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Or … I could do that. My eyes slammed shut, and he exhaled a quiet chuckle at my expression.
When I peeled my eyes open, he watched me as he approached where I stood. When had it ever been hard for me to read his expression? Never. But it was now.
The ease from our first couple of days seemed to be in short supply, and that kicked off a spark of worry that I didn’t like very much.
“You been stewing on that for a while?” he asked. The low, steady tone to his voice eased some of the worry locking my chest tight, and I didn’t like that either. It screamed of a codependency, and I didn’t want Ian and I to fall back into the patterns that separated us to begin with.
“Maybe.”
His eyes tracked over my face, and he leaned his weight on one of the work tables. “I wanted to give you and Sage space,” he said. “Make sure you were feeling comfortable without feeling like someone was watching you.”
I couldn’t deny that there was a certain amount of truth to his words, but I caught the slightest flicker in his eyes as he said it.
Briefly, I chewed on my bottom lip and leaned back on the table behind me, mirroring his position. “I read this book once,” I told him. “About a profiler with the FBI. He talked about how he could always tell when someone was lying. People who aren’t being honest will make these little facial expressions. Almost like they can’t help themselves. It’s the briefest flash—a micro-expression, he called it—of guilt or regret that they can’t control, no matter what words are coming out of their mouth.”
Ian’s jaw hardened, and a tiny piece of his expression shuttered.
I took a deep breath when he didn’t say anything. “If you regret asking us?—”
He interrupted immediately. “I don’t,” he said, firm and unyielding. “I don’t regret it.”
“Then where the hell have you been? I miss my friend. I just got you back, and after one night, you’re ghosting your own damn house because we’re there.”
Ian swiped a hand over his mouth, staring at the floor for a moment before he swung his expression back up. “I did want to give you two space,” he said. “But … someone got in my head. Said that asking you to move in with me was the quickest way to wreck our friendship because it’s not something we’ve ever done before.” He clenched his jaw again, and the muscle bunched underneath the dark, trimmed beard. “That’s the last thing I want. Figured it was easier to just back off a bit until we both get our footing.”
For a long moment, I stared at him, trying to figure out a way to say what I was thinking without being too harsh.
“You idiot.” That was what I came up with.
His eyebrows shot up. “Excuse me?”
“You ignore me to save our friendship?”
“I wasn’t ignoring you,” he argued. “I was…” He paused, clearly flustered and setting his hands on his hips. “Giving you breathing room.”
Maybe my eye roll was a bit much, based on the answering look he gave me, but honestly. This is why society would crumble without women, besides the whole procreation bit. Men would destroy everything, left to their own devices.
“Let me guess,” I said, “it was a man who gave you this shitty advice.”
Based on the immediate grimace, I knew I was right. I shook my head.
Ian spread his arms out. “Okay, fine, he’s the last person I should listen to. But I don’t … I didn’t want to find out the hard way that he was right.”
The earnest way he said it took all the wind out of my sails. Wouldn’t I feel the same way if someone had cautioned me? Maybe I didn’t allow conversation about it because deep down, I was worried someone would’ve said the same to me.
My parents always tiptoed around the topic of Ian. They’d never understood my friendship with him. And my sister and I weren’t close enough for her to venture an opinion. We survived on surface level, a relationship about as deep as a cookie sheet, and that was fine with both of us.
“We won’t let that happen,” I told him.
“No?”
“No. We’re both too damn stubborn.”
His stern mouth softened into a reluctant smile. “At least one of us is.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “I know you’re not referring to me.”
“I’d never.”
