I resign. “Within reason, I’m sure.”
“No.Anythingmeansanything.”
The buzz becomes an all-out hum, and I want desperately to test his claim further…but not in public. I hate that there’s still several hours left of being here, waiting and hoping that Junction will end this.
Except…if he does…if Malcolm dies today…
What will I do about thehum?
If Junction kills Malcolmnow, I’ll never figure out what this infernal hum is, and if I never satiate my curiosity, will it ever go away? Or will I be stuck, struggling against it, for the rest of my life?
Locking my jaw, I scan Malcolm’s dark, damp clothes and weigh my options, determining that I’ve given Junction plenty of time to finish this. He hasn’t taken the opportunity, and now I have a different sort of opportunity I’m invested in, so he’ll just have to wait for his turn to come around again.
“You need a shower,” I say, standing.
When Malcolm follows my rise, he blocks out the sun. “Sweet dove…are you trying to get me alone with you, so you can make more demands of me?”
I head toward the park entrance. “Don’t be stupid.”
His trailing laughter is the only thing that lets me know he’s following.
?
“Here,” Malcolm says, offering me the pack of leftover food he brought with us on our trip.Hereis the first word he’s said to me in about an hour, and I admit I’m grateful he’s let both our long drives over the past two days be silent apart from the music he’s let me pick.
All things considered, the silence with him is not utterly uncomfortable. It’s whenever he opens his stupid mouth that I start having issues.
Oh, if only pretty men could stay silent more often…
Standing outside my car in the Swallow Medical Group HQ parking lot, I stare at the bag he’s holding.
His head tilts. “You don’t want it?”
“You ran with it. Around an entire theme park.” If I touch it, I’ll contract something terrible and painful. Except—obviously—I won’t. That’s not how life works. And I’ve already been around all his germs for two years. It’s just gross to think about, not deadly.
“Everything inside is individually packaged and secure.” He carefully unzips the bag to show me. The canister of Lysol wipes rests triple-bagged in a section apart from the flawlessly organized selection of protein bars, drinks, and snacks. “You can take what you want without touching the bag.”
How…considerate.
Carefully, I reach through the niggling remembrance of this bag hanging off his sweat-dripping body. I know the material is washable, and I know he washed it when we got back to the hotel room. I watched him leave the bathroom, fresh from his shower, and begin wiping every part down, but…still.
No. It’sfine. If I don’t take something now, my brain will fixate on getting sick, and then Iwill. Just one thing, and I’m safe.
I retrieve a brownie from the dead center of the bag, tuck the plastic-wrapped dessert against my chest, and lift my attention to his eyes.
Warm, they strike something in me that is impossible to discern.
Voice soft, he murmurs, “Would you like me to save the rest for you at my place? I can wipe them down before I put them away. Or I can eat them myself if you’d prefer not to think about them again.”
He’s messing with my head. I know he has to be messing with my head. There’s no way he actually cares. There’s no way he has any intention of being genuinely kind to me. This tenderness is a front coaxing me into a sense of security.
Who knows what else he’ll have planned for me once I’m deluded into trusting him.
And, yet, the rampant rage of my thoughts simmer down.
Turning, I unlock my car. “I’ll eat them with my lunches here if you put them in the breakroom.” Because they’re packaged and safe, and I can wipe them down again, andit’s fine. It’s, so genuinely, more than fine. “Thank you for…this date.” Is that how a couple ends an excursion? Possibly… I can’t seem to remember a single scene from any of my dating sims right now, though. I’ll have to check when I get back home.
“It was delightful to spend this time with you,” he says.
