He was out the door in under a minute.
I heard Elevation's exit open behind me — the bass spilling out like a held breath releasing — and then it closed and the street was quiet and Cole Ashford was standing on a sidewalk in RiNo with no coat and no composure and his eyes scanning the block until they found me on the corner.
He didn't run. He walked. The walk of a man who wanted to run and was holding himself to a pace because running would mean he was afraid of losing something and Cole Ashford had spent twelve years refusing to be afraid of losing anything. But his stride was wrong — too fast, too long — and the architecture of his body was telling me things his face wasn't.
