“It was hard enough making up my mind to leave this morning. I hardly had space in my brain to remember the patches.”
I run a hand up his arm. “If you were too anxious, you should’ve stayed with me.”
He flinches, bumping my hand off him. “I don’t need the guilt trip.”
I slide my hand over my bracelet, feeling every link in the slim chain. “That’s not what I was doing.”
He rubs a hand over his face and huffs. “Can I just lie down?”
I step out of his way, clearing a path to the hallway. “Yeah, sure.”
His pace to the bedroom is lethargic. He sits on the edge of the bed with no effort to take off his jacket or slip off his boots.
Cautiously, I sit next to him. He pulls out his phone and gets lost reading the screen. It’s the first time I’ve ever felt invisible to him.
“Do you want to talk about what happened today?”
His eyebrows lift as he exhales hard. “Definitely not.”
“Well, I had to spend all day with my mother,” I reply, trying to jumpstart a conversation. “I was bored out of my mind. So I’m more than happy to talk about your stuff.”
“Still planning this gala?” he murmurs, totally disinterested.
“Yeah. Mom wants to finalize everything in the next few days.”
He taps hard on his phone, trying to get the cracked screen to react. “What have you got planned for tomorrow?”
“My mother wants my help, walking the decorators around the event space. But I can bail.”
He pockets his phone and shrugs. “No, you should go. I have to go for a ride with Boscoe tomorrow, anyway.”
I jerk back with surprise. “You do?”
“So, is the meeting with your Mom all you have planned tomorrow?”
“Uh, no. I need to go back to St. Mark’s. It’s been a few days since my last shift.”
“So, you’ve got a full day planned? You’ll be away from home most of the day?”
I can’t read his tone and there’s something irritable about his body language. “Are you mad at me?”
His eyebrows push together. “No. Why would you say that?”
“You seem off. Like there’s some kind of wall between us.”
He shrugs. “I’m just tired, I guess.”
“Do you want a nap? Or maybe you’re dehydrated. Have you drunk any water lately?”
He clicks his tongue. “You don’t need to play doctor with me.”
“It was an innocent question. Are you sure I haven’t done anything wrong?”
He grunts, rubbing his thumb and index finger over his temples. “No. Can you just stop?”
I move away from him. “Fine. I’ll leave you alone.”
He groans, dropping his hand. “That’s not what I meant.”
