JUNE MILLER POV
I was sitting on the sticky floor of the Neon Skillet's breakroom, leaning my back against a humming industrial refrigerator that smelled faintly of ammonia and old onions. My shifts were usually a blur of caffeine and fake smiles, but today, I was a vibrating mess of nerves. Every time a customer's fork clattered against a plate in the dining room, I jumped. Every time the door chimed, I looked up, hoping to see a flash of white silk and golden eyes, then immediately felt like an idiot for even thinking it.
Becky was home resting. Brandt was at the mechanic trying to figure out why his engine had started speaking in tongues. And I was here, staring at my phone until the screen timed out, then tapping it back to life with a frantic thumb.
"He's not calling, June," I whispered to the stacks of napkins. "He's a high-class, probably-secret-government-agent, definitely-rich guy. He's not going to call the girl who threw a neon-pink ball of paper at his car."
I looked at my reflection in the darkened screen. My teal hair was a frizzy disaster, and I had a smear of mustard on my apron. I looked like a 'mouse.' He looked like... well, he looked like something from a dream.
Then, the phone in my hand didn't just vibrate. It screamed.
A private number.
I fumbled the device, nearly dropping it into a bucket of mop water. My heart did a literal backflip, thumping so hard against my ribs I thought it might actually bruise them. I swiped the green icon with a trembling finger, my breath catching in my throat.
"Hello?" I blurted out. I sounded like I'd just run a marathon uphill. I sounded desperate. Great start, June. Real cool.
There was a moment of silence on the other end. Not a dead silence, but a heavy, vibrating one—the kind of silence that feels like the air before a lightning strike.
"Hello," a voice said.
My knees actually turned to jelly. I slid down the side of the fridge until I was sitting flat on the linoleum. It was him. That voice—low, resonant, and so perfectly clear it felt like he was standing in the room with me. He sounded like he was reading from a script, his tone formal and stiff, but there was a flicker of something underneath it. A hesitation.
"This is... Adam. From the highway. I am calling to discuss the outstanding debt regarding the puffed corn."
I froze for half a second, the sheer absurdity of the sentence hitting me. Discuss the outstanding debt? He talked like a Victorian lawyer who had accidentally swallowed a dictionary. But then, the relief washed over me so fast I felt lightheaded. He had called. He had actually used the number.
"YOU CALLED!" I shrieked, jumping back to my feet and pacing the small breakroom. "I told Brandt you'd call! I mean, I hoped you'd call, but I didn't think you'd do it so fast! Are you okay? Is your sister okay? Is the Old Man still being... old?"
I winced the moment the words left my mouth. The Old Man? I was talking about his father—the terrifying guy who looked like he could delete my existence with a look.
On the other end of the line, I heard a faint, sharp intake of breath. For a second, I thought I'd offended him. Then, I heard a muffled sound—a snort of laughter that didn't come from him, but from someone nearby. His sister, Eve.
"We are well, June," Adam said, and this time, the stiffness in his voice cracked. I could practically hear the smile in his words, even if he was trying to hide it. "And my sister is... as she always is. Noisy. We have a few hours of... 'fun' allocated to our schedule. I was wondering if you were still in possession of that popcorn."
"Allocated to your schedule?" I laughed, leaning my forehead against the cool metal of the walk-in freezer door. "Adam, you can't 'allocate' fun. That's not how it works. You just... have it. And yes, I am definitely in possession of popcorn. Well, not the stuff from the cinema—that's probably a biohazard by now—but I know a place. A real place. Not a fancy hotel lobby."
"A real place," he repeated, sounding genuinely intrigued, like I was describing a hidden temple in the jungle. "The Father has permitted us an afternoon of... 'investigating the human condition.' He is at the coast. We are in the Diamond District. Eve is currently attempting to buy a store that sells footwear."
"She's what?" I giggled, the image of that sharp-eyed girl in the gray coat trying to buy a whole shoe store making my head spin. "Okay, listen. The Diamond District is too shiny. It's fake. If you want to investigate being human, you need to come to Sector 4. Meet me at 'The Gravity Well'—it's a park near the old pier. It's got a view of the ocean that doesn't smell like expensive perfume."
"The Gravity Well," Adam said, and I could hear him typing it into a phone. "I will instruct the chauffeur. June... I must ask. Why did you chase the vehicle? We are... we are not like you. You saw what happened at the church. Most people would have run in the opposite direction."
The air in the breakroom felt suddenly heavy. I stopped pacing. I thought about the way the light had looked in his eyes when he unmade that monster. I thought about the way his hand had felt on my forehead—warm, safe, and so incredibly human, despite everything.
"Because you looked lonely, Adam," I said softly, my voice dropping the frantic energy. "In the cinema, in the lobby... even when you were fighting that thing. You and Eve, you look like you're carrying the whole world on your shoulders, and nobody ever asked if you wanted to put it down. And besides..." I swallowed hard, my heart fluttering. "I wanted to see if your eyes were still that gold color in the daylight."
The silence on the other end lasted longer this time. It wasn't the silence of a machine; it was the silence of someone who was feeling something they didn't have a word for yet. I held my breath, wondering if I'd overstepped, wondering if I'd just weirded out the most powerful teenager in the city.
"They are," he finally whispered. "In the daylight, they are... brighter. I think."
"Then come see me," I said, a grin breaking through my nerves. "And bring your sister. I'll buy the popcorn this time. It's part of your 'human condition' training."
"I look forward to the instruction, June Miller," he said. His voice was steady now, the 'Prince' mask firmly back in place, but there was a warmth in it that made the industrial fridge's hum sound like music. "We will arrive in twenty minutes."
"Twenty minutes! Adam, wait—"
Click.
He hung up. He actually hung up.
I stared at my phone for a full minute, my brain trying to process the fact that I had a date—or a hang-out, or a diplomatic summit—with the guy who had saved the world last night.
"Twenty minutes," I gasped, looking down at my mustard-stained apron. "Oh no. Oh, absolutely not."
I ripped off my apron, threw it into the laundry bin, and sprinted for the back door.
"Hey! June! Where are you going?" my manager, Phil, yelled from the kitchen. "You've still got three tables!"
"Tell them the 'human condition' is calling!" I yelled back, not even looking over my shoulder. "I'm taking a personal day!"
I burst out into the afternoon sun, the salt air hitting my face. The city didn't feel scary today. It didn't feel like a trap. It felt like a beginning. I started running toward the pier, my sneakers pounding the pavement, my mind already rehearsing a thousand things to say and then immediately discarding them.
I was just June. He was Adam. And for the next few hours, the Rift, the Council, and the 'wool' could all go to hell. We were going to eat popcorn.