Page 84 of Lennox Lane

Her phone buzzed on the table. The sound cut through the warmth so sharply her fingers stilled around her water glass. Lennox felt the shift before she said anything. His hand stopped moving on her shoulder, and the easy expression on his face smoothed into something watchful.

Lane didn’t pick up the phone as it buzzed repeatedly with the unknown number. They both knew it was Jeanette as Lennox reached for her phone but stopped himself. The restraint he showed only confirmed that he was always keeping her boundaries at the forefront of his mind.

“She’s been using multiple numbers,” Lane said, picking up the phone herself. “And text apps—whatever she can find. I block one, and another pops up.”

“Can I see?”

She looked at him with the question sitting between them. This wasn’t his hand already on her business while he pretended it was protection. Lane unlocked the phone and passed it to him as he scrolled through the message thread, his face giving away almost nothing, but his body gave him up. The muscle jumping in his jaw. The tautness in his shoulders. The way his thumb paused over one message before moving on.

Lane didn’t need to read it to know which one had caught him. Jeanette had sent it while they were inside The Ink Well.

Unknown: You think performing poems changes what you were? I know the real you.

Another had come twenty minutes later.

Unknown: Meet me before I stop asking nice.

Unknown: You owe me.

Lane hated that one most. She didn’t owe Jeanette shit. An ass whooping at worst and her ass to kiss at best. It wasn’t as if Jeanette had given her anything but a nervous system that flinched at broken locks and unknown numbers.

Lennox set the phone down between them, screen facing up but untouched. “Don’t handle this by yourself.”

She looked toward the window, where the neon reflection blurred against the glass. “I’ve been handling her by myself my whole life.”

“I know.” His voice softened. “And I’m asking you to stop making that the requirement.”

He didn’t say she couldn’t handle it. He didn’t say she was in over her head. He didn’t try to turn her mother into another mission he could complete from behind a screen while Lane waited for the report.

He asked again. Damn Robot and his software updates.

Lennox turned slightly in the booth, his knee pressing lightly against hers. “Let me help and support you. Not take over or make decisions for you. I just want to offer my help and support, whatever that looks like to you.”

Lane bit the inside of her lip, then released it when she realized she was doing it. His eyes dropped to the movement, darkening for half a second before he forced them back to hers. She wanted to say no on instinct. No was clean. No kept the gates locked. No meant nobody could disappoint her unless she opened the door and gave them the map. But no also meant going home alone with Jeanette’s threats buzzing through her phone and the old girl inside her bracing for another night of saving herself.

Lane was tired of saving herself in rooms where someone else was asking to stand guard.

“Okay,” she said quietly.

She looked at the surprised expression on his face. “Don’t make that face.”

“What face?”

“The face like I just gave you nuclear codes.”

“I’ll let you help,” she said. “But I lead.”

“You lead.”

Keisha returned with two catfish baskets and eyed them both. “Do I need to bring hot sauce or a referee?” She asked jokingly.

“Both,” Lane said.

Lennox laughed, and just like that, the heaviness shifted enough to let air back in. They ate and talked about everything and nothing. Lane dipped catfish into hot sauce and stole fries from Lennox’s basket even though hers were right there. Lennox let her, then stole a piece of her fish and pretended to be offended when she slapped his hand.

“Thief,” she said.

“You stole first,” he reminded her