“Isn’t it though?” He cocks his head. “I know what you’re thinking. It sounds convenient because it is convenient. I’ll get to crash with you and they’ll get some hardware upgrades. Hart and Norcut do have their uses—for me and for you.”
Now that’s more like the Milo I know. “I don’t know . . .”
“Give it a chance, okay?” he asks. “Before you completely blow them off, give it a chance. It’s good to get your skills in the open. You hide them too much.”
“Yeah, because I don’t want to go to jail.”
“In the right company, you won’t.” He pauses. “In the right company, you can make a lot of money. You could make a whole new life.”
And pretend everything that happened before . . . didn’t. Milo doesn’t say that, of course, but that’s the tone. He’s waiting for an answer and I don’t know what to give him. Milo’s always wanted me to embrace hacking, make things happen on my own terms.
But even if I get on board with Looking Glass, I’m still not doing that. I’m not rewriting my world.
I’m rewriting theirs.
“Wick,” Milo says finally. “I’d be the first to break you out of here if I really thought they were bad news. You know that.”
The look he gives me is meaningful and funny at the same time. It’s supposed to remind me of the bombs he’s made for me and the lies he’s told and the things he’s helped me with—and it does.
“You trust me?” Milo asks.
“I don’t trust anyone,” I say, but I do it with a smile so he’ll know I’m joking. Sort of.
Milo rolls his eyes. “How many times have I saved your ass? You think I wouldn’t tell you if these people were a problem?”
“No.”
“We can control this.” His hand closes around mine, and when he squeezes his thumb against my palm, I squeeze back.
“It’s crazy being with you, you know that?” His words are stuffed with wonder and disbelief. “I can’t be this close. I can’t touch you just once. I’ve never been like this with other girls.”
My mouth goes dry. Seconds pass. A minute. Time goes right on and I’m stuck, jammed on a moonless night two months ago, blood running down my face as Griff said, “If I touch you once, I’ll have to touch you again.”
And then he left me.
“Wick?” Milo palms my cheek. His thumb skims over and over my skin. Testing for cracks? I’m so full of them I nearly laugh. Or sob. “Come back to me.”
I lean into him. “I haven’t gone anywhere. I’m not going anywhere.”
“Good, because I want to be where you are.”
We consider each other for a long moment until Milo puts both hands on my chair and drags me to him. I tilt my face for another kiss, but he holds back, fingertips touching the half-healed cut by my hairline. “I’m sorry. Really. How’re you doing?”
Tears—hot and unexpected—prick my eyes. That’s the thing about Milo. There’s all this swaggering and attitude and then he suddenly turns around and focuses on me like there’s nothing else in his world. “Sometimes I’m good. Sometimes I’m not.”
“How do you like it in the ivory tower?”
A smile. “Too soon to tell,” I say. “I’m trying to give it a chance, but . . . something feels off to me.”
He nods. “I get it. People like us, everything feels off.” Milo touches his fingertips to my jaw, tracing the bone. “But I’ve worked with some of their people before. I’m telling you they’re legit—”
“It doesn’t feel legit. They’re always checking for bugs and you can see people watching the building—”
“You know how much money is in securities. It’s probably competitors trying to get an edge.”
“My second day here they had me breaking into some wireless device while Norcut was on the phone. She would cue me to start and stop based on”—I pan my hands—“whatever was going on at the other end.”
Milo lifts one shoulder. “So they were testing you.”
“On what?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does to me.”
“Then you should ask.”
I jerk back. “Ask Norcut?”
“Why not? It’s the only way you’ll get an answer. You think she’s been honest so far?”
“Yeah, pretty much. Maybe.” I study Milo, feeling stupid. He’s right of course. I should ask. It’s just that, I’m not used to getting answers, and I’m damn sure not used to asking questions.
I take a shaky breath. “If they’re so trustworthy, why didn’t you say something to me the night you arrived?”
“I wanted it to be on my terms.” Milo pauses. His thumb finds my lower lip and traces it carefully. “I’ve worked with them before and I wanted to be the one to break the news about us.”
Us. We both take a breath around the word.
One corner of Milo’s mouth lifts in a smile. “I can’t trust you to tell the truth, and I needed to tell the truth. If this is going to work . . .”
He trails off, and in the silence I can fit in everything I can’t say. “I’m trying to be better with that. It’s hard to change old habits.”
“I think it’s hard for you to accept you have a future.”
I laugh. “You sound like Norcut.”