Dying by the Hour (A Jesse Sullivan Novel Book 2) by Kory M. Shrum Read Free Book Online

Could I after losing her again?
    I take another sip of my coffee and a smooth taste of bitter chocolate warms my lips, tongue and throat. “Do you like bowling?”
    She laughs. A genuine cackle that isn’t as adorable as Jesse’s but it is infectious nonetheless.
    “Do you bowl? I can’t imagine you in those hideous shoes.”
    I’m shocked. “You think I’m prissy?”
    “You seem a tad more girlie than me,” she says. When I fall back against the back of the chair, she asks. “Does that offend you?”
    “I don’t think I’m girlie.” I turn the cup in my hand. “I’m feminine, okay—but so girlie you can’t see me bowling? That’s just wrong.”
    “Your nose ring is pretty hardcore,” she says. She leans forward as if to inspect it. The look in her upturned eyes makes my stomach quiver. “But you take an obvious nonviolent approach to our work. Jeremiah and I go in with guns and you’re all Band-Aids and water.”
    “There’s quite the distance between bowling and violence,” I say. The café is comfortable and I get the sense that there is more to her. I don’t know if it’s attraction, but there is something there. An allure. “But that depends on how you’ll play, I guess.”
    “Is that an invitation?” she asks. “To go bowling with you?”
    My confidence falters. The train just stops. And she is smart enough to see this for herself.
    She puts her ceramic mug down and it clanks against the saucer. “Listen.”
    I look at her. Note the furrowed brow. But her mouth is soft, not hard in agitation.
    “You still have feelings for her.”
    The honesty almost incites me to protest on principle alone. But she doesn’t give me a chance for such a knee jerk reaction.
    “That’s fine,” she says with a dismissive wave. “Really it is.”
    “Is it?” I ask. I keep positioning my cup in its little saucer.
    “But it doesn’t change the fact that I like you,” she says. “You’re gorgeous, smart, and brave.”
    The heat rises in my face as if someone is holding a match under my chin and my heart is doing something strange. It’s her voice. I realize for the first time that I really like her voice.
    “I’ve known these things about you ever since Chattanooga.”
    Chattanooga. Jeremiah received a tip from his network that six people with NRD were being held captive by one of Caldwell’s cells—the smaller tactical groups he relies on to do his dirty work and keep his hands and image clean—like the group that got Jesse, Lane, Brinkley and I last year. This group had the hostages chained up in a suburban house, torturing them for days.
    “I watched you talk down a gunman,” she continues. Her admiration is apparent in her beaming face. “You reasoned with that guy like a pro. I bet professional negotiators aren’t half that good. And like I said, all you brought were Band-Aids and bottled water.”
    “You’re exaggerating again.” And my face is on fire. “I would never bring a plastic bottle to a gun fight. Plastic is so bad for the environment.”
    She reaches across the table and takes my hand. And it isn’t just that we are in a public place, in the South, in a generally homophobic region of the United States. It’s that I feel like I’ve done something wrong. By touching her, or letting her touch me—and for liking the feel of it.
    Jesse isn’t your girlfriend . I remind myself. She chose Lane. Get over it. You have to get over it.
    I manage to keep ahold of Nikki’s hand despite the clenching in my abdomen.
    “I just want to get to know you,” she says, still beaming. “This beautiful girl who does amazing things.”
    “Ok,” I say, but it feels like a mistake. Like a betrayal. “What do you want to know?”
    Nikki grins and it’s triumphant. But even as she settles into her seat like a victor ready to relish her first prize, I can already feel myself pulling back, curling around Jesse’s secrets protectively as if they are my own.
    “Start from the