14. Thalia
Chapter fourteen
Thalia
Truth be told, I have no fucking idea what I’m doing anymore.
One minute, I’m convinced I need to pull away before Reed gets tangled in all the ugly parts of my life—before he gets dragged into shit he never deserved to touch in the first place.
I tell myself distance is the smart thing. The safe thing.
And then he looks at me like that.
Like walking away was never going to be an option for either of us. Like he wants more than stolen moments and reckless hook-ups in empty exam rooms.
And I’m weak for him.
Because the second his eyes land on me, all the noise in my head quiets. The panic dulls and my resolve crumbles so easily it’s embarrassing. I stop thinking about endings when he looks at me like I’m something worth keeping. Like I hung the damn moon just because I walked into the room.
I don’t know how to resist that.
Maybe because no one ever has before.
No one has ever wanted my company enough to chase after it. No one has ever looked at me as if losing me would matter. No one has ever asked me to stay like it was less of a request and more of a necessity.
I thought this side of me—the one that still yearns for connection—had died long ago with Brooks. I’m quickly realizing that maybe that part of me was never terminal. Brooks hurt me, but he didn’t kill me.
Because Reed is breathing a life into me that’s terrifying in its intensity.
We’re seated in a quaint spot, with dark, muted light fixtures that hang from above.
The stools below us are scratched wood and remind me a lot of Dale’s, the assassin back in the compound who owns a whole bar out in his backyard.
Along the furthest wall, bartenders move in front of a tall wall filled with glass bottles of whiskey, vodka, and wine.
The afternoon regulars are slowly ambling in from the street, shouting greetings at the staff as they take their seats at the bar. A few TVs play sports games in full swing as the atmosphere settles. But my attention isn’t on the boisterous game.
I’m sweating over meeting Reed’s friends.
Emma is stunning and not at all what I was expecting. She’s soft spoken with an aura that bleeds wisdom and kindness. She tucks her dark curls behind her ear as she offers a kind smile to me, her pixie-like features softening. “So, Thalia, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m a personal assistant,” I shrug, the lie rolling off my tongue.
Taryn snorts into her beer immediately, catching me off guard and causing me to blink at her. She’s a little tipsy off of three drinks—a lightweight.
“What?” Reed asks, his voice edged with something that makes my spine straighten. Is he angry?
Taryn lifts both hands innocently, grinning around the rim of her glass.
“Nothing. It’s just…” Her eyes flick between me and Reed.
“That’s the least believable thing I’ve ever heard.
I mean, come on! Just three weeks ago, the cops showed up at the hospital looking for her!
That doesn’t seem a little strange to anyone else? ”
Emma quickly slaps a hand over her wife’s mouth, chuckling awkwardly as her eyes crease at me. “Sorry. She gets very outspoken when drunk.”
Reed’s hand is gripping his glass so tightly I swear I can hear it cracking under the pressure.
Me? Heat prickles the back of my neck as a deadly calm washes over me.
I’ve been in this line of work long enough to know that overreacting and causing a scene is practically screaming the truth at the top of my lungs.
I may be fucking insane, but I’m not stupid.
I flick my straw paper towards her as my head tilts and my tone comes across even and steady. “Taryn, do you think I’m in the mafia?”
Everyone pauses before she bursts out laughing, loud enough to gain the attention of the tables closest to us. Emma cracks a small smile, rolling her eyes at her wife as Reed shakes his head, reclines back, and wraps an arm around my shoulders.
My heart pounds (because of course it does) and I feel like a teenage girl finally getting to date her high school crush.
Taryn sloppily points at me across the table. “You have the posture of someone who looks like they’ve buried a body or two. I watch Criminal Minds.”
“Oh, do you?” I muse.
Taryn nods vigorously, nearly missing her mouth when she takes another sip of beer. “Religiously. Which means I know things.”
“God,” Emma mutters into her drink. “Here we go.”
Taryn ignores her completely and points at me again, as if she’s presenting evidence to a jury. “Exhibit A: your posture. Nobody sits that straight unless they’ve either served in the military or robbed graves.”
“Those are wildly different things,” Reed says dryly.
“Exhibit B,” Taryn continues, louder now, “you evaded the police.”
I quirk a brow. “I didn’t know they were looking for me, and if you must know, I was questioned a few days after leaving against medical advice. I was just an unlucky bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time with a crazy ex-boyfriend on the loose.”
Reed’s arm tightens around me at the word ex-boyfriend, but he doesn’t pull away. He knows who Brooks is, and I don’t plan to keep my life a secret. We haven’t talked about anything yet, but this should tell him all he needs to know.
“So he’s an ex-boyfriend?” Reed asks quietly, his lips ghosting the shell of my ear.
“Mhm,” I hum, turning towards him and making our noses brush.
“Permission to lay him out if I ever meet him?” He asks as his jaw twinges.
Heat ignites in my stomach. “Permission granted.”
“Oh, come on!” Taryn declares across the table, tossing a hand in my direction. “That’s such a generic excuse!”
Emma pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing deeply. “Babe, stop interrogating Reed’s girlfriend.”
Girlfriend.
The word hits me directly in the sternum.
Reed freezes beside me too, subtle but noticeable. His beer pauses halfway to his mouth before he slowly lowers it. A silent conversation passes between us.
Are we together?
Yes.
Oh my god.
Am I Reed’s girlfriend?
I swallow past the thickness in my throat, my pulse pounding a mile a minute as I get lost in his dark eyes.
He offers me a small, fond smirk, brushing his thumb over my shoulder as if to give some reassurance in this moment.
It relaxes me far more than it should, as my shoulders sink and that sense of impending doom evaporates.
I’m safe.
I’m with Reed.
“You know…” Emma says over the rim of her glass, gaining my attention, “now that I’m looking at you closely, you do kind of have the vibe.”
“What vibe?” I ask.
“The vibe,” Emma says delicately, “of someone who knows how to dispose of a body.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Reed mutters.
I nod solemnly. “Thank you.”
“You thanked her,” Reed says.
“I’m trying to be polite.”
Taryn slaps the table triumphantly. “HA!”
A server walks by carrying a tray overloaded with drinks. She’s distracted by a table requesting another round when the weight of her drinks teeters and a glass falls. Before anyone can react, my hand shoots out automatically, catching it before it shatters on the floor.
The entire table stares at me in open-mouthed shock.
The server blinks her wide eyes in disbelief. “Holy shit. That was fast.”
I gently place the glass back onto the tray. “Good reflexes.”
Reed is staring at me like he’s just discovered religion, and it makes me squirm in my seat. He knows I’m hiding things. I know he knows. But instead of pushing, he just watches me like he’s trying to solve a puzzle he already likes too much to finish.
It’s so fucking thrilling.
Taryn leans across the table slowly. “That was incredibly assassin-y of you.”
“Oh my God,” Emma groans.
“I played softball,” I lie smoothly.
“You said you were a personal assistant.”
“I can be two things.”
Reed snorts into his drink. The sound is so unexpected I turn toward him in shock. His mouth curves against the rim of the glass, eyes bright with laughter he’s trying to suppress.
And suddenly I don’t care that I’m being interrogated. I don’t care that my entire life is one wrong move away from catastrophe. Because Reed is looking at me like I’m the funniest person in the room.
Like he’s proud I’m here.
Like this, sitting in a noisy bar with his friends while Taryn accuses me of organized crime, is exactly where he wants me.
The realization hits hard enough to steal my breath.
Taryn squints at me again. “One more question.”
I sigh. “Go ahead.”
“If you were hypothetically in the mafia—”
“I’m not.”
“—would you tell us?”
I smile pleasantly. “No.”
She slams her hands on the table. “SHE ADMITTED IT.”
“She didn’t admit anything!” Reed defends me.
“Okay, okay,” Emma says as she tries to distract her drunk wife. “That’s enough. I’m sure Thalia would love to talk about other things besides being mob-affiliated.”
“I have a teardrop tattoo under my makeup,” I lie.
Taryn points at me, her head swiveling between me and her wife, who only deadpans at her.
Reed grips the back of my neck, pulling me closer to him as he whispers in my ear. “You’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?”
I bite my bottom lip. “Very much so.”
“Taryn is going to have nightmares about you, Little Devil,” he muses as he brushes my hair behind my ear.
“She wouldn’t be the first person to dream about me,” I whisper huskily.
The corners of his mouth twitch into that heart-stopping half-smirk as our inside joke is shared between us. Overhead, the song shifts to I Wanna Be Yours by the Arctic Monkeys, and it creates a simultaneous reaction between us.
“I love this song,” we say in unison before pausing in shock at the others’ confessions.
“You know the Arctic Monkeys?” he asks, pleasantly surprised.
“Duh,” I roll my eyes. “I have good taste.”
He rolls his lips in, stifling his laughter as he rises from his chair and takes my hand.