SAGE
The gun felt heavy in my jacket pocket as we walked along the sidewalk toward a coffee shop just down the road from the hotel.
“Don’t you think this is all a little unnecessary?” I said. “No one even knows I’m here.”
Jack swung the café door open, and the smell of baked goods and coffee wafted toward us. The shop already hummed with the noise of a dozen or more patrons grabbing their breakfasts and drinks. Inside, the shop lights shined a warm glow over the tables, couches, and comfortable leather chairs, some of them already occupied, even though it was hardly past 6:30. Jack was right, something about being around other people—even strangers I didn’t know—felt soothing.
“Nothing is unnecessary at this point,” Jack answered, guiding me into the line to order, scanning the faces in the café, scenting out any potential danger. Jack’s tension had only incrementally increased since 4:30 this morning. Anytime now, I expected him to blow.
On our right, a divider wall separated the order line from the other sections of the café. Along the wall to our left, shelves displayed artwork for sale as well as various random items someone might want for a day at the coffee shop: journals, origami kits, stickers, pencils, sketch pads, a few small travel board games. Jack picked up a sketch pad and some colored pencils.
“This should be sufficient to occupy you for three hours, right?” He held them up.
I shrugged. “Sure.”
I hated to tell Jack, but I didn’t really do art. Between running the farm and going to school, I wasn’t exactly budding with free time. Any little extra time I did have at the end of the day, Beckett and I always headed to the loft to work on our diagrams and charts of the stars. But somehow, I doubted that mattered much to Jack right now. Even as we stood in line, he pulled out his phone again, for the hundred and fiftieth time. And it must have still been crickets from Beck because Jack slid the phone back in his pocket, and his neck muscles tightened.
After the four people in front of us placed their orders, we stepped up to the counter.
Jack set the sketch pad and pencils down. “We’ll take these and a large hot chocolate, please. And …” He glanced at me.
“A café au lait, please,” I said.
“You want a scone?” Jack said.
I shrugged.
The barista watched while Jack reached over my shoulder and picked up two raspberry scones wrapped in cellophane from the top of the display case.
“We’ll take these, too.” He laid them on the counter in front of the barista. She couldn’t stop staring at him, and it reminded me of Cathy from last night.
I didn’t blame the barista girl. Jack’s black t-shirt hugged his torso, and his black leather jacket hung open, his chest and shoulders filling it out completely. He hadn’t shaved, and a five o’clock shadow covered his jawline and chin. Jack’s tense expression just added to the dark and mysterious hot-guy appearance. The barista had no idea what was really going on in our world. To her, he was just another patron. And a very attractive one.
Jack didn’t seem to notice her staring, or more likely, he was just used to it.
I wondered what she’d think if she knew the truth—who Jack really was, the story behind his beautiful face, the burdens and weight he carried inside himself. Would she love him all the more for it?
Jack handed a fifty dollar bill to the girl. “Keep the change.”
She smiled and mumbled a “thanks so much” as Jack motioned me forward, and we walked around the counter to pick up our drinks at the other end of the bar.
“Hot chocolate? Really?” I said, trying to ease some of the tension. “I would have taken you for a black coffee kinda guy.”
Jack leaned in by my ear. “I already feel like I have ten cups of coffee running through my system every moment of every day.”
“Café au lait for Jack!” A barista shouted as he set the cup down on the counter. He didn’t look twice before he placed another cup next to the first and shouted again. “Chocolate Desire for Jack!”
Jack handed me my cup.
I raised my eyebrows at him. “Chocolate Desire? You have an entire selection of hot drinks available at an upper-end coffee shop, and you ordered their Chocolate Desire?”
Jack rolled his eyes at me and pointed toward a two-person table in the middle of the café.
He dropped the scone and a napkin on the table next to the sketch pad and pencils and waited for me to dutifully sit down.
“Okay, you’re all set, right?” He looked antsy, like he couldn’t wait to hop back on his bike.
I patted the sketch pad and pencils, then patted the gun in my jacket pocket. “Just great.”
“Do not leave this seat. I will be back in four hours or less. Can you promise me not to leave this table while I’m gone?”
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
“You can leave that last part off,” Jack said dryly, pushing up from where he leaned on the table with his fingertips.
“And if anyone at all acts suspicious, make it back to the hotel room and call me. This is my number.” Jack pulled a red pencil from the box and scribbled on a napkin.
I stared at the number, frustrated that it didn’t immediately imprint to my memory. My numbers really had gone away. It felt strange, because for most of my life, remembering things like phone numbers and code combinations had been an afterthought, the effort to recall them had always been inconsequential.
I bit my lip, still unsure of Jack’s new plan.
He was leaving me with a gun in my pocket. This wasn’t like the shotguns from back home, either.
But Jack seemed adamant that Beck was in trouble and needed help. He refused to entertain the other possibility—that Beckett may not be on our side. I guess if it were Finn, I’d do the same.
“Okay, then, I’m leaving. Remember. Don’t go anywhere.”
Jack paused, just staring down at me. I could tell he didn’t want to leave, still torn between staying with me and going to find Beckett. Even now, he debated his decision.
“Go!” I said to Jack when he still didn’t move. “I’m fine. I’m a big girl. Go get your brother.”
I wanted him to go. Whether that meant Jack would find my reservations about Beck were true or bring Beckett safely back to us.
I tried not to think about it. I didn’t want to unlatch the lock on the section of my heart that contained feelings for Beckett. If I did that now and my seed of doubt about him proved true, it only meant feeling more pain in the end. If I did that now and he was innocent but Vasterias had caught him, it only meant a different kind of pain.
So better to wait until I knew for sure, one way or the other.
Jack stuffed a scone in his pocket, downed his cup of Chocolate Desire in five gulps, and headed for the door.
His face remained stone cold, but he winked at me before he exited—a habitual farewell, I assumed, because I knew the wink didn’t mean anything but an unspoken goodbye. Jack wouldn’t have done it if it meant anything more.
Still—innocuous or not—I noticed about four other females in the coffee shop who wished the wink had been meant for them.