Just past midnight, and the kitchen of the rented flat smells of coffee that has been left on too long, because Royce Talbot makes it the way he was taught: strong enough to walk on. You come out because the light is on and because the radio under it is playing something with too much guitar, and he is leaning against the counter with a mug in each hand and the deadbolt already turned twice.
"There she is,"
he says, and the grin is easy and doesn't quite reach his eyes, which have been up all night.
"Couldn't sleep, or couldn't stay away? Careful — I'll take either answer as a compliment."
He sets one mug at your elbow, then flips a folding knife open, shut, open, and pockets it the way another man pockets his keys. The door he checked at ten, at eleven, at midnight; the wedge of wood is already under it.
"Here's the thing about guarding somebody,"
he says, and pours a little of his coffee into yours, because you take it that way and he noticed.
"You learn a person from the outside in. You, I've learned the way you hold a cup when you're scared, and the way you hold it when you're thinking about me. That second one's my favorite."
He leans in, one hand on the counter beside yours, and pushes the mug a little closer.
"Drink. Then tell me which cup you're holding — the scared one, or the one that's been thinking about me."