Page 107
Epilogue
Six Months Later
The Rogue compound café was completely dead at two in the morning, leaving Ryder alone with the low hum of the commercial refrigerator behind the counter. With the day shift long gone and the night crew confined to the tech labs and briefing areas, this corner offered total isolation.
That was what he wanted. He needed to get this sequence down with no one else around.
He set the salt shaker on the left side of the table, then put the pepper shaker beside it.
He slid the sugar caddy to the exact center, fanning three pink sweetener packets into a neat row behind the napkin holder. Two forks went down on the right side, completely parallel, followed by the knife balanced right near the table edge.
He sat back and looked at it.
Leaning forward, he nudged the second fork a fraction of an inch to the left, accepting that he had officially turned into that guy.
Jesus Christ, Sutton. Get a grip.
The sequence was pure muscle memory by this point, a routine he could probably execute half asleep or even blind drunk, though he had no intention of testing the latter theory.
Tonight, he couldn’t miss a single step. He had to get it right.
He checked his phone. The text he’d sent her a few minutes ago sat at the bottom of the screen.
Café. Bring your giant brain.
Her reply had come back in under ten seconds.
My giant brain is always with me. It’s the rest of me that needs coffee.
The drinks were already waiting, her black coffee steaming at her regular spot and his own overly sweet blend in front of his chair. He had long since abandoned any shame over the heavy cream and sugar, mostly because her teasing smile when she called him princess was worth any dent in his pride.
The door opened.
Cassandra came in wearing a hoodie she’d commandeered from his closet and her glasses propped up on her head. A stray pen mark on her jaw and a slow roll of her right shoulder gave away her marathon evening behind the monitor, trying to stretch out the familiar muscle knot from programming.
Even after six months of watching her walk into rooms, the sight of her still completely wrecked his focus. He had a feeling it always would.
He left his chair before she even finished closing the door, meeting her halfway across the empty room. She stepped right into his space, her hands curling into the front of his shirt as she tilted her chin upward. His mouth found hers in a long, deliberate kiss, his palm flattening against her spine through the fleece of the hoodie.
She made a small sound against his mouth that was going to have him fucking her in a closet somewhere if she wasn’t careful.
She pulled back just far enough to talk. “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself. Where the hell have you been? I’ve missed you.”
A smile broke across her face. “You saw me at dinner.”
“Yeah. Hours ago. Completely unacceptable.”
Keeping a hand anchored on her hip, he guided her toward the table and pulled out her seat. The moment she settled in, her focus shifted straight to the bizarre spread in front of her.
“What’s all this?”
“Drink your coffee first.”
She raised an eyebrow at him, but she wrapped both hands around the cup and took a long drink.
Her phone buzzed on the table. She glanced at the screen and flipped it facedown.
