Hearts Under Siege by Natalie J. Damschroder

go-cups stood lined up along the counter.
    “You’re awesome,” he assured her, checking the marks on the cups to find his grande café Americano. “How do you remember this stuff after—” Wincing, he sipped to keep his big mouth occupied.
    “After so much time?” she finished for him. “It’s easy when you’re so fucking predictable.”
    “I am not!” he defended automatically, but had to concede when she looked pointedly at the cup. “Okay, about some things I am.” He shifted uncomfortably when her eyes flicked for a nanosecond toward the back bedroom.
    “How’s Jessica?” She plopped a croissant on a paper towel, grabbed her cup, and sat down at the table in the breakfast nook.
    He snagged his own pastry and joined her, part of him acknowledging how good this felt. Natural. “She seems to have slept well. Other than that…I don’t know. She’s…” He shrugged, but Molly nodded.
    “What’s the plan for today?” He couldn’t stand more sitting around and wallowing.
    “Your mother gave us a list. She’s a little bugged about how long it’s taking to get his body back here, so we have to check on that. Jessica needs to go home, go through the mail, pack a new bag. She needs to refill her prenatal vitamins, too—she’s only got one left.” She rattled off half a dozen other things, without even stopping to think about it.
    “I can take Jess over to the house, get her prescription.” He tore a piece off his croissant and put it in his mouth, chewing slowly, waiting. He could barely stand the weight of Molly’s reaction, but when he finally dared to lift his eyes to hers, she wasn’t looking at him.
    “Fine. I’ll make phone calls. Your parents started the funeral arrangements—Jessica hasn’t been able to handle it. But I think your mother would have wanted to do it, anyway, so it works out. I’ll drop the intel you brought back at a nearby conduit.” She shrugged. “And we need to write an obituary.”
    Guilt filled him. She was taking over, doing his job. He knew she was doing it because she loved them, and she alone had the strength to pull them through, but she was his friend, and he hadn’t been a very good one in return for a long time. Then, to top it off…
    “Moll.”
    She froze, narrowing her eyes at him. “What?”
    “We have to talk about the other night.”
    “No, we don’t.” He’d never heard her voice so hard. She drained her cup and stood. “It didn’t happen, Brady.” Her bright blue eyes flashed at him, daring him to push. “I know what it was. We don’t need to break it down into its parts.”
    He couldn’t help but snicker at the word “parts.” Molly shook her head and laughed. “You are such a guy .”
    “I know.” He stood and reached for her, but she grabbed her paper towel, wrapped it around her cup as she moved away from him, and dropped everything in the trashcan by the back door.
    “You go take care of Jess. I’ll get started on these phone calls.” Then she was out of the room. And he’d let her go.
    It wasn’t right. He needed to apologize, to explain what had happened, but what good would it do if she already knew? And she knew. She’d always known. So maybe it was better to honor her wishes and pretend it hadn’t happened.
    Okay, then. Moving on. He took care of his own trash and prepared a croissant for Jessica, carrying it and her coffee back to her room. And despite the reason for it, despite how difficult going to their house was going to be, he couldn’t help but feel some small anticipation about spending the day with Jessica.
    …
    Molly pulled up to the gate barring the entrance to the parking lot at SIEGE HQ—or Global Information Exchange, their cover company and the name on the big sign out front—and waved her generic-looking ID badge in front of the scanner. At the beep and flash of the display, she pressed her left thumb to the print scanner. Welcome, Agent Byrnes flashed briefly before the gate lifted and