Chapter 10 Violet
VIOLET
Igot ready for our double date in Nyah’s run-down little house, not all that far from my apartment in the shittiest part of Saint View.
It was an odd space that didn’t really feel like it fit her vibrant personality.
It took me thirty minutes of trying on outfits and another fifteen of debating makeup colors with her for me to put my finger on what felt wrong.
There was nothing personal to be seen. Other than her clothes, that overspilled a rickety-looking chest of drawers, and her purse she’d slung over one of the mismatched kitchen chairs, there was nothing of her in the space.
It might as well have been a hotel room.
There were no knickknacks collected on the flat surfaces from travels or shopping trips.
There were no family photos on the walls, no favorite pieces of art, no calendar reminding her of family birthdays.
She was new to town, so it stood to reason she hadn’t decorated, but it also gave me the vibe that the life she’d left, she didn’t want to remember.
Knowing your father was going to use you as a pawn to further his underworld business dealings or marry you off to the highest bidder would do that to you, I guessed.
I understood. I’d been lucky enough to walk away from my past. At least I had, until Travis had shown up again like a bad smell no one wanted hanging around.
The roar of Levi’s bike outside cut through my curiosity over Nyah’s house, and I shoved the outfit choices Nyah had given the thumbs-down to back into my oversized purse.
The file full of Toby’s black-and-white prints stuck out of the top, a reminder I needed to show them to Whip and Levi, so we were all on the same page.
But tonight wasn’t the night. Tonight, Levi and I were just going to be a regular couple, doing regular couple things.
I was going to pretend some psychopath hadn’t tried to murder us all, and try to forget someone was leaving piles of dead bodies around Saint View.
You know, just the typical problems a girl liked to avoid by going out for cocktails with new friends.
That black cloud could have lingered over me if I’d let it. But instead, I let Nyah’s infectious excitement fill me.
She ran to the window, all fairylike on her tippy toes, and squealed. “Dax is here too. Let’s go!”
I gave myself one final once-over in the mirror and nodded at my reflection.
The outfit wasn’t anything particularly special, just a maxi dress that managed to cover up my cleavage enough that it was respectable, and a cropped jacket, matched with a pair of white sneakers.
It was casual but cute. At least I hoped it was.
Though not terribly practical for riding on a bike, I realized, as Nyah towed me out her front door and kicked it shut behind her.
Despite the fact she’d only seen him a few hours ago when we’d ducked into the shop, she ran across the dead leaf-littered lawn to Dax and threw herself at him, zero concerns about whether he’d catch her or not.
He did, of course, and spun her around, her laughter tinkling through the air like glitter dust.
Levi and I weren’t exactly the ‘run to each other like we were the lead characters in a romantic movie’ sorta people.
He leaned on his bike, arms crossed over his chest, jacket pulled tight across his broad shoulders like he didn’t give a shit about anything.
But I saw his gaze snap straight to me, and the way it rolled over every inch of my body. I crossed the lawn to him, my skin tingling with a growing blaze.
I stopped in front of him. “Hi—”
That was all I could get out before he was grabbing the back of my neck and hauling me in, claiming my lips, kissing me stupid.
My knees went weak. Those traitorous bitches just gave right on out like a I was a damsel in distress and needed him to catch me. His arms tightened around me, pulling me into his chest, his mouth never leaving mine, deepening the kiss.
I lost track of the time. Of my surroundings. Of everything but him.
Nyah cleared her throat behind me. “Uh, just wondering how long you two are planning to make out for? Our reservation is only held for another fifteen minutes.”
I dragged myself away from Levi with a giggle, rubbing my lips together as they lifted into a smile. “Sorry. He nearly died earlier this week.”
Nyah grabbed my hand. “Yeah, yeah. We know.”
“We do?” Dax asked, his eyebrows pulling together in a frown. He glanced at Levi for confirmation.
Levi just shrugged.
Nyah let out an exasperated sigh. “You two were together all day. You didn’t once talk about it?”
Levi shrugged. “No.”
Nyah looked at me, and I just rolled my eyes.
It was pretty much all Nyah and I had talked about during the jobs we’d had together.
I’d word vomited the entire thing at her the moment I’d realized we were scheduled on together for a couple of big jobs Francine had picked up at a local office building.
She tugged me toward Dax’s beat-up four-wheel drive that had dried mud splashed up its sides. “Come with us, since you’re wearing a dress and we’re all headed to the same place anyway. We can fill Dax in on the way.”
I glanced at Levi, and he nodded, following us. But he stopped Nyah when she went to sit in the back seat. “Violet and I will sit in the back.”
“Your legs are twice as long as mine. You literally will not fit. Take the front, it’s fine.” She climbed up into the back seat and settled on the driver’s side.
Levi didn’t seem terribly happy, but he got into the front passenger seat.
Nyah was right. My knees touched the back of his seat, and he was a good five inches taller than me so he would have had no chance.
But I was a little disappointed. It would have been nice to curl up with him.
Nyah’s motormouth filled Dax in on the whole bluff ordeal as soon as he started driving.
His jaw dropped open by the end of her first sentence and stayed like that until he connected the dots.
Finally he had the full picture, it hadn’t just been the rain that had me and X turning up soaking wet at his store.
Levi said nothing. Without twisting back to look at me, he reached his hand behind him, between the gap in his and Dax’s seats.
I stared at his hand for a moment, not understanding what he was doing.
He wriggled his fingers at me.
A rush of happiness filled me when I realized he was asking to hold my hand. I was lucky I was sitting because those knees of mine were definitely weak again.
I threaded my fingers between his, staring down at the ink across his knuckles and how it contrasted with my undecorated skin.
Nyah paused in her long-winded story when she noticed us and mouthed, “Cute!” in my direction.
We were freaking cute.
This was what I’d dreamed of for all the months we’d written each other letters. Just a normal life, doing normal people things like going on a date with friends. In that daydream, we’d lived in a house not unlike the one Nyah rented, though I would have filled it with pink and all my trinkets.
I still had that dream. Only now Whip and X lingered around the edges of it, my brain not quite able to work out how it all fit together.
Dax was fully caught up on all the drama, or at least the version I’d given Nyah, which was ninety-percent truth with just a little held back to protect Murder Squad secrets, by the time we reached the restaurant.
Levi untangled his fingers from mine so he could get out of the car, and I waited for him to open my door because I knew he would.
I wasn’t disappointed. I picked up my purse and let him help me out and guide me inside the pretty Providence restaurant.
“Geez, I forgot how fancy this place is,” Levi muttered. “I feel underdressed.”
I squeezed his hand reassuringly. “You’re overdressed if you ask me.”
His gaze turned instantly hot. “Don’t say things like that if you want to actually make it through the meal without me dragging you into the bathroom and bending you over the sink.”
My breath caught.
He raised an eyebrow at my silence. That quickly became more of a smolder when I didn’t complain.
A low grumble rolled through his chest, and I was pretty sure I heard him utter a deep, “Fuck” Geralt of Rivia style, but Nyah was also excitedly exclaiming over how pretty the restaurant was, so I might have heard wrong.
We followed the hostess to a table in the back corner, and I pulled my chair close to Levi’s.
Nyah stared around the darkened room lit with table candles and twinkling lights. “Have you guys been here before?”
Levi nodded. “This is Hayden’s place.”
Dax’s eyes widened. “This is Chaos’s place? Shit, I didn’t even realize when I booked it. I heard through the grapevine he had his own joint. ’Bout fucking time. His talent was wasted at the shitty holes-in-the-walls he was working at in Saint View.”
Levi grinned at him. “Did you know about the sex maze in the back?”
I hid a laugh at the expressions on Dax’s and Nyah’s faces.
“The what?” she managed to squeak.
Levi went to answer her, but his gaze caught on something across the room, and his words died on his tongue instantly. He shoved to his feet so suddenly the table rocked and then, despite the classy atmosphere around us, Levi forgot himself entirely.
“Lynx?”
A man across the room turned in our direction.
My heart stopped.
Neither Levi nor the man noticed me going into cardiac arrest and clutching my purse beneath the table.
Levi moved to get around me, but the other guy was quicker and made his way over to our table before Levi could get very far.
Their smiles were wide and genuine, and the two of them embraced hard, colliding like two mountains and slapping each other on the back like they were long-lost friends who’d just been reunited.
They were a bundle of smiles and laughter and tumbled words as each spoke over the top of the other.
All I could do was dig my fingernails into the straps of my bag.