“You’re a weird man.”
“Yeah.”
Quiet for a while. I think she’s gone.
“Good weird though.”
“Yeah.”
“...Yeah.”
She’s out.
I lie there. Don’t move. Don’t need to.
She almost let me keep going when she meant no.
Not tonight.
Chapter twenty-one
Nova
Asourcetipsmeoffat noon.
The Enforcers made contact with Jax. I put my phone face down on my desk and sit here without moving for a long while.
I know what I’m supposed to do. Verify. Follow up. File the story or kill it. That’s the job. That’s been the job and I’m good at it. The problem is I know exactly what the next step is.
But I don’t take it.
Instead I just sit here.
I finally get up, grab my camera bag, and go to practice like nothing happened. Because that’s the other thing I’m good at. Moving through rooms like I’m not carrying anything.
I’ve had a lot of practice.
Brody’s on me first.
He’s always first — something about my energy, apparently. He told me once with complete sincerity and zero irony.
He’s got his blocker off, tape still on his wrists, with a post-practice looseness of a guy who just left everything on the ice. He definitely plays like he promises.
“Shaw.” He drops next to me on the bench. “You look like you’re doing math.”
“I’m always doing math.”
“Bad math.”
“Brody.”
“Just saying.” He stretches his neck. “You know what helps bad math?”
“I’m going to regret asking.”
“Talking to the person the math is about.”
I look at him.