Chapter 11 · Twenty-Five

"Twenty-five." I dropped the folder on the counter hard enough it knocked his coffee sideways. Brown ran off the edge, dripped onto his shoe, and he didn't even look down. "That's the number the clerk read off when she stamped it. You want to tell me what that means, or should I just call her back myself?"

Nico set his mug down slow, like he had all the time in the world, which was the thing about him that made me want to put my fist through drywall. "It's a file number, Eli. Paperwork's got numbers. That's how filing works."

"Don't." I stepped in, close enough to smell the coffee on him, close enough that he had to tip his chin down to keep looking at me instead of past me. "Don't do the bored voice. Twenty-five what, Nico? Twenty-five marriages? Am I the twenty-fifth guy you've stood next to in front of a clerk with a stamp?"

Something moved behind his eyes. Quick. Gone before I could name it. "Careful," he said. "You're jealous of a filing cabinet."

"I'm not jealous. I'm done being an idiot who thinks he's special because you held his hand at a courthouse counter."