Chapter Two #2
There was another silence, the kind that vibrates like a tuning fork. He tilted his head, studying me, or maybe the hoodie, or maybe the fact that I had made myself into a blanket-burrito on his mother’s couch.
“How’d you get my hoodie?” he said. The words were sharp, but there was an edge of humor under them, like he was daring me to say something smart.
I tried to come up with something smart. All I had was honesty, which was its own sort of dangerous. “Harlow gave it to me,” I said. “I was cold.” My voice cracked on the last word, betraying every ounce of dignity I’d tried to muster.
Knox didn’t move for a second. Then his lips did something I’d never seen before—a twitch at the corner, a ghost of a smile, gone in an instant.
“If you want to keep it,” he said, “go ahead. It looks better on you anyway.”
I was not prepared for this. My heart did something it hadn’t done since third grade. It skipped a beat, then doubled up to make up for lost time.
I pushed the cuffs up my arms, exposing white wrists and hands that shook, just a little.
“I mean, I can give it back. If you need it. I’m fine, I don’t get cold easy, I just—Harlow insisted.
And then I fell asleep. I can take it off.
Not right now, obviously, because, um…” My words derailed spectacularly as I remembered I wasn’t wearing much underneath except a t-shirt that said “Science is Real” in neon green, and it was very much not my size. “Never mind. Sorry.”
He looked at me like he was trying to decipher a foreign language. Then he huffed, which could have been a laugh if you’d run it through a meat grinder and filtered it for all emotion.
“Breakfast in ten,” he said, and turned on his heel.
I watched his back for a long time after he left, and for a second, I let myself imagine what it would feel like to be wrapped up in those arms for real, not just by proxy.
I shook myself out of it. I had other things to worry about. Like the fact that my face was on fire, and not just from the bruises.
At least the embarrassment made a good distraction.
I spent the next five minutes bouncing between “I want to crawl under the couch and die” and “I kind of want to see him again.” It was a new record for conflicting impulses, even for me.
I made it to the kitchen by following the smell of toast and something meaty, which turned out to be bacon.
Bacon, plural.
The McKenzies did nothing by halves, least of all breakfast. The kitchen was bigger than the entire lower floor of my old house, with two stoves and a table big enough for a boardroom. Knox was standing at the island, back to me, pouring black coffee into a chipped mug.
His shirt had ridden up, revealing a thin slice of skin above his jeans.
I noticed it for too long, then noticed myself noticing, and immediately tried to think about global warming, or algebra, or anything that didn’t have to do with how much I wanted to bite that line of muscle just to see if he’d make a noise.
He turned, caught me staring, and raised an eyebrow. “You hungry?”
My stomach picked that moment to announce itself, loud enough to echo. I decided not to dignify it with a verbal answer. Instead, I slid into the nearest chair and tried to look at anything except the person responsible for my current state of psychic undress.
Knox set a plate in front of me. Toast, eggs, bacon. More food than I’d eaten in three days, all of it arranged with the kind of geometric precision that made my heart hurt.
I looked up. He was watching me, arms crossed, eyes dark.
“I’m not going to poison you,” he said.
“Just making sure you’re not a figment,” I replied. “It’s happened before.” I picked up the toast and took a bite, then realized I should thank him. “This is… really good. Thanks.”
He grunted, but I caught the flicker in his eyes—a shimmer of amusement, maybe. Or pride.
Hard to tell with Knox.
We ate in silence. I tried to do it in a way that didn’t make me look desperate, but after the first few bites, hunger overtook dignity and I plowed through the plate like a starved coyote.
Knox refilled my mug without asking, which felt weirdly intimate.
I watched his hands, the way he did everything with efficient, minimal movement.
No wasted energy. Probably a side effect of being trained by the Marines, or just by living in this house, where efficiency was probably a genetic trait.
I finished the food, then sat back, wondering if it would be rude to ask for more. He was already clearing the table, scraping eggshells into the compost bin.
“So,” I said, “what’s the plan? For me, I mean.”
He wiped his hands on a towel and turned to face me full-on. “You stay here. Get your head on straight. Rest up. If anyone comes looking—” He shrugged. “I’ll take care of it.”
“That’s—” I didn’t have a word for it. Insanely generous? Stupidly reckless? Suicidal? “—not necessary. I mean, I don’t want to cause trouble.”
“Too late for that,” he said, and the corner of his mouth almost, almost turned up.
My face went hot again and I involuntarily tugged the hoodie tighter. The movement brought the scent back, and I had to repress a shiver.
“Thanks,” I said, voice small. “I mean it. I know you don’t owe me anything.”
He stared for a second, then shook his head. “You don’t get it.”
“Get what?”
He set both hands on the island, leaning in so the muscles in his arms flexed in ways I’d only ever seen on fitness ads or torture devices. “You’re not a burden, Newt. You’re family. Maybe not by blood, but close enough.”
The word made something in my chest vibrate. Nobody had ever said that to me before—not and meant it.
Knox must have seen something on my face, because he straightened, rolled his shoulders, and tried to smooth the rough out of his tone. “Besides, it pisses Luther off. That alone’s worth it.”
I laughed, a small, rusty sound. “Yeah, he doesn’t really like me.”
“He doesn’t like anybody.”
Another silence. I tried to fill it with coffee, but the cup was empty. I rotated it between my palms, thinking about all the things I wanted to say and none of the ones I could get out.
“So, uh,” I said. “Harlow’s your brother?”
“Yeah.”
“He’s nice.”
Knox actually smiled this time. It was brief, but it was real. “Yeah, he is.”
The conversation might have died there, but I couldn’t let it. Not now. I wanted—I don’t know what I wanted. Maybe just a reason to stay, a reason that didn’t make me feel like a parasite.
“Do you need help with anything? Around the house, I mean. Or the barn. Or—I can fix stuff. Or organize things. I’m good at organizing.”
He gave me a look, the kind you give a dog that’s just learned to play dead and is very proud of itself. “You ever split wood?”
“I mean, no, but I can learn.”
He nodded, slowly. “We’ll see.”
I tried not to beam, but failed.
As I stood to take my plate to the sink, he said, “Leave it.”
I froze.
His voice was softer now. “You’re hurt. Take it easy.”
I nodded, sat back down, and did my best not to combust on the spot.
Knox moved past me, close enough that I could feel the heat of him through the air. He paused at the doorway, one hand on the frame, body blocking the light in a way that should have looked threatening but didn’t.
He glanced back at me, eyes on the hoodie, then on my face. “Keep it,” he said again, low and rough. “Looks better on you anyway.”
Then he was gone.
I pulled the sleeves over my hands, hugged myself, and tried to remember the last time anyone said something that nice to me.
I couldn’t.
But maybe, if I was very careful, and didn’t mess things up, I’d get used to it.