Archive of Our Own

Style stalked out of the Heartburger, making sure to keep one hand on her hip and to step one foot in front of the other to emphasize the sway of her hips as she walked to her car. Shirtless.

Who the hell did he think he was? Where had she gone so wrong? He was into her—he was, she knew he was, dammit.

She had been so delighted when the auntie at the meat stall told her Fadel had asked about her. She’d stopped by later than she usually did to pick up rice and pork from her favorite food stall and made time to chat and gossip with the nearby stall owners like she always did, when, without her permission, her feet took her wandering by the meat stall. She’d known Fadel wasn’t going to be there. It was nearly 9:45; he would be well into prepping for opening at the restaurant. Still, the sight of the stall with no dark-headed, broad shouldered silhouette standing in front of it made something in her heart sink.

When he’d left her in that stupid storage room at the community center, it had taken every ounce of self restraint she possessed to not run after him and do something stupid, like key his car. Part of her was still tempted to do it. She knew a hundred different ways she could fuck up his jeep and make him come crawling back to her for repairs. She knew every garage in this city, and she had dirt on every single one of them. Let him see if he could find a place to service his piece of shit car when she was through; no, he would have to come to Style Auto and beg Style herself for her forgiveness, and she would maybe consider fixing his jeep after he bought her a meal and played nice for a full hour. At least.

Even thinking of it now, it was a good plan. Staring at the meat stall, she realized it was a great plan, actually. Only the auntie’s voice stopped her from turning on her heel and going to fetch a tool kit, and then the auntie told her that her grumpy, gloomy boy had actually asked about her. Fadel! Asking about Style! Making small talk with strangers to ask about her! Style exchanged high fives with the auntie at the meat stall, and then the one at the fish stall, and then the uncle at the pork and rice place as she picked up her order, and then at the vegetable stall where she dropped off the pork and rice plate to the woman who ran it because that woman always brought the saddest little cold salads or noodles for lunch, and Style was headed to get herself a hot, fresh helping of meat from her new boyfriend at the Heartburger.

She practically skipped as she walked into the restaurant, and she had to take a moment standing outside of the kitchen doors to compose herself. How long had it taken him to realize that he missed her? She’d stayed away for a full week now. Maybe he was desperate. Maybe he was regretting how he had left her in that empty room and stuck remembering how good she’d felt under his hands. Was he going to play hard to get, still, or would he break down and admit it the moment he saw her? Style checked her reflection in the window and made sure her hair and crop top were perfectly arranged. He would probably try to play hard to get, but Style knew the truth now, and she didn’t mind playing the role of the hunter for just a moment longer.

When he backed her up against the prep table, Style wanted to swoon. He was going to break all of his rules for her—what happened to the “change in the bathroom, Style, this is a kitchen” health-code-enforcer she’d met just a few days before? Before she let him lay her out on the table like his own personal buffet, she leaned forward and pressed a kiss under his jaw, back by his ear, and savored the heady smell of coffee and black currant that flooded over her, the edge of peppercorn urging her to dig her teeth in just enough to hear him sigh. He pushed, and she let herself fall back, raising her hands up to grab the edge of the counter behind her head.

“Bossy,” she said, smirking as she felt his hands come to grab her waist. As he pushed her crop top up, though, she frowned, and she shoved herself upright, batting away his hands.

“Gloves off,” she said, and snagged one wrist for herself to peel the glove off. “What are you, my gynecologist?” When she tossed the second glove to the side, she glanced up at him beneath her lashes. “Much better. Let me feel you, baby.” She pressed a slow, wet kiss to his fingers, letting her tongue flick out just enough to brush the tips teasingly. She laughed when he pushed her back down onto the counter, his eyes dark and nearly black in the kitchen lights. Around her, their scents swirled through the air, a perfect compliment of tart fruit and vanilla coffee, and she tried to keep herself still as he ran his warm hands up her sides.

Fadel paused, and she felt something hard press into the shirt just below her bra and travel down to the edge of her top. She craned her head up, trying to look, and he pressed a hand to her shoulder to keep her down. She swallowed back a whine and curled her toes in her shoes; did they have time for this? She should have locked the door to the restaurant when she came inside. Anyone could come in and find them here, pressed against each other and—he was cutting her shirt off, the slow, rhythmic snick of scissors cutting fabric echoing alongside the sudden thudding of her heart.

“Oh, fuck,” she groaned, her voice echoing obscenely against the metal cabinets in the kitchen. “That shouldn’t be hot. I liked this shirt, Fadel.” His name rolled off her tongue in a moan as she felt the bottom half of the scissors skate up between her ribs and touch the front of her bra clasp. “Gonna have to steal a uniform again. You like seeing me in your clothes that much, baby?” She hooked a foot around the back of his leg to try and pull him closer.

He leaned forward, keeping his hips too far away to give her any friction where she needed it, but he made up for it with his mouth as he breathed against her skin and marked a blazing, sultry trail up her stomach. She tensed, waiting for his mouth to land, wondering where he would stop, wanting at once to both reach out and pull him up to her mouth and shove him down between her legs where she needed him to touch her most—

His mouth pressed against the side of her neck, and she shut her eyes, hardly breathing as he huffed a warm breath over her throat.

“You’re never going to get what you want,” he said. Abruptly, the tension and his touch was gone as he stepped back, and the cold air of the kitchen rushed back in. Goosebumps erupted over Style’s arms and chest as she floundered, blinking up at the ceiling as her brain tried to come back online enough to process his words.

“What?” she said as she won the struggle to sit upright. He stood with his arms crossed over his chest, his face a blank, arrogant mask of amusement like he was watching a rude foreigner try to speak Thai to order him around. “What?” she repeated. He looked like he hated her.

He didn’t move. She slid off of the counter top and landed on the ground, bracing herself on the prep table.

“Get out of my restaurant,” he said, and he turned back to get a new pair of gloves. Her mind was a white wall of static, a blue screen of death, a black pool reflecting only her own shocked face in the metal counter behind him and replaying his words over and over in her mind as though the sixth or seventh repetition would make them make sense. It didn’t. He had told her to leave. He had looked at her like he hated her. Like he didn’t know who she was. Like he hadn’t touched her and kissed her and made her see stars across the ceiling of a storage room in a community center barely one week ago.

She couldn’t stay here. Whatever game he was playing, she had lost, really lost, and she couldn’t even see the board to figure out a way back into it. Style stared at his back for a long moment before she managed to get her feet working. As she reached the swinging door to the kitchen, she dug around in the pit of her stomach for a sense of outrage and anger; she found only a handful of fading embers.

Still, it would be enough to get her out of the cold kitchen. To get her somewhere she could take a moment to think through everything that had happened and what she had done wrong. “You can’t do this to me,” she said, aiming for vicious and confident. “No one gets to treat me like a whore.” As the words came out of her mouth, it hit her like a slap. That’s what he looked at me like, just now. He had looked at her like he’d bought and paid for her body, and she was hanging around begging for love like a teenager.

The door to the kitchen swung shut behind her, and she leaned back against the wall. She’d told him she wanted more than a one night stand. She’d been clear. Why the fuck would she follow him around like this if all she wanted was sex? He was the one who told her he was going to give her what she wanted and then treated her like garbage when she’d been confused.

Style had done one night stands before—Style was great at one night stands. But one night stands were built on a pact of mutual trust and respect: “I’m giving you my body for the night, and you’re giving me yours, and we’re going to get a little dirty and weird and then make smug, smirking eye contact if we run into each other at the grocery store next week because we’re both just people having a little fun together”—that was the deal. For him to fuck her like she was some sort of, of, toy that he could use and throw away, to act like she was the in the wrong for wanting something different, something better—that was his problem, not hers.

On her way out of the restaurant, she threw the tattered remains of her poor shirt into the garbage. What a waste of a perfectly good crop top. It hadn’t done anything to deserve that.

Style made her way out to her car and slid into the driver’s seat. She rested her head on the steering wheel, feeling the morning sun slowly warm up her bare shoulder through the window. What was she supposed to do now? She turned her head to look at the restaurant. She could walk away here, call it quits, lose the bet with Kant. He’d sent a pretty clear fucking message, and she could listen to it and walk away. Hadn’t she debased herself enough for this guy?

Style groaned and thumped her head into the steering wheel. The sex had been really good, though. Shockingly good for a rough, quick tumble in the storage room of a community center. So good she’d had to take a break from following him around because she was worried she was starting to catch feelings—for fucks sake, she had dreamed about him. After one night!

Fuck. She couldn’t just walk away. If she walked away now, he would win—he was already winning, look at her! Style! Reduced to whining and banging her head on the steering wheel of her car by a guy who was probably, right then, at that very moment, chuckling to himself at the look on her stupid, dumbstruck face when she’d realized he wasn’t about to hand her round two of sex in awkward places. If she walked away now, he would think his stupid plan to scare her worked, and, fuck, he would do it again to any other woman like Style who came along. Not that there were many, of course, Style was a very limited edition—but it was the principle of the matter.

Style watched several customers enter through the restaurant doors and shifted in her seat, pulling her shoulder out of the sun so that she didn’t start to tan unevenly. How could she prove to him that he hadn’t rattled her? She couldn’t give him too much time or distance, or he’d think she’d needed time to pull herself together. That she had been scared and needed to convince herself to come back. Style didn’t do scared. Style didn’t let boys fuck her and shove her out of their bed like she was trash. Style was a fucking treasure. Fucking her was a gift.

Style glanced down at herself. At least her bra was nice today—at least she was wearing a bra today. She wondered if he’d taken that into account before he cut up her shirt, or if he would have done the same even if she wasn’t wearing one.

Well, if Fadel wanted to play games, Style could play games. Uno reverse, baby.

The look on his face when he turned around and saw her lounging at a table, topless, made every less-than-subtle cell phone picture well worth it. His eyes drifted up and down her torso twice before he managed to keep them on her face, and she relished the chance to inform him that her nakedness was entirely his own fucking fault.

And then he’d tossed her his apron! His apron! What the hell was she supposed to do with that, make a halter out of it? Tie it around her like the world’s most unflattering strapless top? Style laughed and stood, letting the apron drop from her lap where it had landed onto the floor. The only one here embarrassed by Style was Fadel, and she would make that damn clear.

Part of her wished she’d managed to raise a round of applause on her exit, but she supposed that was a bit too dramatic for real life. Still, she opened the sunroof on the car on the way to Kant’s and made sure to drive two under the speed limit because being pulled over would make things very awkward very fast.

She kicked her shoes off in the entryway at Kant’s and called out for him. She’d steal a shirt, bitch to him about Fadel over lunch (was the car worth it, really?), and then go back to the garage. Turning up shirtless at the garage never went over well with her pa, so she tried to avoid it if she could. Wearing one of Kant’s shirts was easier to explain.

“He’s not here,” Babe called out from his room, and Style grinned as she walked over to where his door was ajar.

“Hey kiddo!” She popped her head in. “You’re home early.”

Babe’s eyes skittered down her chest, and he flushed a bright red. “Phi!” he said, looking up at the ceiling. “Where is your shirt?”

Style glanced down and grimaced. “Ah, oops. One second.”

She darted into Kant’s room and grabbed a t-shirt and a button up, pulling the tee on over her shoulders before she stepped back into view of Babe’s room. Honestly, they’d been to the pool and sauna enough before that the sight of her in a bra shouldn’t phase him either, but Kant had asked that she stop scarring his brother as much as she could.

“I had a run in with a very rude, very impolite boy,” Style complained. “I was bullied! Me! Can you believe that?” She fixed the button up to hang loose over her shoulders and leaned against the door frame. “Your brother had better actually like the guy he’s going after. If he breaks up with this kid in two weeks I’m going to run him over with his own car.”

Babe was looking down at his hands, and he only made a quiet noise when she finished speaking. Normally he would be chiming in with whatever gossip he had about Kant’s newest boytoy. Style paused, watching as he played with the zipper on his jacket. Why was he even wearing a jacket when it was warm outside? She took a subtle sniff in the air, tasting the usual smokey wood fire scent that soaked into the carpet of Babe’s room, but there was an undercurrent today, a flash of burnt marshmallow and burning book pages that set Style’s nerves on edge.

“Hey, you got any homework you need help with?” She spoke as she studied him closer, stepping into the room, and her heart stumbled in her chest when she caught sight of the bruise on his leg where his shorts had ridden up. “Nong?” she asked.

Babe looked up and saw the direction of her gaze. “Phi,” he said, and he tugged his shorts down. “It’s fine. It’s nothing, really.”

The movement drew her attention to his arm, and she saw another bruise peeking out from his shirt sleeve. Instinctively, she stepped forward, and her heart tripped over itself again when she caught sight of the white corner of the first aid box peeking out from where it had been hastily shoved beneath his sheets. Slowly, like she was approaching a skittish animal, she walked forward, and she touched his shoulder. “Nong, why do you have the first aid kit out?”

Babe’s eyes darted to the kit and back to her. “It’s—”

Style shook her head, gently squeezing his shoulder. “Don’t tell me it’s nothing, Babe.” When he didn’t speak, she shook his shoulder slightly until he looked up at her. “At least let me help fix it, okay? Can you show me where you’re hurt?”

Babe’s mouth pressed into a tight, pained line, and he looked away. The smell of distressed, hurt omega wafted through the air between them, his scent heavy and smokey like the dying embers of a campfire. His sweet marshmallow scent had turned to ash. Style pulled him into her stomach for a cuddle, holding his shoulders tight. “You’re just like Kant,” she muttered. “Stubborn.” Louder, she added, “It’s okay to be hurt, you know? You can just let it out. It’s just me here. You’ve seen me cry before, yeah?” Babe’s hands rose and gripped at Kant’s shirt at her waist, and she bit her lip, her stomach clenching as she heard him exhale in a shuddering, shaking sob. She wished, for the first time in a long time, that she wasn’t on scent blockers so that she could comfort him with her own scent, but she tried to make do by letting him breathe in her cherry and amber scent through her skin and the basil and apples scent of Kant through her borrowed shirt.

“Oh, nong.” She tried to run a hand through his hair and froze. A choked noise escaped her lips as her fingers caught on a clump of matted hair, and he made a small, bitten-off noise of pain. He was bleeding. Style fought every instinct she had to grip him and hold him as tightly to her as she could. She clenched her jaw and made herself breathe out slowly, trying to force gentleness into her hands as she pressed his forehead into her ribs so that she could get a look at the back of his head.

“Hang on, nong, okay?” She parted his hair to the side, probing carefully through the matted strands until she saw the small cut on his scalp. It was hardly two inches long but had bled heavily, though Style was relieved to see the bleeding had slowed to a sluggish trickle. Exhaling noisily, she bent down to kiss the top of his head.

“It’s not bleeding too much. You probably don’t need stitches.” The words were for both of them, and she pushed him away from her chest, thumbing tears from his cheeks and ignoring the pit of rage burning inside her. She had to be gentle now; she had to be calm and sweet. If she seemed angry, he would never tell her a damn thing. If she treated this like a big deal, he’d brush it off like it was nothing; Kant was the same way.

She let her hands fall back to his shoulders and kept her expression open and easy as she spoke. “Is that the worst of it?”

Babe sniffed and nodded. “It’s fine.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re the world’s strongest teenager, I got it.” Style brushed his bangs away from his forehead. “Mind taking off your jacket for me, though?” His eyes shot up to her, and he flinched as she raised an eyebrow. She tugged at the string hanging from the hood. “Come on, let me see what I’m working with. You think I haven’t patched Kant up from a fight before? Let me live out my dreams to be a sexy nurse.”

Babe scrunched his nose up. “Ew, phi,” he complained. “Can’t you just be a regular nurse?”

Style grinned and tugged at the hoodie string again. “No can do, sorry. The sexiness is part of the Style Signature Package.” She said the last words in English to give them a teasing flourish.

Babe swallowed and looked down at the floor for a long moment before he seemed to reach a decision, and he sighed, nodding. “Okay. But you can’t tell Kant. He’ll just worry, and it’s not a big deal—it’s not, phi,” he said, fending off her protest. “He’ll just make a big deal out of it, and there’s nothing he can do.”

Style bit the inside of her cheek and crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine,” she lied. Kant would kill her if she knew something was going on with Babe and she didn’t tell him. Little secrets, harmless secrets, Style would keep until she died. She’d never told Kant about the first time she took Babe to a bar, or the time she’d had to give him the sex talk when he was twelve because she walked in on him in his room and had immediately wanted to die, or the time she’d caught Babe smoking weed. She’d never told Kant about the time when Babe called her, panicked, because his friend had dared him to shoplift and he’d gotten caught—it had taken a couple thousand baht and a few smiles at the jumped-up security guard who seemed to think a 13 year old snagging a 200 baht snack from a convenience store was a capital crime to get him out of it, but she’d done it, and Kant still had no idea his baby brother had ever experimented in anything resembling a rebellious phase. Kant always thought Babe was perfect and innocent because he liked to read. As though reading never showed kids the various cracks in the world and all the fucked up ways they could dive into them.

Babe slowly pulled off his hoodie, wincing, and Style tasted blood as she bit down too hard on her cheek at the sight of bruises—old and new, spanning up his upper arms. “Fuck, kiddo,” she said. “What the hell happened?”

Babe looked away from her. “Just a fight with some assholes,” he said.

Style wanted to roll her eyes. Sure, one fight that left one and two week old bruises along with fresh ones. “Just a fight,” she repeated, and met his eyes so that he knew that she knew that was a load of bullshit. “All right,” she said with a loud sigh, and she settled down on the bed next to him. “Turn around, then. Let me put some stuff on the cut on your head so you don’t get an infection from dealing with assholes.”

Babe huffed out a small laugh, and Style grinned in triumph for a moment as he turned and let her pull the first aid kit from beneath his sheet. “You know this isn’t what they mean when they say ‘use your head’ right?” she teased as she dabbed some antiseptic cream onto the cut. She blew on it as she worked, trying to keep up a constant stream of cool air as she touched it to make sure he didn’t feel any more pain than he had to.

When she was done, she wiped her fingers off on her pants and stood up. “Come on, nong. Fighters always need to protein load after a battle. I’m craving kai thot takhrai. Or mu kratha! I haven’t had that in forever.” She nudged his arm. “What do you think?”

“Kant will be home for dinner, he said,” Babe reached up to scratch at the back of his head, and Style batted his arm down, tutting at him.

“Kant’s a grown adult, he can find his own food. Come eat with me; you can’t eat mu kratha alone.” She pouted. “I got bullied today, remember? Kant’s so deep in la la loveland that he doesn’t ever want to listen to my woes anymore. You have to help me, nong.” She batted her eyes at him, letting her pout grow more and more dramatic as he paused, and he finally laughed, shoving her away from him.

“Okay, okay! Fine.” He let her chivvy him toward out the front door, complaining when she tried to push him outside before he managed to fully get his shoes on. By the time she’d maneuvered them to a restaurant, he was smiling and telling her about the newest Shakespeare play they were reading. When their food was served, he shoved a bite into his mouth and groaned, and she laughed at him, reaching out to poke at his bulging cheek.

“You’re in another growing phase, huh? You should call me more often; we’ll go out to eat together more. You know I’m always down to eat.”

He nodded happily at her, chewing, and Style studied him for a moment before she piled several choice cuts of meat onto his plate. He stopped chewing and looked up at her, suspicious and waiting. Style smirked.

In a loud, carrying voice, she said, “So, tell me about your assholes.”

He spit out chunks of the food in his mouth, but Style had prepared—she dropped the napkin down from in front of her face. Several diners shot her surprised, nasty looks as she cackled. “Phi!” he groaned as he snagged a handful of paper towels and started cleaning the table. “Come on!”

Style grinned unrepentantly. “I’m not sure what you expected, nong. You know I don’t let things go easily.”

Babe glared at her. “I told you it was no big deal! It was just a fight.”

“Several fights.” She met his eyes steadily when he looked up at her, surprised. “Give me some credit, nong. I’ve seen more fights than you can imagine.”

Babe huffed and looked away, clearly unhappy, and Style sighed, leaning back in her chair. “Come on. Work with me here. If I don’t know what’s going on, I can’t help.” She raised up a hand to forestall his protest. “Even if I can only help you feel better, Babe, come on. When have you ever had to hide anything from me? You think I give a shit if you’re starting fights?”

Babe shifted in his chair and his foot tapped restlessly on the ground before he sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But you can’t—”

“Tell Kant, yeah, yeah, message received loud and clear, captain.” She saluted him sarcastically.

Babe ignored her and leaned forward, hunching in on himself in the chair. “You know my friend Ohm?” Style nodded. He’d been at Kant’s place a lot over the past few years. “I guess...because we’re both omegas…” Babe sighed and scrubbed at his cheek with the back of his fist. “People have been calling us gay or sissies.” He looked down at the table top and ran a finger through condensation from his drink. “And some kids started bullying us because of it.”

By the time he finished, his voice was nearly a mutter, and Style’s hands were clenched beneath the table top. Her mouth worked soundlessly for several moments before she pursed her lips together tightly. Babe wasn’t a stupid kid. If he thought the teachers would help, he would have gone to them. Finally, needing to say something to the top of his bowed head, she settled on, “That’s fucking stupid.”

Once she opened her mouth, she couldn’t stop. “First off, omegas aren’t gay, inherently—your brother is a beta and he’s gay as hell. Shit, I’ve met gay alphas, both giant and muscular and whatever and dainty little twinks.”

She ran her hand through her hair. “I know you know that,” she added because he still hadn’t lifted his head up. “And it sucks that you’re going through this. You and your friend. It’s bullshit.”

He looked up at her through his bangs. “It is,” he said, and she gritted her teeth at the slight wavering in his voice.

Style exhaled loudly and crossed her arms over her chest. “All right,” she said. “Thank you for telling me, first off. I know talking about shitty situations makes things worse sometimes.” She swallowed, debating with herself, and said, “So what do you want to do about it?”

He opened his mouth and she cut him off, rolling her eyes. “And before you say ‘nothing, phi, it’s fine’—” He glared at the high pitched, mocking tone she used, and she stuck her tongue out at him. “Before you say you want to do nothing, you should know that you have a few options.”

He sat up a bit, though his eyes remained wary. “Like what?” he said. “The teachers won’t help; they know.”

I deserve a fucking medal for not burning that place to the ground, she thought. Outwardly, she nodded. “Fine. They won’t help you. Do you think they’d react differently if an adult brought up the problem?” She held a hand up to stave off his automatic response. “I’m not saying I’m going to tell them, chill out. I’m asking. If an adult brought the problem to their attention and made a big, adult deal out of it, would they get their shit together? You know the rules are different for adults sometimes.” That had been one of the first lessons she taught Babe as he grew up.

To his credit, he slumped back into his chair and thought about it. “I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I don’t think so. They’d probably say they were going to handle it to your face and then sweep it back under the rug once you left.”

Style grumbled under her breath as she shoved a bite of rice and meat into her mouth. “Fine,” she said. She would keep that card in her back pocket, though, if things got bad enough. “The kids doing this—they have any enemies?” He rolled his eyes at her again, and she grinned. “I’m just asking. Football versus basketball team, you know? Enemy of my enemy and all that?” Style had dated the captain of the soccer team early on in high school because it meant the co-captain of the basketball team would leave her alone. It helped when Kant got into a fight with someone in his biology class, too, when a member of the soccer team recognized Kant as Style’s friend and stepped in.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “They’re on the basketball team, I think.”

Style nodded. “Keep that in mind; see if the basketball team has any other group they don’t get along with. If you can join that group, they’ll help protect you.” She tilted her head to the side. “Any group would be good, honestly. More people around means they’re less likely to approach you at all.”

He sighed and played with the food on his plate, pushing it around in the sauce. “They always manage to find one of us. We can’t hang out in the cafeteria all day.” He sounded so tired. Style closed her eyes for a moment, trying to push down the swell of anger and hurt pulsing through her as she breathed. How long had this been going on? How had she and Kant missed it? Of course he’d worked to hide it, but the thought that he’d been in pain right in front of her and she hadn’t noticed sent a throb of guilt into her stomach. The food in front of her suddenly seemed unappetizing.

“Phi,” he started, quiet and exhausted. He watched her with a pained expression, probably reading the guilt and helplessness on her own face. “It’s only for a few more months. I’ll graduate in May, and then I won’t have to deal with any of it. Anything I do now could make it worse. I just want to get through it and let it go.”

Style put her forehead in her hands. She wanted to cry. “Kant would hate this,” she said. “He would hate for you to be hurting like this when he doesn’t know about it.” She knew exactly how Kant would feel, down to the burning behind his eyelids and the way he’d want to throw something against a wall.

“Phi!” Babe’s voice broke too loud across the table, garnering a startled flinch from the couple sitting next to them, but Babe’s eyes were wide as he reached out toward her. “You promised you wouldn’t tell Kant—you can’t tell him.”

Earlier, she had been set on telling Kant. Hearing Babe tell her the truth, Style was more sure than ever that Kant needed to know. But if she told him, Babe would never tell her anything ever again. If she told Kant, Kant wouldn’t let this go. He’d storm the school; he’d hunt down every kid who put their hands on Babe and every teacher who stepped back and watched it happen. If she told Kant, there would be no hiding from Babe that she had told Kant. He’d see the pain and anger in Kant’s face, and he’d turn right to look at her. And she would deserve it, whatever look of betrayal he threw at her. She’d never broken a promise to him before, not like this.

Her instincts warred with her reason. Babe was almost 18. He had to learn how to deal with his own problems; Style and Kant had dealt with everything on their own when they were his age—her pa tried, he was around, but he let her and Kant have free reins most of the time. Babe was a good kid, a smart kid. He wasn’t dealing drugs or stealing cars or partying every night. Babe was going to go to college. He should have earned her trust by now, shouldn’t he? Couldn’t she trust him to handle a few asshole teenagers?

Style sucked in a deep breath and nodded once, sharply, before she looked up to meet his eyes. “I won’t,” she said. “I won’t tell him. But Babe,” she grit her teeth, struggling against the wave of frustration and uselessness that flooded through her. “We’ll do nothing for now, but if it gets worse—if it gets worse, you have to tell me.” She reached out to take his hand. “Please tell me. I swear I’ll try not to do anything you don’t want, but I can’t stand back and let you get hurt.”

Babe searched her eyes, his brown irises flicking back and forth between her own before he exhaled shakily and nodded. “Thank you, phi,” he said. “I’ll tell you. I promise I’ll tell you if I need help.”

“If it gets worse,” Style corrected, her tone sharp. “Don’t try to wordplay me, Mr. Bookworm.”

Babe smiled a little and nodded again. “All right, all right. I promise I will tell you if it gets worse,” he repeated faithfully, if a little patronizingly.

Style squeezed his hand and finally let it go. “Shit, kiddo, you’re so grown up now. Getting into fights, determining the course of your own fate like a lone pirate on the seas…” He laughed quietly, shaking his head at her, and picked up his fork to start eating again.

“I’m not in the middle of of the ocean, phi,” he complained.

“Damn right you’re not,” she said, and smacked the table. “You’re in the best place in the whole world: by your incredibly competent and sexy phi’s side.”

He snorted, and Style took a moment to check the time on her phone. The support group was meeting tonight, and Style was debating on whether she wanted to go back to it. She didn’t want to use a serious meeting just to needle Fadel, but she needed to prove to him that he wasn’t going anywhere, and she was sure he thought she wouldn’t show up again after last time. Joke’s on him, she thought meanly. If I could convince them to hold the meeting in the room where he fucked me and dumped me, I would.

Across from her, Babe paused, tilting his head to the side in a wide eyed innocent way that set Style’s nerves on edge. “By the way, phi,” he said. “You haven’t told me about the whole, uh,” he scrunched up his nose again. “Shirtless thing.”

Style groaned, flopping dramatically back into her chair. “Ugh, don’t remind me,” she said, as though she hadn’t been thinking about it since the moment she drove out of the Heartburger’s parking lot.

Babe pulled a piece of meat off a skewer and dropped it onto her plate, shaking his head. “You said you wanted my help with it.” He shot her one of her own favorite expressions—a raised, teasing eyebrow, and Style wanted to reach out and ruffle his hair and pinch his cheeks. That’s my nong, she thought. Good. Whoever put their hands on him would recognize her from his expressions alone when she came for them.

“Fine,” she whined. “But you can’t laugh at me—my pride is already so damaged; I can’t take it.” She waited until he nodded placatingly to tell him about Fadel. She tried to edit the sex stuff out of it, but by the way his cheeks reddened, she wasn’t doing a very good job. Though, she complained to herself, it’s pretty hard to describe why someone would cut off your shirt without it being a sex thing. Fadel, you asshole.

By the time she finished, she’s pretty sure the two tables on either side of them had gotten the gist of the whole story, and she was gratified to see one of the women nodding her head vigorously when Style bemoaned how she had been wronged. She determinedly ignored the muttering of the guy on the other side who said something about learning lessons and blahblah boring whatever.

“Obviously,” she finished, “I showed him that he was the only embarrassment in his establishment and walked out of there shirtless in front of his customers.” She recalled the shocked, frustrated look on his face when he’d turned to see her sitting at the table and smiled, but she quickly deflated. “But I don’t know what to do now. He disrespected me. I can’t let him get away with it.”

Babe was watching her with an odd expression, and when she looked up at him, he bit his lip. “Phi,” he said slowly. “Are you sure you don’t...like him?”

Style’s squawk of outrage startled the two couples next to them, and Babe hurried to give them polite, apologetic wais as Style made a face at Babe. “As if! You think that man deserves my love? Were you not listening to what I said, nong?” She leaned over the table and flicked his forehead. “Did you hit your head too hard?” She waved her hands in front of his face, flashing two and three fingers. “How many fingers am I holding up? What year is it? Who’s the author of that Shakespeare book you’re reading?”

He shoved her hands away from his face, laughing. “I’m just saying, the way you talk about him…” he trailed off, a smirk stealing across his face. “You sound almost impressed.”

“I am impressed!” Style stood up, her chair scraping back against the floor. “Look at me! He said no! To this!” Repeatedly!

Babe covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking with giggles as Style sank back down into her chair. She was playing it up for him, but a part of her was serious, too. Babe wasn’t wrong—most of her was angry and humiliated at the way Fadel had treated her. But one part—one small, very tiny part—was reluctantly enamored. Teasing him was a game she couldn’t get enough of. Watching his jaw clench when she managed to piss him off, seeing the way his eyelids fluttered when she trailed her fingers over his skin—knowing that she had been the cause of those moments of him losing control was heady and addictive. She wanted him to surrender control to her, to let out all the weird little mechanics of his mind and spill out all the words he was so clearly biting back every time he looked at her.

But she didn’t like him. She was doing this for Kant, and for Kant’s car, and for the smug satisfaction she would feel when he finally gave in to her. She’d get the car and let their relationship lose its steam—and it would: he would explode like a firework and fade from her life, like all the other boys before him—and forget about him, eventually. She didn’t like him. He wouldn’t stay. The parts of him that liked her now liked her because she was different and fun and persistent. He’d probably never had a woman dare to get in his face like she did. Of course he was intrigued. It wouldn’t last. Once he let himself have her, he’d realize he could let himself have anyone.

Babe’s fingers snapped in front of her face, and she shook herself from her thoughts. Babe shot her a knowing look, and she flipped him off. “You look like Kant when you look like that. It creeps me out,” she complained.

“All right,” he said. “So what do you want to do about it?” He steepled his hands in front of him, his tone teasing in a way she didn’t understand until he continued, “And before you say nothing, you should know that you have a few opt—”

Style threw a balled up napkin at him. “You little shit,” she said, laughing. “Don’t throw my words back at me!”

Babe glanced over her shoulder and ducked down, looking sheepish. “You’re going to get us kicked out,” he said.

Style glanced over her shoulder and threw a grin at the owner who was glaring at her. “Ah, oops. Time to go.”

She paid the bill, giving the owner a polite wai and many compliments, and tugged on Babe’s wrist to pull him out of the restaurant. “Ice cream?” she asked.

Babe rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to try to cheer me up, phi. I’m fine.”

Style rolled her eyes, exaggerating the movement to mock him, and pulled him down the street toward an ice cream shop. “Who said I’m cheering you up? I’m the one who deserves ice cream, or did you forget I was dumped today?”

“You weren’t even dating,” he protested, but he let her pull him into the shop.

“Semantics.”

They ordered and settled at a bench outside to eat, licking cold drops from the edges of the cone. She savored the chocolate flavor she’d chosen and leaned back against the wall behind them to stare up at the sky. The sun would start to set soon; the support group would meet at eight like they always did.

“I just don’t understand what I did wrong,” she admitted. “He seemed to be into me.”

Licking his cone, Babe squinted against the sunlight and hummed. “I don’t think you did anything wrong,” he said slowly. “Maybe the problem is that you’re doing things right.” He made a face and shook his head. “Well, not right.” Style wasn’t sure if she appreciated the criticizing tone of his voice, but she let him continue because she was a good, generous older sister who was patient in the face of her nong’s flaws. “But whatever you’re doing, it’s working too well. He’s trying to scare you off.”

Style wanted to throw her ice cream on the ground and stomp on it. How many times would he try to push her away? “We’ve done this song and dance before,” she grumbled.

Babe shrugged and bit into his ice cream. “Guess you have to do it again,” he said through the mouthful. “If you want him, I mean.”
Style bit into the top of her waffle cone, knowing it was only going to make the ice cream spill over in a minute but doing it anyway just for the crunch. “Ugh. Fine.” She knocked her shoulder into his. “You’re a smart kid. Who raised you?”

He laughed. “Kant.” With a cheeky grin, he glanced at her out of the corner of his eyes. “No one else. Just Kant.”

Style growled and reached out like she was going to knock the ice cream cone from his hands. “Oh? I didn’t help at all, huh? Then I guess I shouldn’t buy you ice cream either.”

Protecting his cone with his free hand, Babe stood up and ran toward the car, and Style dumped her ice cream into the nearest trash bin and ran after him. Once they were in the car, she stole a bite from his ice cream while he was distracted putting his seat belt on, and he complained about it all the way home as she passed him a stack of napkins to keep him from dripping ice cream on her seats.

When they got back to Kant’s, she ruffled his hair, careful to avoid the cut on the back of his head. “Hey,” she said to get his attention. “When you shower tonight, be careful with your shampoo. It may start bleeding again, but it shouldn’t bleed for long. If you start feeling nauseous or dizzy, call me, okay?”

He nodded, smiling, and pushed himself out of the car. “Thanks, phi.” He waved as she drove off. She stopped off at the garage to check on everything, and she took a few minutes to pace in her room, thinking about Babe. Kant needed to know that something was going on with Babe; she had promised Babe she wouldn’t tell Kant, and Babe had promised to tell her if things got worse...but Babe was as stubbornly independent as Kant, sometimes. Kant never wanted to tell Style when he needed help. Style only ever found out Kant was in trouble if she badgered it out of him or followed him directly into the trouble.

Maybe there was a way she could keep her promise to Babe while also alerting Kant to the fact that his little brother was apparently getting the shit beat out of him every so often. Kant had been so busy with Bison lately, she wasn’t sure if he’d been able to spend much time with Babe. Maybe she just needed to give him a nudge to actually look, and he’d see for himself.

Pulling her text thread up with Kant, she sent a message.

Style: Hey, breakfast or lunch tomorrow? We need to talk. It’s important!

What she would say to him when they met, Style wasn’t sure. But she would say something (without saying everything), and it would have to be enough.

Style showed up late to the support meeting. She spent ten minutes pacing in front of the building doors before she finally convinced herself to go in. A younger man was talking about a break up, and Style felt bad for interrupting, but she knew from the dark look on Fadel’s face that he wouldn’t let her stay at the meeting for long. She couldn’t drag this out.

“You’re the one with the, uh, friend who disappeared,” the man in charge said. “How is that going? Have you heard from him or tried to reach out?”

Style waved him off. “No. I actually wanted to talk about something else tonight.” The man seemed unsure, but Style pressed on. “It’s important; it’s ruined my self-esteem and humiliated me.” The man glanced around the circle and motioned for her to continue. “I was used and discarded,” she declared loudly, glaring right at Fadel. She was going to tell him exactly what he did to her and how it made her feel, and he was going to sit there and listen to it. This whole time, he got to play the cool guy and shove her away, scare her, insult her, and she let it happen because she wanted to play nice. Style was done playing nice.

“That’s right,” she said, seeing the confusion on the faces around her. “I was nailed and bailed. Someone used me like a sex toy and then left me, like I was nothing.”

One of the women in the group covered her mouth with a hand. “Yes,” Style said, nodding at her. “It was shocking—I mean, look at me. I trusted this man, I gave him myself in good faith, and he walked away like I was something he had bought and paid for. I don’t know how to look at myself now because all I can see is how he looked at me.” She raised an eyebrow at Fadel. “People who do that, who use other people for their own desire and then toss them aside, they don’t understand the pain and anxiety they cause. They don’t understand how their actions affect others because they don’t view those they use as people worthy of respect. I would have rather been slapped.”

The boy next to her perked up, speaking even as Fadel and the organizer opened their mouths to interject. “I completely understand,” he said. “That’s what happened to me, too. My boyfriend just left me; he said he didn’t love me anymore, and he left. Like everything we had was nothing.” Style turned to look at him, caught off guard by his earnestness. “They don’t know how they cause others pain because they don’t feel anything themselves.” A waft of something like honeysuckle and grass floated into the circle, carrying the undertones of misery and anger on a wave of bitter earth.

Style blinked. Well, that’s probably not true, she thought. The boy continued. “They don’t deserve to be in a relationship at all. They should die alone!”

Style was beginning to get concerned and turned more fully towards the boy. It was one thing to say hyperboles like that about fictional characters or truly evil people, but it was another thing entirely to say that about a—she looked over the boy, trying to guess his age; she was so bad at ages—eighteen-to-twenty year old boy who broke up with his boyfriend. Style would have to find a way to gently untangle that line of thought with him. He had every right to feel hurt, but his boyfriend probably broke up with him for his own valid reasons. “Well, that’s a little harsh—” she started to say, and suddenly there was a hand on her wrist dragging her out of the meeting room.

“Hey!” she said. Fadel’s broad shoulders relentlessly led her outside. “What are you doing? Let go of me.” She tried to dig her heels into the ground, and he abruptly released her, forcing her to stumble to her knees. “What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded again as she shoved herself off the ground. She brushed gravel off of her pants, hissing at the ache in her knees. Did Fadel actually want to fight her? Fuck, she would lose so quickly, it wouldn’t even be funny. She’d seen him take out those three guys at the host club.

“What am I doing? What are you doing?”

“What does it look like? I’m expressing my feelings. You had sex with me and then tossed me aside. Did you think I would just accept being treated like that? You need to take responsibility!”

Fadel rolled his eyes. “What, like you’re pregnant?”

“I might as well be!” The words were out of Style’s mouth before she could think about it. “I can’t sleep, I can barely eat. I can’t look at myself in the mirror without thinking about how you looked at me like I was—hey!” Fadel shoved her towards his jeep, and she stumbled again. “What are you doing?” Did he think she really was some kind of toy that he could fuck and shove around however he wanted? Style may have liked roughing things up on occasion but she required gentle handling most of the time!

“I’m shutting you up,” he said. “Get in the car.”

Style glanced between Fadel and his car and crossed her arms. “What does that even mean?” Like hell she was going to get in that vehicle.

Fadel glared at her. “Get. In. The. Car.” Each word was punctuated by a sharp spike in his currant and peppercorn scent, so strong it made her eyes water and her knees buckle under the weight of the command.

Style took a deep breath in through her mouth and tried to regain her bearings. “That alpha bullshit won’t work on me, asshole,” she said through her teeth. It wouldn’t work. She wouldn’t let it work. Style had faced a hundred alphas blaring get on your knees at her before, she could withstand—

Fadel stepped closer, baring his teeth in front of her face as he gritted out, “Get in the car, or I will make you get in the car.” A fresh wave of his pheromones swept over Style, and she stumbled backward into the jeep; the scent tugged at the core of her like it had a direct line from her nose down her spine, sending a jolt of arousal through her stomach. She bit her lip to smother a whine from escaping. Every ounce of pheromones he poured into the air was calling for her to come closer, and she was dying to reach out and bury her face in his shoulder. She wanted him to touch her, to press his fingers into the fading bruises on her waist and bite down on her neck until she couldn’t breathe.

“Fuck,” she gasped out, trying to get a breath of fresh air. She hadn’t lost control like this since—she shook the thought away. It didn’t matter that his pheromones were saying obey and mad and whatever else he was throwing into the heady cocktail of his scent; all she could smell was him—the very scent that she woke up craving this morning—and the way it mixed with her own like her own blend of sex and ambrosia.

She looked up at Fadel, his shoulders set and steady even as he glared down at her, panting with the effort of restraining himself, and she saw the moment that he realized she wasn’t afraid. She laughed, though the effort was mostly an exhaled breath, and licked her lips as she tried to get a hold of herself. His wide, surprised eyes scanned her for a moment, looking almost alarmed as she slid a hand through her hair and panted, trying to catch her breath.

He backed up a step—almost, she thought, involuntarily—and Style took another deep breath in through her mouth. “Fine,” she said. “I’ll get in the car if you stop smelling like that.” She couldn’t think when he smelled like that. She had to be able to think. Because he was angry. Because she wanted him, still, in ways she couldn’t bring herself to admit. Because if she couldn’t think, she was going to start stripping in the parking lot, and the whole point of this trip was to get back at him for when he made her strip in public, not to repeat the humiliation she had felt this morning.

His glare slammed back onto his face like a locking door, and he stepped past her to open the jeep door for her. “Get in,” he muttered.

Style clambered into the jeep and barely managed to pull her foot inside before he slammed the door. “Fuck,” she said again, to herself, as she watched him round the car to the driver’s side. She never reacted to alpha pheromones like that. Even with all the suppressants in the world, she could smell them as strongly as any omega—no matter how much she wanted it, she would never be a beta biologically. If she was a beta, she might be able to smell the scents, but they couldn’t affect her nearly as strongly. It was only because she was an omega that she was having such a strong reaction—but she’d never reacted like that to an alpha before, not even any of her previous boyfriends or hookups. He just smelled so good.

She squirmed in her seat as Fadel got into the car, the lingering scent of him surging into the interior along with him, and she rolled down the passenger window, ignoring his glare. “No,” she said. “Not one word. You’re the one who decided to flex your scent like we were in the fucking thunderdome. I should flood the car with my scent and see how you like it.”
Fadel started the car and began to drive. Once Style had enough fresh air to both think and speak, she asked where he was taking her. He ignored that question and then proceeded to ignore every other question and inane observation Style could make. She entertained herself on the drive by saying increasingly ridiculous scenarios that he could be leading her into, carefully watching the side of his face for any tick of humor or irritation in his expression. He was disappointingly stone-faced.

He pulled them off the main road onto a gravel one just as she began listing a scenario where he was taking her to an all-inclusive beachside resort to meet up with Kant and Bison for an expenses-paid, three week vacation, at the end of which he planned to propose to her. He got out of the car before she reached the proposal part, but she thought describing a romantic sunset on the beach with a red carpet leading up the sand dunes to the resort painted the picture well enough.

Following him out of the car, she looked around at the frankly creepy abandoned farm he’d brought her to. “So what are we doing here?” she asked. “Just so you know, this isn’t going to make me shut up. In fact, this makes me have more questions. And the number of weird scenarios that you could be planning has ticked up by about fifty, and they’re getting increasingly disturbing, if I’m being honest. I never wanted to join a commune.”

Fadel started walking off, and she took about two steps after him before catching herself and leaning back against the jeep. “Hey! Where are you going? Are you going to pee or something? I’m not following you.”

The silence treatment was starting to get to her. Style shivered as a cool wind kicked up, scattering the grass and branches of the trees into making rustling noises, and she grimaced. “Fadel?” she called out, raising her voice. He disappeared into one of the odd greenhouse-type buildings. “What’s in there? Why are we here?” He didn’t reappear, and there was no shouted answer from the greenhouse. “I’ll be here when you get back, I guess,” she muttered.

Style lasted about ten minutes before her feet were beginning to ache, and she followed the path Fadel had taken to get into the green house. She pushed aside the sheer plastic that covered the entrance and ducked her head as she stepped through. “This is really ridiculous, you know. If you’re trying to scare me, it’s not going to work. I know you didn’t bring me out here to kill me—you kidnapped me from that meeting in front of like, seven other people who see your face once a week.”

She looked around the empty greenhouse, frowning. Had he ducked out of the back and left? “Fadel? If you don’t show yourself soon, I’ll take your jeep and drive it home. Don’t think that just because I don’t have keys means I can’t get it to start. Who do you think taught Kant how to hot wire a ca—” Style yelped as a hand caught her arm and spun her around.

Fadel pinned her against one of the trellises, and for a long moment he just studied her, breathing heavily like he’d been jogging. What in the hell had he been doing in here this whole time?

“I don’t like you messing up my life.” His voice was rough and jagged: angry edges digging into her with every word. “My life has been planned out. You’re disrupting it. I don’t like myself when I look for you on the morning jog or at the market. I don’t like waiting for you to show up at my restaurant or my go-to club. You—” He broke off, frustrated.

A small pit of doubt grew in Style’s stomach, curdling like sour milk. She had thought he wanted her; she saw the way he bit back smiles when she flirted with him, felt the way he leaned into her touches even as he shrugged them off. She’d always thought the problem was that he wouldn’t let himself have those things—that he was shy about the things that he wanted. If he didn’t actually want them, if he didn’t want her, then—

Style’s jaw clenched, and she tried to force herself to breathe. If he really didn’t want her, then she deserved everything he’d done. If he’d been so desperate to get rid of her that he was willing to have sex with her in the hopes of making her leave him alone...

Fadel’s voice broke into her thoughts. “I don’t like you being in my life and changing it. I don’t like feeling like this—I don’t like it!” Style swallowed thickly; her heart was in her throat. She searched his eyes, waiting for him to tell her to leave. Waiting for him to tell her how badly she had fucked up.

When his voice came again, it was smaller, unsure, and he looked lost as he spoke. “I don’t like that I miss you.”

Style blinked, replaying his words in her mind. She reevaluated everything he had said. He looked for her, waited for her. He missed her. He didn’t like how she made him feel because she was messing up his plans. His plans to be alone, to feel nothing.

She put a hand on his chest and leaned forward, slowly, smelling nothing but warm coffee and currants, and waited until he started to sway toward her to press in, sliding a hand up to cradle his jaw as she kissed him. She poured every ounce of gentleness and care that she could into the kiss. He missed her. He looked for her. He waited for her. She kissed him again, and again.

Pulling back, she searched his eyes, waiting for him to push her away again. “It’s okay to love, Fadel,” she said quietly. “It’s okay to want things. You’re allowed to be happy.”

Something broke in his eyes, and he crowded her back against the trellis, pressing kisses to her mouth and down her jaw. She gripped his waist, holding on as he mouthed near her scent gland, and then she pushed him back. “Let me take care of you,” she whispered, pressing a soft kiss to his cheek, and slipped her hand down his chest to the waistband on his jeans. “Let me show you what it’s like to let yourself want.” She worked open his pants and slipped her hand inside, feeling the hot length of him against her palm. He bit his lip and leaned into her, his hand gripping her shoulder, and she started to move her hand. It was dry and awkward, with her hand trapped against him inside his jeans, but he groaned into her shoulder when she tightened her grip. She couldn’t believe he was letting her do this, couldn’t believe that she got to have this. That he was trusting her with something he had been denying himself for so long.

Style kissed his neck and listened to the sound of his harsh breathing against her neck as she jerked him off. She wanted to take him into her mouth, to look up at him as she tasted him and see him looking down at her with wide, hungry eyes. Her free hand fisted in his shirt, and she groaned at the thought of it. “You feel so good for me,” she said into his ear. “You can just let go, let me take care of this, okay?” She pulled back to kiss him again, and his fingers dug into her waist as she guided the kiss with a hand on his throat, tipping his head back so that she could bite down his jaw. Why were they doing this in a greenhouse? Style wanted him naked and writhing beneath her.

When he came, he slumped into her chest, breathing heavily against her neck. Style pressed her grin into his shoulder, biting gently at the muscle beneath the fabric of his shirt, and gently tucked him back into his pants. “It’s good, yeah?” she asked.

He leaned back to look her in the eyes. “You—”

“We are in a literal greenhouse, baby,” she said, smiling. She pressed the thumb of her clean hand against the corner of his mouth and gave into the impulse to kiss him again. “If you wanna get me off we’re going to need something to at least lean against. You’re strong, but I don’t think you can hold me up and fuck me for very long.” She kissed him again, biting gently at his lip. Was he smiling under her mouth? She pulled back to see, but he was already moving, tugging her out of the greenhouse and back to his jeep. He opened the back door and pushed her down onto the bed of the trunk, hands tugging at her shirt to lift it up and over her head, his mouth already burning a path down her neck, and she pushed at the back of his head to direct him where she wanted him.

By the time he repaid the favor, he was ready to go again, and she was delighted to oblige. The positioning was awkward; there wasn’t enough space to lay down fully in the back of the jeep, and if he sat in the back of the trunk his legs couldn’t touch the ground, so he didn’t have any leverage, and so it took several false, fumbling and laughing starts until they moved to the backseat and figured out a rhythm. She hadn’t seen him smile before, and she had to stop him, straddling his lap with her hand buried in his hair, to kiss the smile, marveling at the sight of it even as he pressed a thumb to her clit and made her clench around him and shiver.

It was much, much later when they finally got out of the car and got dressed. As she was finishing tugging her shirt back on, she glanced over at him, smirking as she saw him looking down at the skin of her stomach. It was Kant’s shirt, so it wasn’t a crop, and she reluctantly let it fall down to cover up her navel as she spoke. “So we’ve officially had sex twice now.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “Am I still just a toy for you to play with?”

Fadel rolled his eyes. “You’re not just a toy,” he said.

“Then what are we calling this?” Style pressed, and she made sure to press her shoulder against his as she leaned back against the jeep.

“Some people have lots of sex and never call it anything.”

“I am not just some people, you know.” Style pouted at him. “We have to call this something.” Even if that something was just friends with benefits—but she wasn’t about to tell him that was an option. Besides, she grumbled to herself, for that to work you actually have to be, you know, friends.

“Well what do you want to call it, then?” Fadel asked, sounding exasperated.

“I told you, I want be your girlfriend.” How many times did Style have to repeat herself? She heard Babe’s voice in her head telling her she’d just have to do it again if she liked him. Ugh. She’d have to buy him another meal or an ice cream if this worked out.

Fadel looked away from her. “Why do you even want that? You don’t know me.”

“Isn’t that the point of dating someone? To get to know them?” Style wasn’t sure what else dating was for; if you already knew the person, wouldn’t you just get married?

Style watched Fadel’s expression; something about him seemed more relaxed than it had been before, like he was finally letting out a breath he’d been holding. It made him easier to read, even in the darkness of the abandoned farm. “Why do you even want to know me?” He kept his eyes on the dark night sky above them, and Style’s heart lurched painfully. He asked that like he assumed no one would ever care to know more about him than the mean, grumpy front he put up.

Style reached up to touch his chin, gently turning his face to look at her. “Why wouldn’t I want to know you?” she asked. She tried to keep her tone light. If she was too serious, he might think she was having him on. “You’re so quiet. It’s sexy as hell. You’re all dark and mysterious.” She smirked at him, watching his eyes flicker down to her mouth and back up.

“I’m not a puzzle you have to solve.” He was half smiling as he said it, but she heard the note of seriousness in his voice. He continued before she had a chance to reply. “Besides, I don’t want to date. I told you that.”

Style tipped her head back. Sometimes she felt like they were taking two steps forward, one step back. Why couldn’t he just let himself enjoy something? Wasn’t she a great candidate for a girlfriend? She was hot, funny, and reliable—and she gave great head! Maybe she needed to demonstrate that. She hadn’t actually shown him what else she could do with her mouth yet.

He was staring at her, waiting for a response. “I don’t understand why you don’t want to date,” she said. “Isn’t it better to have someone you can call and talk to? Someone you can hug and kiss whenever you want?” She paused to drag her eyes down his body. Having a boyfriend meant having someone in your bed whenever you wanted it. It was, Style thought, one of the best benefits of having an arrangement with someone—boyfriend or friends with benefits. “Someone who can warm your bed?”

Fadel huffed a laugh at her. “I’ll stick to jerking off.”

“That hurts my feelings.” Style frowned at him. “You’re saying jerking off is better than having sex with me?” She glanced back at the backseat of the jeep. “I don’t believe that.”

Fadel looked away again, and she smirked, a smug warmth glowing in her stomach. She was absolutely better than a cold bed and a hand; of course she was. She’d won there, but his silence said he needed more. Style sighed, and for a moment, the sound of the night closed in on them, the chirping of frogs and crickets ringing around them. Why had he brought them out here?

She wondered if this had been another attempt to scare her off, or if he had just needed to regain a sense of control over himself—she thought maybe it was a bit of both. But if it was that, neither option seemed to have gone his way; she wasn’t scared, and he didn’t seem to be in control of anything until he pulled her on top of him in the backseat. What he’d said in the greenhouse didn’t have anything to do with sex. He hadn’t said anything about having sexy dreams about her; this couldn’t have been his plan.

“I had sexy dreams about you,” she said out loud, and he turned slowly to look at her, looking exasperated. “I had to stop showing up around you for a few days because I was worried I was irritating you.” Style looked down at her hands. “I followed you around because I wanted you to like me, not hate me.” He scoffed, and she shot him a frown. “I do know the difference, you know?”

She took a deep breath. “The things you said earlier...I feel them too. Even when you weren’t around, I was looking for you. When I stopped following you, I was still thinking about you.” Glancing up at him, she bit her lip. “I missed you too.”

He was looking at her with something like surprise, and she had to bite back a smile. Where had all these expressions been when he’d been yelling at her? How had he managed to tuck away all these feelings and pretend like he never had any at all? “Give me a chance,” she said. “Be my boyfriend. Let me show you how good it can be.”

He shook his head. “What if you get to know me, and you don’t like what you find?” he asked. He asked it like a challenge, like he knew she wouldn’t like him once she got to know him.

“What if you get to know me and you don’t like what you find?” She flipped the question back to him. “Dating is a risk, but it’s one that’s worth it if you can find the right person.” Style tried not to think about her own history of boyfriends; it was shorter than some people would assume and longer than she’d ever hoped it would be. Since Nam, she had only dated a couple of guys, and it never ended up being very serious or long-lasting. Porsche lasted the longest, and they had never been anything more than friends who occasionally jumped into bed together.

When Style fell, she fell hard; she gave everything of herself to someone. She would have married Nam if he had asked. She would have quit working at the garage and tried to become a socialite wife if he had wanted her to.

Style knew better than anything what it felt like to have someone get to know you and decide they didn’t like what they saw. For someone to try you on and cast you aside like a pair of jeans that didn’t fit, like a dress you only needed to wear to one or two specific events before you dropped it off in a donation bin. Style had only ever been someone’s vacation. She was never their home.

“One day,” she said, looking up at the sky, “you’ll find the right person, and it will all be worth it.” She had to believe that, or none of it had been worth anything at all. Shaking herself from her thoughts, she turned to look at him. His eyes were dark and open, reflecting the soft light of the moon, and he was leaning toward her like he was hanging on her words. Maybe he needed to believe it would be worth it, too.

“I’m all in, you know?” she said quietly. The night was quiet around them, and she had the feeling that they were at a sleepover trading secrets in the dark. “100 percent.” He blinked, surprised again by her, and she felt her heart break just a little for him. Maybe no one had ever been there for him fully. At least she had always had pa and Kant. “I’m all in, but you have to let me in at least a little bit, too.”

His eyes searched hers, and she held her breath. If he said no now, she wasn’t sure what else she could do. Sometimes people didn’t want to change.

He tipped his head back, half laughing under his breath. “Fine.”

Style tipped her head to the side. “Fine?”

He rolled his eyes at her. “What did you just ask me? Fine, I’ll be your boyfriend.”

“Really?” She leaned forward. “We’re dating now?”

He looked exasperated—at himself or her, she wasn’t sure, but she knew that expression when she saw it—but he was fighting a smile, and he nodded, like he was confirming his order at a restaurant. Style couldn’t help herself; she launched herself at him, holding his jaw to press a line of kisses over his cheek and ignoring his attempt to pull away from her until he folded, wrapping an arm around her waist as she kissed his other cheek. She pressed a quick kiss to his mouth but dodged his attempt to deepen it, grinning too widely to kiss him properly.

“Don’t look so upset about it,” she chided him. “You’re my boyfriend now. My boyfriend isn’t allowed to be sad.” She held on to his waist and leaned back to look at him, still smiling.

He shook his head at her and breathed out a laugh. “You’re going to be impossible,” he said.

Style leaned forward and kissed him again until he turned and pressed her against the jeep. “You like it, though,” she said when he let her pull back.

He pressed his nose into the crook of her neck and breathed out against her skin. “Don’t get cocky,” he said. “This is a trial period. You’re on probation.”

Style pouted above his head where he couldn’t see it. Two steps forward, one step back, indeed.

Suddenly, he pulled back, frowning severely at her. “Why do you smell like Kant?” he said.

“What?” She blinked at him and scented the air; for a moment, all she smelled was their own scents combining between them, but as she looked down, she caught a hint of basil, and she remembered she was wearing Kant’s shirt. “Oh.”

He reached out and tugged at the t-shirt she was wearing with a glare. “I don’t like my girlfriend smelling like another man.”

Style pushed at his chest to make him back up. “Someone cut my shirt up this morning, so I had to go to Kant’s and borrow one of his so that I didn’t get a ticket for public indecency.”

“You don’t have shirts of your own at home?”

Style raised an eyebrow at him, smirking. “Okay, big boy. Next time you ruin my clothes, we’ll go back to my place, and you can explain to my pa why I’m naked.”

He grimaced, and Style laughed. She fingered the hem of the shirt and started to pull it up, exposing her stomach. “I can’t disappoint my boyfriend, though, so I can take it off if you want.” She looked up at him through her eyelashes, lifting the shirt up to her rib cage.

He grabbed her hands and closed his eyes. “No,” he said, but he sounded reluctant. “Keep it on.” His thumb brushed across her wrist, and she let the shirt drop free, leaning into him. “We should probably head home.” He leaned forward to kiss her even as he spoke.

“We should,” she agreed, and she kissed him again.

It took them another five minutes to separate and get back in the car, and Style reached out to snag his hand from the steering wheel as he started to drive. When he glanced over at her a few moments later, she was on her phone, frowning down at the text thread she had open with Kant. He still hadn’t responded, though the check mark showed he’d received and opened her messages.

Was he still out with Bison? Had he been home to see Babe yet? Even if he didn’t have much time, he usually at least responded to her messages to let her know he was busy and had seen them.

Fadel squeezed her hand, and she looked up to find him glancing at her with a frown. “What?” he asked. When she blinked at him, confused, he used their joined hands to gesture at her phone. “You’re staring at your phone.”

Style made a face. “Kant’s not replying to my texts. Do you know if he’s still with Bison?”

“How would I know that?” He glared out of the windshield. He glanced at the clock and frowned. “He’d better not be.”

Style ignored his grumbling and looked back down at her phone. She texted Kant again, asking him if he wanted her to go to his place for lunch instead of him coming to hers.

“What’s the matter?” Fadel asked. His hand in hers had grown stiff, and she looked up to see him staring resolutely out the front windshield.

“Nothing,” she said, and let her phone drop into her lap. It was probably nothing. He was probably busy fucking Bison, or they were out drinking at a bar. Maybe he thought Style was being dramatic.

Fadel exhaled and shifted his grip on the steering wheel. “It’s obviously not nothing, or you wouldn’t be staring at your phone like that. Just tell me.”

Style chewed on her lip. Remembering the bruises on Babe’s skin had her wanting to storm into his school all over again. She still hadn’t figured out how she was going to nudge Kant into figuring things out without spilling everything to him the moment she saw him. Fadel was quiet and mysterious. He probably had tons of secrets he was keeping. And, she thought, he has a little brother who he’s protective of. He would actually, probably, be a good sounding board for what was going on with Babe. She pulled his hand up to her mouth and pressed a kiss to the back of it, feeling a spark of warmth and gratefulness surge in her chest. Having a boyfriend was already coming in handy.

“If I tell you, you can’t tell Kant,” she said. Hearing it from Style would be one thing; hearing it from Fadel—that Style knew, that she told Fadel and not him—would make Kant give her the silent treatment for a full month.

Fadel clearly refrained from rolling his eyes. “Because Kant and I are such good friends.”

Okay, point taken, but Style still stuck her tongue out at him. “Promise me,” she demanded.

“Fine. I promise I won’t tell Kant.” He slowed down at a stop light and turned to look at her. He raised an eyebrow, waiting expectantly, and Style shifted in her seat as she tried to figure out where to start.

“So Kant has a little brother, Babe, right? I went over to Kant’s place to pick up a shirt this afternoon, and Babe was home from school early, which is weird, because that kid practically begs for Kant to take him to tutoring sessions and cram school. He loves school even more than I did, honestly, and he’s better at it than Kant or I were.” She knew she had the same dopey, proud smile on her face that cropped up whenever she got the chance to brag about Babe.

Fadel was listening, glancing at her every so often to let her know he was paying attention. He was such a good listener. He would be such a good boyfriend. Style was so proud of herself. She deserved a pat on the back or a(nother) nice orgasm for getting this grumpy brooding man to actually listen to her ramble.

“Anyway,” she said because she didn’t want to test his newfound patience too far. “He was home early, and when I stopped in his room to talk to him, he seemed off, you know? So I started looking a little closer and he had bruises on his arms and legs. I made him take off his jacket, and he had bruises up and down his arms—some of them were at least a week or two old, and some of them were new, so this wasn’t a one-time thing.” She glared out of the windshield.

“He tried to tell me it was nothing, but he was bleeding from a cut on the back of his head, so I managed to sit him down and convince him to talk to me after I patched him up. He said he was being bullied by some kids at school and the cut and bruises were because he’d fought back.”

Talking about it dredged up all the anxiety and anger from when she’d first heard the story from Babe, and she dropped Fadel’s hand to grab her phone and check it again.

“And you don’t want to tell Kant?” Fadel asked. He kept his hand on the console between them, gripping the edge of it. “Why?”

“Of course I want to tell Kant!” she said. “But Babe wants to handle it on his own, you know? He made me promise not to tell Kant.” She made a disgusted noise. “He’s almost eighteen; he said he wanted to just finish out the year so he could graduate and go to college without any drama.”

Fadel glanced from her face down to her phone. “Then why are you texting Kant?” His voice was perfectly blank and smooth, and Style squinted at him, unsure if he was judging her for breaking a promise to Babe or judging her for making the promise to keep it from Kant to begin with.

“Because he needs to know something is wrong,” Style said. “I’m not going to tell him. I promised Babe, and I need Babe to be able to trust me and know he can come to me about anything without me tattling on him to Kant. If I tell Kant, Babe will find out, and he’ll never tell me anything again, even if he needs help.”

The first time Babe had called her, panicked and in trouble, Style had wanted to do just that. She had always done everything with Kant—when there was trouble, there was Kant. If Style stumbled, Kant was there to steady her. If Kant stumbled, Style was there to steady him. They faced everything together, so why wouldn’t they help Babe together too? But when she’d shown up at the convenience store, he’d looked at her with wide, teary eyes and sat mute the whole time she worked on charming the security guard, and the only thing he’d said the whole ride home was “Please don’t tell Kant.”

Babe had been so young when his parents died; to Babe, Kant was his father and his mother and his brother all wrapped into one unfailing, unflinching package. Babe knew about some parts of Kant’s less savory past, but it never seemed to convince him that Kant was anything less than a perfect big brother. What other people would have seen as failure, Babe saw as Kant’s struggle to carry Babe’s entire world on his shoulders. Babe knew better than anyone just how high Kant hoped he’d be able to climb in this world. Babe knew that even though Kant would never stop loving him, even if Babe failed him a hundred times, Kant would never stop hoping for Babe to do better than Kant ever had, that Kant had sacrificed every chance of better for himself in order to give that better to Babe.

Style was allowed to know when Babe failed at reaching that nebulous better standard Babe had set for himself in the hopes of achieving Kant’s dreams for him. But Kant was never, ever allowed to know. If Babe thought telling Style would mean disappointing Kant, Babe would cut Style out of his secrets so ruthlessly she would never even know if he was late turning in a homework assignment.

Beside her, Fadel was staring out of the windshield. “So what are you going to tell Kant?” he asked.

“Something,” she said immediately. “Anything.” Fadel slanted a skeptical look at her, and she sighed, running a hand through her hair. “I’m just going to remind him that he needs to be home more often. He’s been weird and distant lately with both Babe and me. I’m not saying it’s Bison’s fault!” She quickly looked over to Fadel, relaxing at the slight smile that crossed his face. “I’m not going to tell him to break up with Bison or anything.”

“I wish you would,” Fadel muttered, and Style ignored him, speaking over him.

“But he’s been home less and less often lately. He never would have missed something like this before. I get that he’s head over heels for your brother, but he needs to pay attention to his own brother first.”

They pulled up next to Style’s car in front of the community center, and Fadel shut off the engine and turned in the seat to face her. “What do you mean Kant’s been acting weirdly lately?”

Style grimaced. Nope, nuh uh. Bad idea. “No offense, but I don’t think I should be complaining to my best friend’s boyfriend’s brother about my best friend.” Style was pretty sure that was against the bro code, somewhere. Fadel already clearly wasn’t Kant’s biggest fan. Style shouldn’t make that worse by bitching to him about Kant.

Fadel made a face and looked away, clearly chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Then don’t tell...your best friend’s boyfriend’s brother.” He looked like he was biting into a lemon as he repeated her words. Style wanted to lean over and smack a kiss on to his cheek. “Tell your boyfriend.”

Something deep in Style’s gut went squirmy and hot before it settled, curling up warmly like a cat in her stomach. She didn’t have to feign the delight that showed on her face as she beamed at him and leaned forward to smack not just one, but several kisses, onto his cheek, holding his chin to keep him still.

“Only because you asked so nicely,” she teased. He pushed her back into her own seat with a hand on her shoulder and waited for her to speak, leaning back against the driver side door expectantly.

“Well,” she said slowly, trying to think through it all. It wasn’t like she sat up at night and made lists of all the ways Kant was acting strangely; it was more like a feeling. Sometimes when they were hanging out she felt a little lost, like she’d missed a turn and wound up on the wrong end of the street. The houses were arranged in a familiar pattern, but they weren’t the houses she’d expected to see.

“He’s just...off sometimes. Like with Babe,” she started at a familiar point, picking up where the conversation had begun. “He’s normally home at least five or six times a week for dinner with Babe, but lately I don’t think he’s been home for dinner more than three or four times a week.” It wasn’t much, but it was enough of a difference that Style noticed—and if Style had noticed, then Babe had too. “Not that he never went out before or anything, but he always tried to be there when Babe got home from school so they could check in and eat together before Kant left to hang out with friends.” Or hook up with someone.

He’d been different with her, too. Egging her on to take Fadel out was weird—she understood that he wanted to date Bison, even if that was a new and strange thing for him, but Kant was crafty and motivated. He could have found a way to sneak around Fadel. It was like he was rushing, like he was desperate. She couldn’t say that to Fadel, though, or she’d blow the big secret when she just managed to get him to trust her a little bit. She’d save that particular story for later, when it would actually be a “haha, remember when” story and not a dagger to the chest.

Fadel was watching her with his dark, serious eyes, and she fought the urge to blurt out a preemptive apology. “Um, and with me,” she stuttered, “he’s just been kind of distant. We haven’t really gotten to hang out much lately, and sometimes when we do he’s just distracted.” He hadn’t even reacted at all last week when she’d told him about the customer who tried to pay for their repairs with an autographed baseball card. (She’d looked it up later; it wasn’t even from a famous player, even if it had somehow been authentic.) When she’d poked his cheek, drawing his attention away from the darkened screen of his phone, he’d seemed to have to shake himself before he could focus on her and smile.

Sighing, she thunked her head back into the window behind her. “I’d blame it all on his massive crush on Bison, but…” She shook her head. “I’m probably just overthinking it. I don’t think he’s dated seriously since…” Ever, really. He’d dated a couple of girls in school, but when his parents died, he stopped looking at anyone for a few years, and then he was having one-night stands when he wasn’t stealing cars until he managed to pull himself back together. He never cared about second nights, much less a full blown relationship that involved feelings. “Since school,” she finished lamely. “He’s probably just stressed trying to impress Bison and be a good boyfriend.”

“He should focus on being a better brother,” Fadel said flatly.

Style reached out and flicked his forehead. “This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” she complained. “Don’t hate him because of what I said; I’m just venting. He’s normally an amazing big brother, I swear.” She held a hand up to her heart as Fadel looked skeptical. “Babe is his entire world. He gave up everything for him.” She heard her own words and sighed, looking out of the windshield to study the dark community center. “Honestly, I’m glad he’s found someone to love,” she said. “He’s a good man. I know you don’t like him, but I think he really likes Bison. I’ve never seen him act like this about a guy before.”

When she looked back at Fadel, he was staring at the darkened community as well, his face blank and emotionless. Style wondered if she’d made a mistake. She’d just gotten him to relax a little around her, and now she’s was poking at a sore spot between them; she knew how suspicious he was that she and Kant were friends. Style reached out to grab his hand and pressed a kiss to the back of his wrist.

“Thank you for hearing me out,” she said. “Kant’s normally the one I complain to about other people. When Kant’s the person I want to complain about, I’m never sure what to do.” A few years ago, she’d had Porsche to complain at. Since he disappeared, there hadn’t been anyone else.

Fadel looked unsure of how to respond to that; it was subtle, but his eyes were a bit wider than normal and his mouth was pressed tightly shut, like he was keeping a lid on all the half-sentences he wanted to spit out, and Style laughed at him and pressed a kiss to his palm. “Thank you for taking me out tonight, too. I’m counting this as our first date, just so you know.”

She let go of his hand and unbuckled her seat belt. Before she could turn to open the car door, his hand grabbed her wrist, and he pulled her over the console toward him. She yelped at the sudden movement until his lips crashed into hers, and then she had to pull away to giggle, bracing her forehead against his until she could get control of herself. “Use your words, you caveman.” She met his mouth again with a slight smile, letting him control the pace of the kiss until he gently pushed her back into her own seat.

“Goodnight,” he said. He turned to look out of the windshield and started the jeep, like he couldn’t wait long enough for her to leave the car. She bit back another laugh. He was a terrible liar; his hands gripped the steering wheel like he was fighting the urge to grab onto her again.

“Goodnight, my sexy boyfriend,” she said, and leaned over to press a soft, slow kiss on his cheekbone before she stepped out of the car. “I’ll dream about you again tonight.” She winked at him and closed the door on his wide-eyed expression, blowing a kiss over her shoulder as she made her way to her own car.

The next morning, Kant came into the garage before they opened. Style was unloading a shipment of parts they had just gotten in, and Kant leaned against a shelf to watch her as she lifted a box on to a shelf. She glared at him.

“You could have let me know you were coming,” she said. “I sent you like three texts yesterday and you never responded.” She’d texted him after she got home, just a gif of someone checking their phone obsessively and saying “answer me,” but he hadn’t responded before she fell asleep, and her phone hadn’t showed any notifications this morning, either. “I was getting worried. If you were out all night with Bison, Fadel is going to be pissed.”

Kant made a face. “Bison went home early, don’t worry about that.” When Style opened her mouth to interrogate him further, he shook his head. She looked at him more closely, and he looked tired. He leaned against the shelf filled with engine parts in his usual forty-year-old father combo of a button up shirt and slacks, but his hair was a bit disarrayed, as though he hadn’t taken the usual half hour to arrange it perfectly, and he had dark circles beginning to form under his eyes.

“What did you need to talk to me about?” he asked. “If this is something ridiculous, I’m going to leave and get coffee from that place you like halfway across the city, and I’m not getting you anything.”
Style stuck her tongue out at him. “It isn’t ridiculous,” she said, halfway offended. “Everything I tell you is important, if only because I’m your best friend.”

“Style,” he said, and he even sounded tired.

Style took pity on him and leaned against the boxes she was trying to unpack. “Okay, okay, fine,” she said. “It really is important, though.” She bit her lip and tried to figure out where to begin, realizing, rather late, that she hadn’t actually gotten any advice from Fadel last night about what to say to Kant. She’d have to tell Kant she’d won their bet, too.

“Have you been home lately?” she asked, deciding to jump into it headfirst. “I went by yesterday but you weren’t there; Babe was home from school early.”

Kant closed his eyes. She watched his jaw clench, and his hands tightened on his upper arms where he had them crossed over his chest. “I was home yesterday when he got back,” he said. “And then Bison and I went out for a while. But I went back home for dinner and we ate together.”

“Oh,” Style said. Then why hadn’t he bothered to text her back? “Well, I’m just a little worried about Babe; it’s really unusual for him to be home from school so early, and since he’s a senior, you know he’s probably under a lot of stress. You’re spending a lot of time with Bison, so I’m not sure—”

Kant opened his eyes, and his mouth twisted to the side as he raised his eyebrows at her in warning. “I know how take care of Babe, Style.” His voice was light, but Style heard the undercurrent of irritation, and she frowned at him. He continued before she could speak. “And I know what I’m doing with Bison. Don’t worry about it.”
“Of course you know what you’re doing. I’m not trying to say you shouldn’t date Bison, Kant.” She propped a foot up on one of the boxes behind her and settled in; this was clearly going to be a Full Conversation and not the gentle nudge she had been imagining. “I’m just saying that you’ve got a new priority on your plate, and it’s probably hard to juggle everything.”

“Are you saying I’m not making Babe my priority?”

“That’s not what I’m saying at all,” Style protested, but Kant shoved off of the shelf behind him, ignoring the part that clattered to the ground with the movement. “Kant, come on, I’m just trying to help, you know?”

“I don’t need your help, Style.” He ran a hand through his hair and down over his face. “Just focus on yourself. Babe will be fine.”

Style fought back a surge of irritation prickling under her skin. He was acting like she was poking her nose in his business, like she didn’t have the right to worry about him or Babe. “Kant,” she said, and she kept her voice even and gentle. She wouldn’t get anywhere by starting a fight with him, even if he seemed to be pushing for one. “I’m just worried,” she said. “You seem like you really like Bison, and it’s all happening so fast—”

Kant’s hand slashed through the air to cut her off, and his shoulder shook as he laughed, though the sound echoed bitterly through the quiet morning air. “You think I like Bison?” he said under his breath. He kept his hand up to keep her quiet as he sucked in a deep breath and turned away from her. For a long moment, he stood with his back to her, his shoulders set in a tense line.

“They’re hitmen, Style,” he said quietly.

Style blinked at his back, uncomprehending as he turned back around to face her. He read the confusion on her face and scrubbed a hand over his eyes. “Fadel and Bison. They’re hitmen.”

“What?” she asked, as though the words could possibly mean anything other than what they meant. “Fadel?” The man who had looked at her with those wide, disbelieving eyes? The hands that had gently cupped her cheek as he pressed his mouth to hers? That Fadel was a hitman? “This is a shitty joke, Kant. It’s not funny.”

He shook his head, unable to meet her eyes. “It’s not a joke, Style.”

Style sank to the ground, her knees turned to water, and she pressed a hand hard against her sternum, trying to ground herself. “Kant,” she said. “Kant, I’m dating him.” Her gaze drifted through the garage, landing on the cart where he’d slammed his money down the first time he’d come over, and she jerked her eyes back to Kant, needing him to understand. “He agreed to date me last night. He called himself my boyfriend. You’re saying that Fadel—my Fadel, who you begged me to seduce so that you could date his younger brother, is a hitman? And his brother? That you’re dating?”

The words were tumbling from Style’s mouth faster than even she could register them. Kant shoved her at a hitman and told her he was infatuated with a boy to get her to agree. Kant goaded and bribed her to accept because he wanted to date a hitman. He wanted her to date a hitman so he could date a hitman. “What the actual fuck, Kant? Do you have any idea how pissed off at me Fadel was until yesterday? He put his hand around my throat, and I thought it was hot!” Thinking of it, she shivered, and she wasn’t sure if was from fear or attraction. He’d looked so surprised when she darted in to kiss him. Of course he had been surprised—he had probably been prepared to kill her there.

Kant scraped his teeth over his lip, looking pained. “Style, I didn’t have a choice,” he said. “I had to; I couldn’t get close to Bison otherwise.”

“What does that even mean?” Style fisted a hand in her hair and tried to make herself breathe slowly. “What do you mean by that, Kant?” He wanted to date a hitman so badly that he felt like he didn’t have a choice? Maybe he hadn’t known Bison was a hitman at first. But then why hadn’t he told Style when he found out? Style’s thoughts ran in one direction, hit a wall, ran in another direction, hit another wall. None of the avenues she traced led anywhere that made sense.

Kant exhaled hard and looked away. “I’m only dating Bison because Captain Chris asked me to help him with his investigation. He wants me to get close to Bison so that I can find evidence of what they’re planning and who’s leading them.”

Style wondered if she’d dropped something on her head earlier. The air in the garage seemed thin, all of the sudden, and she couldn’t seem to make herself take a full breath of it.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Captain Chris?” Kant was still in contact with him? Why was he doing favors for the captain? Her mind felt like a broken record, skipping back and forth over his words until they blurred into an unintelligible mumble.

“The police captain who busted me,” Kant explained, as though Style could have ever forgotten who the captain was. “The one who locked me up all those years ago. He only let me go back then because I promised him I’d work for him as an informant.”

The words came to Style like Kant was underwater. Or maybe Style was.

Six years ago, she had gotten the call from a man who called himself Captain Chris, and he told her that he had busted Kant for stealing a car. His voice spoke in lightly accented—British, she had learned later—but smooth and fluent Thai, and he was brief and blunt and cold as he told her that Kant had asked that she be informed of his arrest so that she could take care of “Babe.” Style had heard the air quotes in his voice as he apparently read from whatever note Kant gave him. He had only waited for Style to say “okay,” before he hung up; she hadn’t even gotten to ask where Kant was being held.

“Style,” Kant’s voice shook her out of the memory, and she opened her eyes to look at Kant as he crouched in front of her. The cold concrete floor of the garage pressed a chilled line into her calf, and she looked down, searching the floor like there was something there that could make things make sense. Kant’s scent floated toward her, but she could hardly breathe in deep enough to smell it. She didn’t know if it would even work to help calm her down even if she could manage to take a breath.

“Kant,” she said, and she had to stop because she didn’t know what to say after that. “Kant, why is he just now contacting you after all this time? Why didn’t he have you work for him right after you got out?” She looked up at him, and her stomach dropped at the look on his face. She felt like she was walking down the stairs and missed a step. Like she had looked down while walking on a bridge and realized how high up she was, how close to the edge she was.

Kant’s eyes were closed like he was in pain. His mouth was a tight, thin line.

When they were 21, Kant introduced her to a friend he’d met while he was apprenticing for his tattoo license. His name was Sit, and he was a couple of years older than Style and Kant. Kant said Sit had seen a picture of her on Kant’s phone, and Sit wanted to meet her and go on a date. Sit was tall and dark skinned; his hair was longer than she’d ever seen on a man, and more often than not he wove braids and little silver rings into it before he piled it up on his head. He had tattoos all down his right arm—he told her that he’d gotten them over the years because he was right handed, so he knew he’d never be able to tattoo his own right arm. He had started a collection of his own tattoos on his left arm and his legs, but Style had been enamored with the sleeve on his right arm. It was an ocean scene, full of deep blues and greens with flashes of blood red from the tail of a mermaid that was cutting through the water.

Style slept with Sit twice before she found out he was married. His wife had shown up at the garage and yelled at Style in front of all the other mechanics for seducing her husband.

When she told Kant about it, he had looked like this. He told her, quietly, that he had known Sit was married, but Sit had told him that he was working on getting a divorce. Sit told him that his wife was dating another man, and that he was just working on getting the paperwork done before it was official. Kant didn’t know it was a lie until Style showed up in tears. He’d kept it from her because he thought it didn’t matter, or because he forgot, or because he thought Sit would tell her himself. He’d known, and he hadn’t told her.

“Kant,” she whispered. “Kant, please tell me you haven’t been working for Captain Chris this whole time.”

When she was 22 and partying with Nam, Kant disappeared for two whole days. When he came back, he had a black eye, and he wouldn’t tell her where he had been. He smelled like cigarette smoke—but not his brand, something deeper, like the cigars her pa smoked sometimes when Mom’s anniversary rolled around.

When she was 25, Kant told her he couldn’t hang out with her during her heat because Babe needed him for something. Babe told her he hadn’t seen Kant for more than an hour or two a day once she got back. When she’d asked Kant about it, Kant told her Babe was mad at him because he’d overbooked himself at the tattoo studio and didn’t have time for him like they’d planned, and then he took her out for ice cream and drinks.

In the present, chilled from the cold concrete floor of the garage, Kant stayed crouched in front of her, his eyes on the ground. He didn’t move as she flipped through all the memories of times Kant disappeared for a few hours or came home with a weird bruise or smell. The times his smile was tight at the edges until she slung an arm around his shoulders and dragged him down onto the couch for a movie marathon. Style always knew when something was bothering Kant. She’d just had no way of knowing what was bothering him; usually she felt like it didn’t matter as long as he ended up okay. If it was something small and he wanted to vent about it, he would. If it was a big problem, he would tell her, and they would figure it out together. To Style, those were facts. That’s how Style operated with Kant. That’s how Style thought Kant operated with her. They got in trouble together. They got out of trouble together.

“Kant,” she said again. He didn’t move. She shoved at his shoulder, and he fell onto the floor with a thump, finally looking up to meet her eyes. “You’ve been working for that asshole for six years, and you never once thought I should know about it? What the hell else has he been having you do?” Style shoved herself off the ground and started pacing. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped you. I could have—” She broke off and scrubbed a hand through her hair.

“There wasn’t anything you could have done.” Kant’s voice rang hollow in the garage. “Agreeing to work with him was the only way I was getting out of that jail cell. I didn’t want to put you into danger, too. It was my fault for getting caught. I couldn’t drag you down with me.”

He looked up at her and pressed his palms to the floor of the garage like it would ground him. His eyes were shining with the beginning of tears, and Style felt a hot flash of anger wrench through her.

“You were trying to protect me?” she asked, half laughing with a mocking tone. “When have I ever asked you to protect me from your shit, Kant? How many times have you helped me? Why do you think I wouldn’t be willing to be right there beside you?” She was being too loud. She knew she was being too loud. Her voice bounced off the metal shelving units and crashed back into her own ears, echoing against her panting breaths in the morning light. Good. Let him feel it. She wanted him to have to duck beneath the flood of fear and anger bubbling inside of her.

“How was setting me up with a fucking hitman protecting me, Kant? Did you think I wouldn’t agree to help if I had known?” She thought of Fadel’s small smile, the huff of laughter that had escaped him before he agreed to date her. The way she’d promised to give him 100 percent.

“Fuck!” Style turned and kicked a box.

Kant stood up, his hands splayed like he was soothing a wild animal. “Style,” he said in a soft, calm voice. He was treating her like he treated boys who tried to start fights at a bar. He wanted to soothe her, to placate her, to calm her until he could find the words to make this okay. “I didn’t know it would go on this long. The captain kept promising me that each job was the last one, and it never was. The jobs kept getting more and more dangerous, and I couldn’t put you in danger. Babe—”

“Don’t you dare try to tell me this is about Babe,” Style yelled. “Fuck, Kant! You don’t want me to jump in the line of fire with you because you need me here for Babe, fine, but you need to fucking tell me when you’re throwing yourself into the fire because otherwise I will never know until they show up with your dead body.” She was hoarse and breathing harsh, sharp breaths. There was a pain in her ribs, somewhere below her heart, stabbing like a knife through her lung each time she tried to draw a breath.

“When are you going to understand that I’m in this with you? Do you think not telling me will keep me safe? I will always follow you, Kant. I will always try to help you, even if that means going behind your back to follow you and figure out what kind of danger you’re putting yourself in.” She clenched her teeth so tightly together she thought they would break.

Six years ago, she had promised herself that Kant would never find out about this. Six years ago, she had been desperate and terrified and imagining all the ways Kant—her sweet, smiling boy who gave money he couldn’t spare to teenagers on the street and who had sheltered some kid who was up to his eyeballs in debt from his collectors—was going to get hurt in prison. Kant couldn’t fight for shit, not in a real fight. He was soft in all the places it mattered most. He’d only managed to get a hit or two in on Nam because Nam hadn’t ever believed anyone would raise a fist against him. Six years ago, Style had believed Kant would tell her if he needed help, and she didn’t think him knowing would change anything; it would only hurt him.

“I slept with Fadel because you asked me to.” Her voice was quiet, and she saw the way Kant stilled, his hands twitching at his sides until he pressed them flat against his pants to hold them steady. If she could read guilt in his every pore, he could read viciousness in hers. He knew when she was pulling her fist back to strike, even if she had never aimed it at him before.

“I slept with Captain Chris for you, too.” She watched the way the words struck him as clearly as her fist would have. His mouth dropped open, and he stumbled back a step in shock. He hadn’t known; how could he have? He’d been in a holding cell when the captain snagged his car keys from his desk and led her out to his car. Kant had probably been staring at the ceiling in the cell, imagining Style inventing a new lie for Babe while she cooked dinner, while Style locked the motel room door behind her.

She barked out a short, bitter laugh. “Did you think he just decided to let you walk out of jail for no reason? Did you think I got that call from him, where he told me you wanted me to take care of Babe, and I just sat on my ass and waited for you to be okay?”

“Style.” Her name was a beg, a plea, a prayer. It was hopeless. Kant was crying in earnest now, tears slowly slipping down his cheeks.

“I went to his office to try and figure out what all he had on you. I told him about Babe and about your parents. I told him you were smart and only turned to car theft because you didn’t have any other choice to keep yourself and Babe alive. You could have been anything you wanted, Kant, you know that? You could have been anything, could have done anything, and you chose to take care of Babe.” Style swallowed, the motion harsh and grating in her throat like she was swallowing glass. Kant was always so easy for Style to love. Style believed everyone would love Kant like she did, if they would just give him a chance.

“I sang your praises and begged for a full two minutes, and then I saw the way he was looking at me, so I made him a deal. He said he’d let you go if I spent the night with him.” She knew now that she had been played. Whether he’d intended it from the moment he arrested Kant or only thought of it after Style let it slip how useful Kant could be, the captain had promised to release Kant, knowing she would assume that he would let the matter drop. He’d told Kant to be an informant, knowing Kant would assume it would just be for one job.

Style ran a hand through her hair. She was shaking. She was nauseous. Kant was looking at her like she was dying in front of him. It made her want to laugh again. If she was dying now, she’d been dead for years.

“Don’t look so upset about it,” she said. “I chose to do it. It’s not like he’s unattractive.” And that isn’t the point, she thought. Sleeping with the captain had been nothing, nothing at all compared to the hug she’d given Kant when she picked him up from the station the next morning. It had been one of the easiest decisions she’d ever made.

“You need to learn that we are in this together. I can make my own decisions, and I’m smart enough to know when the best decision is to stay out of it. But you and your business are not something I will ever stay out of, Kant. When are you going to understand that? If you’re in trouble, I’m in trouble too. I slept with the captain for you then, and I’m sleeping with Fadel for you now. Don’t you get it? Whether you keep me in the dark or not, I’m fucked either way—because of you. For you.”

Style was crying now, hot tears burning a path down her face, and she swiped them away angrily. “I will put myself on the line for you every single time because that’s what family does. You don’t get to decide that we’re family when I need help and then decide we’re strangers when you’re in trouble. That’s not how this works. Aren’t we better when we’re together?” She heard the note of begging in her voice and wanted to throw something. Why did she have to beg him to trust her? Why couldn’t he just let her help him?

“Style,” Kant said again. She didn’t know if he had anything to say beside her name. She didn’t know if there was anything she wanted him to say.

The door to the house opened, and Style’s pa stepped out, looking between them with wide eyes. “Everything all right down here, kids?” he asked slowly. “I heard yelling earlier, and then it got quiet, but you guys never came inside.” He stepped closer, studying Style’s tear-streaked face with concern. “Style?” He looked over to Kant, catching the way Kant’s hand was reaching out to Style and failing to touch her. “Kant?”

Style scrubbed a hand over her face. “It’s fine, pa.” She sniffed and looked away, needing a moment to grit her teeth and suck in a breath. “Kant and I were just fighting,” she sucked in another breath, steadying her shaking hands, “because he doesn’t want you and me to help pay for Babe’s college. I told him we were saving up to help, and he said no.” She glared at Kant and looked meaningfully at her pa. “I guess he doesn’t see us as his family. Maybe you can talk some sense into him.”

She stalked out of the garage and pulled her car keys from her pocket. She didn’t know where she was going to go, but she couldn’t stay there, in that garage, and think of all the ways that Kant had lied to her. If she stayed, Kant would say something about how he’d done it for her, how he’d had no choice if he wanted to protect her and Babe, how he thought telling her would only lead her into more danger, and if she heard it from him enough, she would let herself believe it.

She drove mindlessly, hardly seeing the road in front of her. Twice, she had to slam on her brakes to stop in time for a red light. She wanted to scream and cry and throw things and kick something and grab Kant by the shoulders and shake him until the tattoos flaked off his skin.

When she was ten, her mother was in and out of the hospital for six months. Each time, she grew thinner and thinner, and she came home less and less, and no one told Style that she wouldn’t be coming back the last time she went in until they were driving her to visit her one last time. They thought if they didn’t tell her, she wouldn’t be as upset when she went to visit her mom. If she knew, they thought, she would break. She was a little girl with a ponytail and a crooked bow, and each time she visited, she chattered on and on about nothing because she didn’t know. Style wasted two months of her time with her mom talking about the drama from her recent favorite television show, and she nattered on about how some girl in her class had a crush on a boy, and she told her mom all sorts of things that didn’t even matter the day after Style said them, much less two months later when her mom was dead.

When her pa had told her, shaking and trying not to cry as he started the car, she had sat mute. Style was ten years old, and her mother had been dying, and no one had ever said anything until it was too late. When she’d seen her mom the last time, she was bruised and weak, and when she spoke it was a hoarse whisper. She’d been like that before, too, but Style hadn’t realized that it was bad. Style thought it was like when she caught a cold and couldn’t speak well because her throat hurt. Style thought that her mom was going to get better, and then she learned that she wasn’t, and suddenly all the bruises looked much worse, and her voice being gone was a sign that she would be gone soon too.

Her throat had crowded with questions and words for her mom that she didn’t know how to say. She choked on all of the things she didn’t have time to tell her. She had to be taken out of the room because her pa said she was screaming. She’d made herself puke from crying and had passed out in the car on the way home. When she’d woke up later that night, her mom was gone, and so was her pa, mostly, and Style didn’t speak for three months. She practically moved in with Kant’s family for a couple of years, and it wasn’t until Kant had a nightmare one night that she spoke again, waking him up as he choked on his own tears and gasping breaths.

When Style pulled up to HumBar, driving on autopilot, she stopped the car and stared at the sign for the bar for a long time. She hadn’t been by the bar since a few months after Porsche went missing, when she’d been desperate and craving a drink and Kant had been busy. Now, in the early morning hours, it was dingy and obviously closed, and Style let her head drop down to the steering wheel with a thump.

For several minutes, she breathed into the dashboard. Dust motes floated in the air around her, reflecting the morning sunlight as it streamed through her window and heated the car’s interior. The only sound in the car was her own breathing and the quiet ticks as the engine cooled. Talking about Porsche in that grief counseling meeting seemed to have conjured her memories of him all over again.

She sat leaned back in her seat and looked at HumBar again. She wanted to talk to Porsche. His parents had died when he was young, too, and he carried the weight of protecting his little brother and a dozen dirty secrets on his back. He had always been so honest and blunt. She wanted to tell him what Kant had done, what she had done, and she wanted him to tell her what to do now.

He wouldn’t know either, she thought with a small, almost hysterical laugh. More than likely, he would make her a weird—but good—tasting drink and slide it to her with a wink and a shrug. He’d remind her he was only good at solving problems he could fuck or fight, and he wasn’t into dudes, so if she wanted him to fix things, he was going to have to fight Kant.

Style stirred up another swarm of dust motes as she exhaled loudly, letting her shoulders slump. She needed to figure out what she was going to do.

Even as she thought that, she laughed at herself. What she was going to do was what she had always done, what she was already doing. She was going to help Kant, so she’ll help Kant. Fadel’s smile flashed through her mind again, and she shook her head to chase the memory away. Hitman! Hitman, hitman, hitman. Kills people. For money. Style. Dangerous. Bad. Strong hands—soaked in blood! Bad. Scary. Not sexy.

Everything about Fadel was finally starting to make sense. The secrets, the seemingly endless list of second jobs, the way he’d taken down those three men from the host club without blinking. She wondered again why he was going to the grief counseling meetings. Surely that wasn’t for his job?

She couldn’t think about this. If she kept thinking about this, she would lose her mind. She would remember that just yesterday she complained to Fadel that Kant was acting weird, and she would put the pieces together that Kant was acting weird because Fadel was a fucking hitman, and she would realize that she might as well have painted the word SNITCH on Kant’s forehead, and she would absolutely, positively lose her mind.

Style drove herself back to the garage, stopping only on the way to get coffee and pastries for the mechanics. When she got back, Kant and his car were gone, and her pa kept shooting her weird looks that she brushed off. She didn’t really want to know what Kant said to her pa, or what he said to Kant. She hoped her pa at least managed to guilt Kant into agreeing to let them help pay for Babe’s tuition.

She’d left her phone at the garage, and she ignored it as she went through her work day. She wasn’t sure if Kant would text her, and she didn’t know if she would be able to respond to him without throwing her phone across the room. By the end of the day, her mind was full of nothing but car engines and the clanking noise of metal on metal, and she slammed the last car hood closed. She needed the blankness to continue. Already, with the sound of the mechanics cleaning up the bays, she felt the fringes of thoughts about Kant and Fadel and death and danger hovering on the edges of her mind.

She thought about Porsche again. When they’d first met, she was rebuilding a busted, totaled Chevy Impala from the ground up because she couldn’t sleep at night and needed a project to work on that didn’t have deadlines or picky customers breathing down her neck. She should get another totaled car to rebuild. Babe would need one if he moved out.

The sun was setting, streaming orange light into the garage, and she waved off Mink as he left, rolling the first bay door down behind him. Roam checked in with her one last time before he left, too, but he paused to put a hand on her shoulder, looking hesitant.

“Is everything okay?” he asked. “You seem, uh, off today.”

Style blinked at him for too long, still untangling her own thoughts, before she managed to dredge up a smile and wave him off. “I’m fine,” she said. “Just got a lot on my mind, you know? Nothing to worry about. I’ll be all right tomorrow after I get some sleep.”

Roam didn’t look appeased, and he shuffled on his feet. “Do you wanna go get a drink and talk about it? Or not talk—if you don’t want to, I mean. We could just grab a beer and listen to music.”

Style thought about it for a moment; it would give her something to do that wasn’t floating around the wide, empty garage and replaying the entire conversation she’d had with Kant—and the countless interactions she’d had with Fadel—in her head over and over. But she would also have to be present for Roam; he wouldn’t ask to hang out with her if he wanted to watch her stare blankly at a wall for a few hours. She’d need to smile for him at least a few times so that he didn’t get worried. Maybe find a joke to toss onto the table, a wink to throw to a waiter or bartender.

Style couldn’t do it tonight. She shook her head, trying to smile at him to soften the rejection. “Thanks, Roam, but I’m okay. Maybe some other time, yeah?”

He gave up with a reluctant nod, and he waved at her as he drove off, leaving her standing in the last bay of the garage. She turned in a slow circle, listening to the sound of her shoes shuffling on the concrete, and wanted more than anything to hear Porsche’s laugh. Why was he haunting her so badly today?

Style scrubbed her hands through her hair and banged her way into the house, waving off her pa’s concern. She needed to get out and do something.

When she arrived at the gym, she put her headphones in and made her way to a treadmill. She ran until her calves ached and her breath was burning in her throat, and then she switched to a weight lifting machine. As she set the weights, she felt a tap on her shoulder, and she pulled out an earbud as she turned.

A man in a tight black tank top grinned at her, and he ran a hand over his short hair. “Hey,” he said.

Style tightened her ponytail and looked around the gym. “What’s up?” There were other free machines around; maybe she had dropped something? Her phone was still in her pocket, and her wallet was in her locker with her keys.

“I’m Seth,” he said. Style blinked, confused, and she watched his eyes dip down her body before he looked back up at her. Oh. Just as she realized what he wanted, she caught the wave of coconut and sandalwood floating toward the air through her. Beta, probably. An alpha would be sending fuck me! through their pores.

He wasn’t unattractive; he was tan and just a couple of inches taller than her, and he clearly came to the gym often if his muscles were anything to go by. She saw the black edge of a tattoo creeping over his left shoulder. Any other time, and Style would have leaned back against the machine with a smirk. Maybe they would have gone out for a drink or a post-workout workout in the bedroom.

Today, though, she was just tired. She was already catching her breath from her run, and without her music blaring, she could finally think in complete sentences again, which was what she was trying to avoid. Standing in front of Seth, she realized that she was hot and sweaty, and she reached up to swipe a hand over her forehead with a grimace.

“Style,” she said, and she smiled because she didn’t want to be rude. “Was there something you needed?” She raised an eyebrow, trying to indicate that she wasn’t really interested. It wasn’t the first time she’d been hit on in the gym; usually guys would offer tips or ask for her number, and if she said no or didn’t flirt back immediately, they would get the hint and leave her alone.

Seth took a step closer. “Just wondering if you wanted a partner. I could help spot you, or maybe we could work out together?” He grinned and winked.

Style kept her smile fixed and shook her head. “No thanks. I appreciate the offer, but I’m just trying to work out alone today.”

His face fell, and she turned away from him to finish setting the weight, popping her earbud back in. After a moment’s thought, she added another ten pounds to the machine. She usually kept it lighter, but today she wanted to focus on the effort and burn.

She lay back on the machine and gripped the bar, shifting to adjust her posture on the seat before she pushed up on the metal bar. She kept it slow and focused on her stance and breathing. After about five reps, she started to feel the burn in her arms and shoulders, and she closed her eyes, focusing on the beat of her music and the pressure weighing down on her hands.

When she opened her eyes, two hands were holding the bar on the outsides of her grip, and she lowered the bar, irritation running through her as she pulled her earbud out and sat up.

“Listen, asshole, I told you I wasn’t interested.” She turned around and froze when she saw Fadel’s face. His eyebrows were raised, and a small smile was playing at the corner of his mouth as he looked at her. “Shit, Fadel,” she said. “I didn’t—” Looking around the room, she spotted the guy from earlier working out on a leg press machine.

Fadel followed her gaze. “Someone bothering you?”

Style ran a hand over her ponytail and shook her head. “No, no.” She turned back to look at Fadel; his eyes were tracing over the guy from earlier, a blank, flat stare sliding in place. Her nose itched as the faint scent of peppercorn started to float through the air. “They’re hitmen, Style.”

Surely hitmen didn’t kill random gym goers because they hit on their girlfriend of one day, right? Fadel had said they were on a trial period, anyway, right? He couldn’t be that invested yet. Style waved a hand in front of Fadel’s face. “Hey, no. It’s fine. He offered to help and I said no, and he left me alone—see? He’s all the way over there.” She pointed toward the guy and then immediately threw her hand back down to her lap. Why didn’t she just hand Fadel a gun and walk him over to where the guy was working out? Shit.

She tossed Fadel a quick, frantic smile, and he looked at her skeptically, though his eyes stayed on her instead of wandering back toward the other man. He tapped the back of the seat with his hand, motioning for her to lay back down. “Well, he won’t come over here again,” he said, sounding sure. Oh fuck, that’s hot. Casual, easy confidence with a side of possessiveness? Sign Style up, please. Except the casual confidence probably comes from knowing you’ve killed more people than anyone else in this room. Hm. Style shook her head. Hitman, Style. He’s a hitman.

“Come on, finish up. I’ll spot you.” His hands gripped the back of her seat. If Kant was right—if Captain Chris was right—those hands had killed people. How many people? Who? Style wondered if she had seen any news reports after Fadel finished his “job.”

Style smoothed a hand over her ponytail again. “You know, I’m actually done for today,” she said, smiling brightly at him. She needed to not think about this. Fadel standing right in front of her face was dredging up all of the things that she was actively trying to avoid thinking about—Fadel himself being item number one on that list.

Fadel’s hand slid over her shoulder, squeezing gently before he pulled her back to lay down with a thump on the padded seat. “Just finish up, Style,” he said.

“No, really, I was pushing myself anyway—”

She could hear the eye roll in Fadel’s voice as he interrupted her. “Then it’s better that I’m here to help. You can push them further.” He kept his hands loosely on the bar as she started to lift it again, but she couldn’t focus on her breathing like she’d done before. Her earbud was hanging out of one ear, the loud music playing into the other and the faint, tinny strains of it fluttering back and forth on her other side where the earbud swung in the air beneath her.

He was so close to her, standing practically over her, and whenever she sucked in a breath she could taste coffee and currants in the air. Laying back like this, she was staring into his eyes as she lifted, and he was watching her with an encouraging, almost soft, smile. He wasn’t sweating at all. Had he just gotten to the gym? And the first thing he did was come to help Style? She tried to figure out if this was the first time he actually came to her, instead of just turning around to see her following him.

Fuck. She couldn’t do this. She let the bar drop back into place and sat up. “I’m done,” she declared. “Um, thank you for helping, by the way. You didn’t have to.” She started to get up, but he ducked under the bar and slid down to sit behind her, his legs slotting into place on either side of her. With him this close, the other smells of the gym—the sweat and look at me alpha pheromones, the dull tang of some omega’s frustration—all of it faded to the rush of coffee and currants, warm and bright right behind her.

One of his arms came up to sit on her waist, his thumb brushing her skin beneath her crop top. “Isn’t that what boyfriends are for?” He spoke into her ear. “Your stamina isn’t bad. Want to use it for something else?”

Style’s breath caught in her throat. Was he coming on to her? Fadel? Hadn’t she had to practically strip in front of him to get him interested?

His other hand crept onto her waist as well, encircling her, and he dragged both of his hands up, just a bit, until one of his thumbs brushed the edge of her sports bra beneath her crop top. “You liked it, didn’t you? What we did in the storage room, in the woods. We could do that again.” His chest pressed into her back, a long line of heat that ended in the press of his inseam against her butt on the chair. Style swallowed thickly. She had liked it. Both times, even in the woods where they had to fold themselves into the back of his car because he’d dragged her out into the middle of nowhere to confess—Style sucked in a gasp and had to bite her lip to choke back a noise. Had he taken her out there to kill her?

Fadel chuckled from where his chin was hooked over his shoulder, and he dropped one hand to sit on her thigh. Across the room, the guy from earlier had stood up from his machine and was staring at them, wide-eyed. Style scrambled off of the machine.

“I’m actually done for the day, I think,” she said. She couldn’t look at Fadel. If she looked at him, she would—she didn’t know what she would do, but it would be obvious and maybe rude or stupid, and he would know something was wrong, and then she and Kant would be so, so dead. “I’ve gotta go.”

“Wait,” Fadel called for her as she started to walk off. She froze. Maybe she had already been too obvious. Maybe he already figured it out. He was a hitman. He was naturally suspicious. And fuck, no wonder he’d been so bothered by the fact that Style and Kant were friends. It looked like a total set up—it was a total set up! Damn you, Kant.

She smelled Fadel come up behind her and felt the heat from his body as he stepped close to her. “Here,” he said, and he reached out with his towel to dab at the sweat on her face and neck. “You’re sweating.” When she glanced at him, he was smiling, looking amused, and she watched him dart a glance over to the guy who had been hitting on them earlier. Thankfully, it seemed like he had given up and was moving to a new machine. Was Fadel jealous? Style thought it would probably be cute if she wasn’t terrified for her own life. And that stranger’s life, she supposed.

“Thanks,” she managed, and she nodded at him as she hurried off. She was so, so screwed.

In the locker room, she stripped down, leaving only her sports bra on, and wrapped a towel around her waist before she hid herself inside of the women’s sauna. She needed more time before she went home; she had the sinking feeling that her pa—or even Kant—would be waiting at the garage. She was probably lucky that Kant hadn’t shown up before she closed the shop for the day.

She’d be safe for a while in the women’s sauna. Fadel had been so scandalized when she’d gone into the men’s sauna the first time; he’d probably work out and leave without even bothering to say goodbye—assuming she didn’t manage to leave before him. Her head was a mess. For weeks, Fadel had been grumpy and standoffish and even downright rude, and now he was smiling and feeling her up in front of other men? He was a hitman. She needed to end this. No, fuck. She had to help Kant. Fuck Kant, she thought venomously. He was the entire reason she was in this mess. If she had known from the beginning…

Style put her head in her hands. If she’d known from the beginning, what would she have done differently? Obviously, she probably would not have gotten into his car to let him drive her to the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, no matter how great the sex ended up being. She probably could have convinced him to have sex somewhere much more reasonable, like the parking lot. Or a motel with thin walls so people could hear her scream if she was being murdered.

She probably also would not have made him so many promises. Shit, she’d told him that it was okay to love! She asked him to trust her! Style scrubbed her hands over her face and sighed.

The door to the sauna opened, and Style looked up just in time to see Fadel close it behind him.

“Fadel?” Style waved a hand in front of her face to clear away some of the steam. He was in the women’s sauna. She’d gone into the right one, right?

He sat down next to her, his bare arm pressing a hot line against her. When she scooted away, he moved closer again, looking confused.

“What’s wrong with you?” he asked. He pointedly looked between them, in the space where she was leaning away from him.

“It’s just hot,” she said. “I’ve been sweating all afternoon. It’s gross.” That, at least, was entirely true.

Fadel raised an eyebrow at her. “Isn’t that kind of the point?” He slid a hand onto her thigh where her towel had fallen to the side. “You didn’t seem to mind the first time you came onto me in the sauna.” As Style struggled for a response, he studied her face. “You seem odd today.”

Style met his gaze and cast around for something to say that wasn’t Kant’s a fucking liar and I’m sorry, please don’t kill me.

His thumb traced a circle on her thigh, and she looked down at his hand. “It’s just weird. I’m not used to this. I’ve been chasing you for weeks, and suddenly you’re smiling at me and…” She waved a hand, trying to encompass how handsy he was being.

Fadel withdrew his hand and leaned back, finally putting space between them. “You wanted me to be your boyfriend. Well, I’m your boyfriend now.”

Style stared at the floor for a long moment, and her heart throbbed in her chest, clenching with something like pain. Was this how he was as a boyfriend? Was this what he’d been wanting to do this whole time? Style thought of how much she’d enjoyed teasing him, of every clenched fist and jaw she’d catalogued while she was provoking him. This whole time, he’d wanted to touch her like this; he’d been holding himself back—probably because of his actual, second job. This wasn’t a different Fadel, this was just Fadel trying to do what she had asked him to do—to let her in, just a little.

“If you’ve changed your mind, though,” he said, and he rolled back his shoulders as he leaned against the backrest of the sauna bench. Style’s eyes jerked back up to him. “It’s fine. I don’t mind. I don’t like you that much yet.” He looked away, staring at the other side of the sauna room. “I’ll get over it quickly.”

Style stared at him, her mouth open as she fought for words that wouldn’t come. There was so much to sift through in that. He didn’t like her that much? Yet? He’d get over her? Quickly? Style wasn’t sure if she should be celebrating or offended.

She wanted to let him go. He was a hitman. There was no possible way that this would end well for either of them. But Kant needed her to help him, and if she screwed things up now, it was game over. She’d decided earlier that she was going to keep helping Kant, even though it had never really been an option to not help Kant. It was just that, in this case, helping Kant meant dating a murderer; it meant looking into Fadel’s soft, dark eyes and getting to watch him smile and relax, and knowing that she was using him for Kant.

When she didn’t answer, he stood up. “All right, then. Bye.”

“Hey!” She grabbed his wrist to stop him. “Hey, wait. Just—” She sighed, tugging on his wrist to pull him back to the seat beside her. “Give me a minute, okay?” She exhaled loudly. “It’s just a lot. I didn’t ever expect to get this far. You’re giving me whiplash, you know?”

He sank back down beside her, watching her out of the corner of his eye. “Are you sure?” He turned to face her fully, making she was meeting his eyes. “Do I scare you?”

Yes. He scared the hell out of her. She licked her lips and looked down at his hand, at the way he kept his fingers loose and relaxed even as she held onto his wrist. Sitting here now, she wasn’t afraid that he would hurt her. Even earlier, when he’d been spotting her as she worked out, when he’d pressed a hot line into her back on the bench, she hadn’t thought he was going to hurt her. Style let go of his wrist and grabbed onto his hand, turning his palm up so that she could trace the lines on his palm with her thumb.

Part of her still didn’t believe that he had killed people—or, no. That didn’t feel right. She believed it; she’d seen how quickly he’d taken down three men, how easily he tracked the movement of people in a crowded room, the tense, still way he held himself when she got too close to him. It was just that she kept forgetting. She had to remind herself that he was a hitman, over and over. How could a murderer smile so softly at her, the way he had when he’d agreed to be her boyfriend? How could someone so bad laugh and let her move him around like a doll as she kissed his cheeks?

“Style?” His voice broke through her thoughts, and she forced herself to drag her eyes back up to meet his.

“I’m sure.” She tilted her head to the side. “Are you?”

Fadel rolled his eyes. “I’m not. I told you. We’re on trial.” He took his hand back from her.

Style narrowed her eyes at him. Again with the trial bullshit. Two steps forward, one step back. “We’re on trial, you don’t like me that much, and you’ll get over me quickly if we break up. You have anything nice you want to say to your girlfriend, huh? Keep this up and you’re going to hurt my feelings.” As she spoke, she slid her arm on the bench behind him and leaned into his space. He was a hitman, but he was her boyfriend, and he was a man. Style had never let a man insult her and get away with it before; she wasn’t going to start now just because the man in question knew his way around a gun. He probably wasn’t going to kill her. He liked her.

She swept a hand up his chest, feeling his abs tense beneath her touch as she felt her way up his chest. She felt his breathing pause as she slid her thumb in a circle near his nipple. Men’s opinions on having their nipples played with varied; some men liked it, some men didn’t—some men liked it but liked to pretend they didn’t because they had weird hang ups about gender and being treated ‘like a woman.’ Style watched Fadel’s face as she swept her thumb over the brown nub, feeling it start to stiffen beneath her touch, and he sucked in a short, sharp breath, turning his head away from her.

She smirked; he liked it. She wanted to get her mouth on them and see if she could make him gasp.

He grabbed her wrist, halting her movement, and turned to look at her. She watched the flush crawl up his neck as his throat moved when he spoke. “Should we go back to your garage?”

Style froze. Her garage. Where Kant and/or her pa were probably waiting. Her pa may have even called Kant and arranged a family dinner—he tended to do that if he knew Kant and Style were arguing. He’d made them sit directly across from each other and eat from the same plate one week a few years ago when they had been fighting about—betting? A football match? Style couldn’t even remember, now.

“You’ve been to my restaurant a dozen times,” Fadel continued. “Take me back to your place.”

“No,” Style said, and she pulled her hand back. “That’s not—it’s dirty and full of cars and car parts.” And Kant. And pa. Nothing would kill the mood faster than bringing Fadel to a family dinner.

Fadel sighed. “We’re not having sex here,” he said as Style opened her mouth to suggest just that. “I don’t care about the garage being messy; I expected that. It’s a garage.”

Style pulled away from him and ran a hand over her hair, grimacing at the damp feeling of sweat on her scalp. “We can’t go back to mine, not tonight,” she said. She wondered how many missed calls and texts would be waiting for her when she took her phone out of her locker. She didn’t even know what time it was. How long could she ignore Kant before he tracked her down?

Style flinched as Fadel’s hand touched her cheek, and she looked over at him. He traced her lip with his thumb, searching her face with a frown. “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Why can’t we go back to yours?” When Style started to shake her head, he held onto her chin and tipped her face up so that she had to meet his gaze. “You don’t want to let me into your turf?”

There was something hiding in the back of his eyes, some hint of hurt or disappointment, and Style reached up to grab his wrist and keep his hand against her face. “No,” she said quickly. “That’s not—it’s not about you. I just…” She made a face and pulled his hand down into her lap. A fresh wave of heat and steam floated into the air, and she groaned, sucking in a deep breath of thick, humid air. “Can we shower and get dressed and talk about this somewhere else?”

Fadel pulled his hand back, looking frustrated, and Style stood up and offered her hand to him. “Come on, I swear it’s not about you. I’ve just been here for a while, and I’m hot and tired and gross. Let’s get a drink somewhere.”

Fadel reluctantly let her lead him out of the sauna, and she smacked his arm when she closed the door behind her and saw the “out of order” sign hanging from the doorknob. “Sneaky!” she said, half laughing. No wonder they hadn’t been interrupted by any scandalized aunties.

He looked proud of himself, and she shoved him into the men’s locker room. “Go, go. We’ll meet right here when we’re dressed.” At his skeptical look, Style darted up to press a kiss to his cheek. Did he really think she was going to ditch him? Next time, she’d just have to put her stuff in the men’s locker room and change in front of him. That was a fun thought. “When have you ever been able to get rid of me, huh? Go.”

Clean and mostly dry—Style’s damp hair was piled on top of her head in a bun—they made their way to a bar nearby to grab a drink. While Fadel was getting their beers from the bar, Style pulled out her phone and started scrolling through her messages; she was surprised to see only three from Kant.

Kant: I’m sorry. Can we talk?

Kant: Please call me

Kant: Or come by

The messages were from the morning, in the hour after she had stormed out from the garage, and he hadn’t followed up since then. It settled, sour and churning, in her gut. He didn’t even try very hard to talk to her. Maybe he didn’t think he’d done anything wrong. It was almost seven o’clock now.

Fadel returned, and he sat their drinks down on the table as he spoke. “You’re frowning again,” he said. “What’s wrong?”

Style set her phone face down on the table and leaned forward on her elbows, sighing. “Kant and I are fighting,” she admitted.

Fadel blinked, surprised. “About his brother?” he asked. “You said you were going to talk to him about the bullying.” He searched her expression, his eyes flitting over her face. “It didn’t go well?”

Style took a long drink of her beer and threw herself back in her seat. “Not at all,” she said. Even before Kant finally told her the truth, the conversation hadn’t gone according to plan. She wasn’t even sure if he understood that she was implying that something was wrong with Babe.

“What happened?” Fadel asked, encouraging her to continue.

“He thought I was criticizing him and saying he was neglecting Babe. He acted like I was being nosy and not minding my own business. As though I don’t have any right to worry about Babe!” She scoffed and took another long drink of beer.

Fadel took a drink of his own beer, looking thoughtful, and he tipped his head to the side. “I would get annoyed if someone told me I wasn’t taking good care of Bison,” he conceded.

Since when did Fadel take Kant’s side on anything? At any other time, she’d be proud of him. “I’m not just someone,” Style protested, flinging out a hand. “I’m his best friend!”

“You’re not Babe’s brother,” Fadel corrected.

Style rolled her eyes. “I forget you don’t know anything,” she said, and she took a drink. When she looked up, Fadel was leveling a dark glare at her, and she nearly spit out the mouthful across the table. “Sorry!” she said, laughing. She wished they were sitting on the same side of the booth so that she could kiss his frown away. “Sorry, sorry.” She reached across the table to grab his hand and swing it in the air between them, smiling at him until his frown eased a little. “I just forget sometimes that you don’t know much about Kant and me.”

“So tell me.” Fadel pulled his hand back, still unamused.

Style flagged down the waitress for a refill before she settled in to explain. “Kant and I have been friends since we were like, six years old. I practically lived at his house for a few years after my mom died when I was ten. When his parents died, he and his brother lived with us for a little while, and even after they moved back into their place…” She trailed off, trying to figure out how to explain it. Her pa had never really been a father to Kant, but he hadn’t not been a parent to him, either.

“We’re family,” she said helplessly with a shrug. “I met Babe the day after he was born in the hospital. I picked him up from school when Kant was busy apprenticing for his license. If Babe isn’t my brother—” she stopped to laugh. “If he isn’t my brother, then he’s my nephew. If he’s neither, he’s my son.” She grinned at Fadel and raised an eyebrow at him. “So if you’re going to date me, I hope you’re ready to be a father.”

Fadel rolled his eyes and took a look drink of his beer. “I’m not,” he said flatly. “We’re breaking up.” Style laughed again, ignoring the sideways look a couple of other diners threw her way as she tilted her head back. When she quieted down, he was watching her fondly, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth as he took another drink.

“That’s rude,” she said, and she stuck her tongue out at him. “See if I ever—” Beside her, Style’s phone began to vibrate. She flipped it over and saw Babe’s name on the screen. “One second,” she said to Fadel as she quickly thumbed the screen to accept the call.

“Babe? Are you okay?”

“You told him?” Babe’s voice was low and upset, and Style frowned.

“What?”

“You told Kant! You promised you wouldn’t tell Kant.” His voice echoed sharply over the line.

“I didn’t tell Kant anything,” she said. She hadn’t, had she? She had barely gotten to tell him that she was worried about Babe. She exchanged a worried look with Fadel. “Why do you think I told him anything?”

“He showed up at my school! Ohm says he stopped those guys from beating him up.” Babe was angry at her, she realized. His voice was low and almost growling, like he was glaring at her through the phone. “You promised me you wouldn’t tell him, phi. I trusted you.”

Style shook her head even though she knew he couldn’t see it, and she ran a hand over her hair. “Nong, I swear, I didn’t tell Kant anything. We got into an argument this morning; even if I had wanted to tell him something, he wasn’t listening. And I didn’t plan to tell him, by the way. I promised you. When was he at your school?”

Babe’s voice dropped again, quiet and confused. “Ohm just called me. He said Kant and Bison came by this afternoon after I left.”

Style dragged a finger through the condensation left by her glass. “I don’t know what to tell you, kiddo. I swear I didn’t say anything. We talked for like twenty minutes this morning, and half of that was an argument. I haven’t even answered his texts from earlier.” She listened to Babe breathe for a moment. “What did Ohm say? What did Kant do?”

Style wondered if she needed to start preparing bail money. The thought of it, fresh off the heels of her argument with Kant this morning, made her bury her face in her free hand as Babe explained how Kant had interrupted Ohm getting bullied and smacked one of the bullies.

“Is that all?” Style asked, confused. Kant wouldn’t stop at a single hit, not if the kids had been leaving bruises on Babe for weeks. Babe mumbled something, and Style pressed the phone closer to her ear. Below the table, Fadel’s foot hooked behind her ankle, and she looked up to see him watching her with a concerned expression.

Babe sucked in a loud breath. “He talked to the teacher who started everything.” Babe was still mumbling, as though if he said it quietly enough, Style wouldn’t hear it.

“The teacher?” Style yelped. “A teacher started this shit? Who? They’ll never work again in this city. What kind of asshole—” Style was halted by both Fadel’s hand on hers and Babe’s shouts of “Phi!” over the phone.

Style glared at the table top and lowered her voice, feeling Fadel’s thumb brush over the back of her hand soothingly. “Babe, you’re telling me a teacher helped some kids bully you and your friend, and you want me to leave it alone?” If she had known that, she would have never agreed to keep it a secret from Kant. Kids bullying kids was one thing; a teacher being involved was another matter entirely. Babe couldn’t fight back against an adult in a position of power.

“Phi, Kant already took care of it. I don’t know what he did, but Ohm said the teacher was crying in the bathroom after he left.”

All of the tension fled from Style’s shoulders. “Oh.” Style flipped her hand over to hold Fadel’s, playing with his fingers. He had callouses on the inside of his first and second knuckles, and his palm was calloused too. Style wondered if those kinds of callouses were common in people who handled guns, or if there was some other weapon Fadel favored enough to form callouses on his hands.

“Well then why are you upset? It sounds like it’s handled.” She’d need to check in with Kant about what, exactly, he did to make a grown man cry, but as long as the man wouldn’t bother Babe anymore and Kant wasn’t going to jail, Style didn’t really care. Kant’s brand of justice was vicious and swift when it came to Babe; he wouldn’t leave the man with any chance of recovering. Style would be surprised if the man managed to keep his job. Fadel stole his hand back from her and raised an unapologetic eyebrow at her when she gave him a wounded look.

There was a shuffling noise on the other end of the line. “I thought you told him. And I didn’t want him to have to worry.”

Style took a drink of her beer and shot Fadel an exasperated look. “I understand that, nong, but Kant is your big brother. He’s always going to worry about you. I don’t know how he found out, but he’s not exactly dumb, you know? Once he knew, of course he was going to do something. As long as you’re not hurt, and he’s not hurt, it’s okay, right?”

Babe started to say something, but he was interrupted by the sound of Kant’s voice in the background. “He’s home, phi.”

Style scrubbed a hand over her face. “Don’t hang up,” she said. “Just…” She made a disgruntled noise and sighed. “Put him on the phone for me, will you?”

Babe was quiet for a moment. “You said you guys were arguing,” he said, the words lifting up at the end like a question.

“Yeah, we were. Don’t worry about it. Put him on for me.”

Babe sighed loudly, like he wanted her to know just how irritated he was that she wasn’t explaining why she and Kant were fighting, and then there was muffled shuffling and speaking before Kant’s voice came back over the phone.

“Style?” He spoke quietly, his voice subdued.

“We’re not having this conversation over the phone,” Style said to preempt anything he could say. “I’m calling a family meeting.”

“You don’t want to talk about it over the phone, but you’ll say it at a family meeting?” Kant asked, and Style rolled her eyes.

“Not about that. About whatever the hell you did to Babe’s teacher. You and I will talk after.”

“You already know about that?”

“Why do you think I was talking to Babe?”

There was more muffled talking in the background. “Wait, you knew about this and didn’t tell me?”

“Kant,” Style said loudly. “Family. Meeting.”

Kant groaned, and Style was pretty sure Babe groaned in the background as well. “Style,” he said. “Do we really have to get pa involved?” Style glared down at the table, and Kant took advantage of her hesitation. “It’s already handled; there’s no need to worry him about this.”

Style didn’t really want to worry pa without a good reason, and she wasn’t sure it would be worth telling him anything until she knew for sure what Kant had done to the teacher. “Fine,” Style agreed. “But if something else happens—”

“Then we’ll tell pa.” She could imagine Kant fist bumping Babe in the background; undoubtedly, Babe didn’t want pa involved either.

“I’ll be by your place tonight, then,” Style said, and she looked up to shoot an apologetic grimace at Fadel. “I’ll come by in an hour or so.”

“Where are you at now? Pa said you came back to the garage for work, but he said you didn’t talk to him.”

Style took a drink of beer and swirled the frothy amber liquid in the glass for a moment before she answered. “I’m with Fadel. We’re on a date.” She grinned cheekily at Fadel and winked.

“You’re—oh.” Kant’s voice was muffled as he said something to Babe, and then there was the sound of a door closing. “You’re with Fadel?”

“Yep,” Style popped the p as she said it. “He’s my boyfriend, remember?” She waited for a moment, letting the words sink in. Let him remember that she was effectively stuck dating Fadel because of him. Across the table from her, Fadel was fighting back a smile, and Style’s heart thumped once painfully in her chest. She rubbed at her sternum absently, forcing her mind back on track. “And I said we’re not going to have this discussion on the phone. So. I’ll see you in a little bit.”

Before Kant could answer, she hung up the phone and placed it facedown on the table again. “Sorry,” she said to Fadel, pouting a little bit. “Apparently Kant went to Babe’s school and beat up a kid or something.”

Fadel raised an eyebrow at her. “I heard you say something about a teacher?”

Style grimaced and took another drink. “Yeah, somehow a teacher was involved in the bullying too. Babe said Kant and Bison left him crying in the bathroom, though.” Style bit back a curse as she said it. Shit. If Bison had been there, what had they done to the teacher? Would Bison threaten a teacher’s life for Kant’s sake? Would he have done it in front of Kant? Style wanted to go home and crawl into bed; the brothers being hitmen added so many layers of questions and complications to everything. Style wasn’t made to worry this much over boys.

“Bison?” Fadel’s voice was low and concerned.

“Ah,” Style shifted in her seat. “Yeah, Babe’s friend said Bison was there with Kant.” She held up a hand even though Fadel hadn’t said anything, predicting the flood of questions he’d have. “I don’t know anything more than that yet. I’ll tell you when I find out, or you can interrogate Bison if you want.” How did two hitmen interrogate each other? Would Fadel tie his own brother to a chair and put a gun in his face? Style imagined Fadel tying her to a chair and holding a gun in her face; she shifted in her seat and had to take another drink at the thought.

Fadel was looking down at the table, and she nudged his foot with hers to get him to look at her. “I’m sorry we can’t spend the evening together. If I don’t sit both of them down and make them talk about it, they’ll just say two words about it and pretend nothing ever happened.”

Fadel shook his head. “No, it’s fine. I’ll go home and talk to Bison.” He leaned back in his chair. “Come on, I’ll drive you back to the gym so you can get your car.” Style let him lead her out of the restaurant and pack her into his car, but she snagged his shirt before he could step away and close the passenger door.

She slid her hand up his shirt to his collar, pressing her palm flat over the ridge of his muscles beneath the shirt and smiling indolently at the flutter of his eyelashes when she brushed her fingers over his nipple. She pinched the collar of his shirt and pulled him down to kiss her, gently pressing their lips together. He chased her when she started to lean back, one of his hands bracing his weight on the seat beside her and the other coming to grab her waist. His palm was a hot brand on her side, pressing into her skin like he wanted to sink into her.

She hooked a leg around his waist, urging him closer to her and grabbing his jaw to tilt his head to the side so they could slot their mouths more closely together. He pulled away only to press back in, crowding her into the car with his body as he mouthed a warm, wet line down her throat.

She bit back a whine. “Fadel,” she said, breathless. “Baby—” The word cut off with a sharp, high pitched moan before she could bury her face in his neck to muffle herself as he bit the skin below her ear, sucking like he wanted to leave a mark.

At her noise, she felt him tense, his body a rigid weight against her before he exhaled loudly against her skin and pressed his forehead into her shoulder. He muttered something, so quiet and low she couldn’t understand it, and she ran a hand through his hair, petting the soft strands soothingly until he relaxed against her.

His hands circled her waist, thumbs nearly meeting beneath her navel, and she wrapped her arm around his shoulders. “How about,” she said quietly, speaking into his ear, “tomorrow, we do this properly. We’re dating now, right? So let’s go on a date, a real one. And then we can go back to mine, and I’ll have you on a real bed, and I can take my time with you the way I’ve been wanting to from the moment I saw you.”

His hands flexed on her waist, gripping hard enough to bruise before he released her, and he nodded against her forehead. “Deal,” he said.

Babe and Kant were waiting for her when she arrived, and Kant made a plate for her, offering it to her while he looked up at her through his eyelashes until she rolled her eyes and took it from him. She sat across from him and Babe and made everyone explain each of their parts in the debacle to the whole table; Kant looked irritated that she had agreed to keep a secret from him, but she raised a pointed eyebrow at him, and he flushed and looked away. Babe looked between them and shot her a questioning look, but she waved him off.

They managed to keep a casual conversation flowing until Babe finished his food, and then they both ruffled his hair as they stepped outside to talk in the courtyard. Style made eye contact with Babe as she closed the door, sending him a warning look to make sure he knew better than to eavesdrop.

Kant sank into one of the chairs and passed Style a beer as she sat; he cracked open the top of his, but he didn’t take a drink of it. Thumbing the tab, he stared down at the ground between his sandals.

Style rolled the beer can between her hands, not really interested in drinking any more. Above them, the night sky glittered with a few stars that managed to shine through the light pollution from the city, and the air echoed with chirps and buzzes from the insects that were waking up for the evening. Style rubbed at her calf with her foot and sighed.

They both opened their mouths to speak at the same time, and Style gestured for him to go, leaning back into her chair and resting the beer can on her knee.

“You are my family, Style,” he said. “You know that.” He ran his hand up the back of his head, ruffling his dark hair in the wrong direction before he let his hand drop back into his lap. “I should have told you the truth from the beginning.”

“You should have,” she agreed evenly.

He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip. “Can you really blame me for not wanting to drag you into all of this, though? I didn’t want you or Babe in danger, not if I could help it.”

Style scoffed and finally cracked open her beer. She used the excuse of taking a drink to give her a moment; she had to shuffle through the first few automatic responses that came to her. She didn’t want to fight with Kant again. “I was in danger anyway, though, Kant, don’t you get that?” She looked over at him and tried to keep her voice gentle as she spoke. “Even if you hadn’t asked me to get with Fadel, I would have still tried to become friends with Bison because I thought you liked him. Keeping me in the dark isn’t protecting me, it’s blinding me to the dangers that we’re both in.”

Kant looked back at her, his eyes wide and dark. Like this, he looked younger. They were almost thirty, but she never really felt like an adult, not even when she was struggling with Kant to help him file taxes or fill out paperwork for Babe; even then, she felt like they were kids dressing in clothes a few sizes too big for them and fumbling their way through different forms until they could cobble together something reasonable. They’d had to grow up so fast, and yet they’d never really grown up at all.

Style let the air leave her lungs in a loud, long sigh, as though the sharp exhale could expel the swirling sense of dread and anxiety floating through her.

“I’m going to help you, Kant,” she said. “You know I will. I’ll keep dating him.” The words tasted sour in her mouth. She hadn’t even gotten a full day of dating Fadel—a Fadel who smiled at her, even if he tried to hide it, who put his hands on her at every chance he could get like he’d been dying to for days—before she learned it had to be a big, terrifying lie of a relationship. “Fuck. I think I really could have liked him, Kant. You didn’t see the way he looked at me when he agreed to date me.”

Kant’s hand settled on her shoulder, and he pulled her to lean into him over the arm of the chair, wafting earthy basil and bright apples straight into her nose. “He’s dangerous, Style. You can’t let him fool you. Him and Bison both. They—” He broke off, stumbling over his words. “They’re murderers. We just have to get enough evidence for the captain, and then they’ll be gone.”

Style’s breath caught in her throat, and she forced herself to breathe through it, her exhale soft and shaky. “What’s going to happen to them?”

Kant’s voice fell flatly into the grass in front of them, dark and steady. “They’ll go to jail, I guess. It’s the only way we’ll be safe.”

Style closed her eyes and pressed her forehead into Kant’s shoulder. She didn’t imagine Fadel pacing in a gray concrete cell. She didn’t picture him submitting to be patted down before he stepped into the cell, didn’t wonder if he would be able to be near Bison, didn’t think of the way he’d stare up at the ceiling at night and listen to the sound of the guards doing their rounds. “Right. Of course.”

Kant squeezed her shoulder gently. “It’ll be fine. Between you and me, we’ll get the evidence in no time. And then the captain will be off my back, and we can move on.”

Style nodded, her hair bunching up against his shirt, and she let herself relax into him. They would be fine. She’d just have to date Fadel for a little while, have some awesome sex and flirt like she always did, and then they’d be taken away, and she and Kant would be free. They’d be fine. Together.