Page 71 of The Story Between Us

The front door opened.

“I’m so sorry I’m late⁠—”

She was breathless, cheeks flushed pink from the cold, hair escaping from a messy ponytail. She was carrying two cups from the Brew and a paper bag that smelled like maple and sugar, and she was here, she was here, and the breath that flooded out of him felt on fire.

Then he noticed the paint.

A smear of blue across her left cheekbone. A fleck of gold near her right temple. More on her fingers—half scrubbed away but still visible, caught in the creases of her knuckles.

And yesterday, the green.

He frowned, and something hot and sharp twisted in his chest. Something that felt dangerously like jealousy, though he had no right to it.

But had she simply been at home, painting, like…?

Sheesh, now he was turning into a narcissist, thinking her world should revolve around him. Hello.

Still, “Where were you?” Aw, the words came out wrong, sharp, and he just wanted to flinch.

She froze in the doorway, dogs circling her feet, her eyes widening.

He should laugh it off. Should say just kidding or no worries or I was getting worried about you in a normal, human way that didn’t make him sound like a possessive lunatic.

Instead, he heard himself say, “I needed you.”

The silence stretched.

She arched an eyebrow, and he stared at her, horrified by what had just come out of his mouth, unable to take it back. I needed you. Like she belonged to him. Like he had any right. Like⁠—

“I’m sorry.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Thank you. For the coffee. I just—” He gestured vaguely at the blank screen, the evidence of his uselessness. “The words weren’t coming this morning. And I thought maybe I’d done something. Last night. To make you⁠—”

He stopped. He was making this worse.

Livvie’s expression shifted. Something he couldn’t quite read—not anger, not fear. Something softer. And it only made his chest burn.

“I should have texted,” she said quietly. “I was—” She glanced down at her paint-stained fingers, then back at him. “I’ll tell you later. It’s not important right now.”

She crossed the room and set the coffee on his desk. The doughnut bag beside it. Close enough that he caught a whiff of her shampoo—something floral, something that made him think of summer gardens.

He took the coffee. Drank too fast. Burned his tongue. Didn’t care.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “That was—I shouldn’t have⁠—”

“Nate.” She was looking at him with those warm hazel eyes, the ones that saw too much, the ones he couldn’t hide from. “It’s okay.”

She touched his arm. Just briefly—her fingers on his wrist, there and gone. But the contact sent warmth spreading up his arm, into his chest, down into his stomach.

“Eat your doughnut,” she said, and her smile felt gentle. “You’ll feel better.”

He didn’t know about that. But he ate the doughnut anyway.

She watched him for a moment, then turned away and started moving through the room—straightening a stack of books on the side table, picking up the empty mug from yesterday, going to the kitchen to load his dishwasher.

Why had he said that? Sheesh, like she might be his maid?

He picked up his computer and brought it back to his office.

Stared at the screen, listening to her finish in the kitchen, his thoughts on the paint, listening to the way she hummed, something soft and tuneless.