The Scumbag's Guide To Heroism novel Chapter 572

Chapter 572: 572 | A Second Heartbeat

The corner of her mouth twitched, betraying the smile she was fighting, and I understood then that she wasn’t just prepping me. She was scared. Not the loud kind Sloane carried, the kind that popped and sparked. The quiet kind, the kind Diane got when something was genuinely wrong, the kind you had to learn to read because she’d never announce it. She was scared because for the first time in nine years the thing she was managing might be too big for her, and I could see her hating that in real time.

"I’ll be careful," I said. And then, because she deserved more than a line I’d feed a reporter, "I’ll be scared. Actually scared. I won’t have to perform it. That part’s true."

Something in her face loosened. "Good. Frightened boys get sympathy. Confident boys get audits."

"You’ve said that before."

"I’ll keep saying it until you stop being confident at the exact wrong moments." She pressed the folded boxes into the bin and dusted her hands, and just like that the CEO slid back into place, the vulnerability tucked away where only I’d seen it. "Bed. Both of you. You’re recovering and she’s insufferable when she’s tired."

"I’m always insufferable," Sloane called from the counter. "It’s a feature."

"It’s genetic," Diane and I said at the same time.

Sloane threw the last cheese slice, and this time it hit Diane in the shoulder, and the resulting standoff nearly cost me a wall as Sloane’s fingers started to crackle. I got between them before it escalated into property damage, wrapped an arm around Sloane’s waist, and hauled her toward the stairs while she protested that she’d been provoked and that she was an adult who could stand in a kitchen without being carried.

"You parallel parked into a fire hydrant," I said.

"That was ONE TIME."

"That’s what you always say."

Behind us, Diane laughed, and it was a real laugh, not the polished one she used at galas, and I thought about the woman calling a dead friend’s voicemail eleven days ago because she didn’t know if I’d live. I filed that next to everything else. The drawer creaked.

Sloane’s room hadn’t changed. Combat gear in one corner, laundry in the other, the color scheme her mother had vetoed in favor of burgundy that Sloane still insisted looked like a Valentine’s card under the lights. She’d been right, actually. The burgundy looked better. She’d never admit it.

She dropped onto the bed and pulled me down with her, and for a while we just lay there, her head on my chest, her hand splayed flat over my heartbeat like she was still counting. Through the bond I felt the slow bleed of the day’s fear draining out of her, replaced by something warmer and heavier. Her breathing evened. Her fingers stopped their nervous tracing.

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