Chapter 229

I hear Zeke’s footsteps outside my door around eleven, already used to the specific rhythm of his final round for the night, and I have the door open before he’s fully passed it.

He stops and looks at me for a second, still fully dressed, hair a mess from pushing my hands through it repeatedly over the last hour of failing to sleep, and something in his expression shifts from professional to something closer to resigned amusement.

“You’re not going to bed anytime soon, are you,” he says.

“Not remotely.”

He chuckles lightly. “Then you might as well be awake somewhere better than this house.”

I assume he’s joking. I laugh, actually, a short surprised sound, and then I watch him reach up and start pulling his jacket back on with the same unhurried certainty he brings to everything else, and the laugh dies somewhere in my throat.

“Wait. You’re serious.”

“Grab a hoodie,” he says. “Something plain. Nothing that screams money.”

“Zeke, it’s