Page 5 of Dissonance

“It is if you care about hockey,” I say.

“Isn’t rugby more your thing? Being Scottish and all? Or is tossing the caber what you’re into?”

“Out of everything I told you about the Highland Games, that’s the only one you remember,” I mutter, then narrow my eyes. “And why do you always need to make it sound so dirty?”

“Because we all know there’s only one thing going on inside Coop’s head when he says that,” Declan mutters, already locked into the pregame show.

“You’re a wee shite,” I tell him, shaking my head as he grins wider. “Order us some damn pizza.”

I duck into the kitchen and grab three beers from the fridge, opening nearly every drawer before finding the bottle opener. The familiar hiss fills the room as I uncap them and head back, handing one to each of the guys.

Declan clinks his bottle against mine as Cooper sighs happily, sagging back into the cushions and leaning into his husband like he wasn’t playing to a sold-out stadium of fans screaming his name two nights ago.

“Welcome home, Lockie,” he says, lifting his beer.

I look around once more, my gaze catching on the low glow of the security lights along the drive, the kind of peace most people would spend a lifetime chasing. The kind I’ve never quite known what to do with.

I’ve lived out of a bag for so long I’d stopped noticing. Deployments, hotels, tour buses, borrowed homes in borrowed cities I couldn’t point to on a map.

That was enough. That was the job.

This… This is the first time I can remember having a key to a place that’s actually mine.

I raise my bottle in reply. “Aye, lad. Home.”

Chapter Two

Thea

“But that wasn’t what happened.”

“I never said it was.”

ZeroSaint sits across from me, elbows braced on his knees, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles have gone pale. His hood’s up, shadowing half his face, but I can still see the tension working through his jaw, the way he’s grinding his teeth like he’s trying to hold himself together by sheer force of will.

“I just needed air. It was raining, I didn’t think, I…I just wanted a cigarette, but didn’t have any on me and…” he trails off, sighing before adding quieter, “I was on the phone with my mom.”

“That doesn’t matter right now,” I say gently, reaching for my tablet and crossing the room toward him.

His eyes lift, smudged eyeliner and dark circles ringing them, his usually bright-blue gaze now downcast. Pulling up the first image, I turn the screen to face him. Two hooded figures stand in a narrow alley; heads bent at an angle that suggests secrecy. It’s grainy, almost too dark to see anything truly incriminating, but the framing is damning.

The second image is worse—cropped tight, capturing fingers mid-exchange, whatever’s being passed between them conveniently obscured. As he stares at it, something shifts in his face. Not the composed deflection he walked in with. A flicker of uncertainty, there and gone before he can lock it down again.

“Fuck,” he mutters, scrubbing a hand through his hair, black strands sticking up in every direction. “These look bad.”

“They look intentional,” I correct.

“Dude, whatever,” Zane drawls as he briefly looks up from his phone, sprawled across the sofa at the far end of my office, flicking at imaginary lint on his jeans. “Loads of people do drugs. It’s not like it’s a big deal.”

“But it is,” Tyler snaps, too fast, too sharp, that persona he walked in with long gone, leaving a twenty-one-year-old kid in its place. “I don’t do them. After everything my dad went through with his addiction, I might as well be the poster child for not doing them. Everyone knows that.”

He swipes to the last photo. This one catches his head mid-turn, glancing over his shoulder. He’s alone, Zane cleanly cut from the frame like the photographer had been waiting exactly for this moment.

“Stories come from images.” I tap the screen. “Not from what happened. From how it looks.”

Shoulders sinking, he stares at it for a moment longer. “He was just giving me a cigarette.”

“I know.”