hear it that I let every thought before him calling go out the window. “Sorry about yesterday, crazy couple of days.”
“Are you okay? You—you never miss a check in.”
“I’m fine; don’t worry about me,” he laughs. But something about it feels slightly off in his tone.
“Okay,” I sigh. “I just—you scared me.”
“I know I’m sorry. But I’m here, what’s up? You good?”
I glance at Zyran, who slows down before pulling into a spot in front of the coffee shop. “Yeah, I’m good.”
“Yeah?” something in his voice lifts, and I cough it up to it being me that’s the problem. I’m just reading into something that’s not there. “That’s good. Um… I’ll call you later, okay?”
“Yeah, okay.”
He hangs up before I can say much more, and I’m left sitting there with my phone in my lap, confused.
That’s the thing that keeps bothering me, not that he didn’t answer yesterday, though that is a little weird, or not even that he sounded rushed.
It’s that Oliver has never once in the years I’ve known him hung up first. He’s the one who stays on the line too long, who asks one more question right as you’re about to say bye, and who makes you feel like the conversation could go on forever and he’d be fine with that.
That wasn’t him.
“Everything okay?”
I look over at Zyran, biting my lips, to stop the emotions from getting a hold of me. I’m a big girl; I don’t need to cry over the smallest change of tone.
“Esperr.” He says my name in a way that tells me he knows something is wrong. “What’s going on in that head of yours?”
My gaze returns to my phone, at the black screen, and it makes me want to break the damn thing.
“He’s never lied to me,” I mutter. “Oliver, he, uh, in all the years I’ve known him, he’s been the most honest person in my life.” I pause, blowing out a breath before I start panicking. “Something just felt off; I don’t know how to explain it. Just, deep down, something feels wrong.”
Zyran doesn't immediately say anything, just taps his thumb over the steering wheel. He doesn’t tell me I’m overthinking it or that I’m probably tired or reading into things.
“Okay,” he hums. “Then we look into it. I’ll have Rhys pull up his information?—”
“Wait—” I cut him off. “No… just let me talk to him. I’ll call him after work or during my lunch break, and I’ll—I’ll pull it out of him.” I look at Zyran. “If something is actually wrong, I’ll know it, and then we do something.”
He looks at me for a long moment and then mumbles, “Okay.”
I hate lying to him, but the thing is, I’ve been sitting with this for a while now, longer than I’ve admitted to myself—Zyran can’t know.
Not now, and maybe not ever, not until I figure out the best way to deal with it.
Zyran might know that I grew up around his world and know that my parents were cleaners.
But he doesn’t know about the hitman, Michael.
Doesn’t know that somewhere out there is a person who’s obsessed with me in a sick way and that Oliver has spent years keeping me hidden.
That every city I’ve lived in has been a calculation rather than a choice.
If he knew, he’d do something about it, and that’s exactly the problem.
And I can’t risk that.
“I’ll pick you up after, okay?” he says, pulling me back.
Sighing, I nod my head before he reaches to the back of my head and pulls me forward, giving me a small kiss. “It’ll be okay.”
I let out a breath that I had realized I was holding. And then I’m pushing the door open and jumping out of the truck. I don’t look back, knowing that if I did, I’d probably break and might actually quit my job.
I knock on the coffee shop door and take a step back. It doesn’t take long for Eli to come around the counter from the back, and then the door swings open.
“Morning,” he says the moment he unlocks and opens the door.
Stepping through, I mutter morning back, and it isn’t until I’m inside that I turn around to see Zyran with his window rolled down. Only I don’t think he’s looking at me; he’s staring at Eli.
I frown but turn back around, heading to the counter and taking my jacket off.
“That your boyfriend?” Eli asks, and for a second I’m caught off guard. Eli’s never asked about my personal life, and while it might be normal, I still freeze.
“Uh, we don’t really have a label.”
It’s true, we don’t. Calling Zyran my boyfriend feels odd, but also he’s mine and I’m his, so.
“Hmm,” Eli hums, locking the door once more. “I didn’t know you were talking to someone.”
I pull the espresso beans down from the shelf and start filling the grinder. “It happened fast.”
“Fast like recently, or fast like?—”
I frown, spilling a few beans over the side. “Just fast,” I mumble.
He’s quiet for a second, and I feel him watching me as I move around the counter. I do my best to ignore it as I set up the cups, my markers, and the lids.
“Huh.” Eli turns his coffee cup in his hands, pulling my attention to him. “I didn’t realize you were even… I mean, you never seemed—” he stops, tilting his head. “If I’d known you were looking, I would’ve said something. Asked you out or something.”
I bit my lip, feeling every part of my spine seize up, because in the three years that I’ve worked here, not once has Eli, or anyone else for that matter, asked anything about my personal life. Or said they liked me.
“Wrong timing, I guess,” I say and then turn back to the machine.
He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I focus all my attention on what I’m doing, waiting for him to go when he realizes I’m not going to say anything else.
Unfortunately, he doesn’t get the hint.
“You ever think about what your life would look like if things had gone differently?” He asks.
“Nope.”
“No?” He sounds genuinely curious, which is somehow more unsettling than if he sounded pushy. “Like if you’d end up somewhere else, done something different.”
“I try not to live backwards.” Does having nightmares about your parents’ murder count?
“Smart, you seem like someone who’s had to start over before.”
My hands still for just a fraction before I keep going. He doesn’t know anything about me or what I’ve done, and I won’t give him any reason to suspect anything.
“Well, I think most people have,” I mutter and then grab a rag, needing to do something with my hands.
“Sure, but then again, you seem like you’re good at it. Like it’s something you’ve had practice with.”
I turn around and look at him, seeing him stand there at the far counter with his coffee in one hand and looking completely relaxed, chin slightly tilted and expression something that I can’t read.
“Maybe I’m just adaptable.”
He smiles and then picks his coffee up, raising a brow. “I guess.”
The front door opens behind him and Jessi comes in with her keys dangling from her hand and the cold air following her in. I’ve never been so relieved to see my boss in my life.
“Morning!” She smiles, her voice a little too chipper for the morning, but at this rate I’ll take it over talking to Eli.
Something about him no longer feels decent, and I hate the gut feeling that’s beginning to choke me.
By noon, I’ve had four iced lattes, and I’m about to finish my fifth when Jessi tells me to leave. I don’t argue with her and just untie my apron; my feet have been hurting since nine.
And I’ve been thinking about a phone call for hours.
So I grab my jacket from under the counter and step outside.
The cold hits me immediately, somehow colder than it was this morning, and for a moment I just stand on the sidewalk.
Watching a woman walk her dog on the street, a delivery truck double-parked with its hazards on, and two teenagers on the corner arguing about something that only seems to exist when you’re that young and everything is the end of the world.
Taking a breath, I lean against the wall and pull my phone out, finding Oliver’s name.
It rings twice before he picks up.
“Hey.” This time his voice is warm, and I smile despite how irritated I am with him.
“Hey, you sound better…” I say, keeping my voice easy and tone flat.
“Yeah, sorry about this morning. Crazy couple of days.”
I roll my eyes, watching the dog walker disappear around the corner and the delivery person step out of the truck. “Oliver,” I sigh. “Please talk to me, what’s going on?”
He pauses, and though it’s not long, I know him long enough to know that three seconds from him is basically minutes long for anyone else.
“There’s nothing going on,” he lies. “I promise, there’s just been a lot lately.”
“You hung up first this morning," I whisper. “You’ve never done that, not once in all the years I’ve known you.”
I’m only met with silence, and that might as well be him screaming at me.
“Oliver.”
“I’m fine, Esperr. I promise you, it has nothing to do with you or about you, okay? I’ve just got a lot on my plate right now.”
Nothing to do with you. Translation: it has nothing to do with Michael coming after me, meaning I’m still safe.
Oliver has spent years making everything about me, every check-in, every city change, and every quiet background check about whether I was safe and hidden.
For him to sit there and tell me something that has nothing to do with me feels like he’s handing me a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit in the box.
“Are you safe?” I ask, keeping my voice even.
“Yes.”
He says it too fast, and I close my eyes for just a second, feeling the cold on my face while I listen to him breathe on the other line.
“Okay,” I finally whispered. “Call me later, please.”
“I will.” And then he hangs up first, again.
I’m left standing there on the sidewalk with my phone in my hand thinking about what it sounds like when someone is lying to you, and I hate it. The warmth that stayed in his voice even when the words were all wrong.
But Oliver forgets that I grew up around that sound; I know it better than almost anything.
I stand there for another moment on the sidewalk, letting the cold air settle through my jacket and into my skin—into my bones. My skin begins to crawl, slipping through my heart, and I feel my insides begin to itch.
I need to move.
Pulling Zyran’s name up, I sent him a text—going to run home, don’t worry about picking me up.
I hit send before I can second-guess myself and tuck my phone back into my pocket before I take off.
The run always helps me, not necessarily by solving anything, but it gives my body something to do while my brain goes through a million things that can and will go wrong in my life.
My feet easily find the rhythm of the pavement, like I never stopped running while the cold fills my lungs and burns.
One foot in front of the other, I move through the city, trying to stop my brain from overthinking about Oliver and the way his voice was pulled tight.
That’s never been him, and I hate that I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. The way he said I’m fine before I even finished the question.
I turn a corner and my breath comes out in visible clouds. Pushing myself a little harder, my legs finally respond, and I’m moving faster and faster. It was one of the things my parents never had to teach me. I always knew how to move when staying still felt like something I couldn’t afford.
And almost too soon my building comes into view, but my lungs are burning and I feel my legs begin to shake. I slow to a walk for the last half block and allow my breathing to start to settle down
For a moment I stand there with my hands on my knees just outside the door, and then I straighten up and go inside. The stairs up to my apartment feel longer than usual, and my legs burn.
But that’s not the worst thing.