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He brought his eyes back to hers. “I usually go for a run before the sun comes up.”
He liked running in the dark, before sunrise, when the sun couldn’t feed him energy. That always felt like cheating. It was one of the few things he did without Nick.
She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. He wanted to reach out and undo the elastic at the end of her braid, to let her hair come loose, to see what she looked like when she wasn’t hiding behind this wall of I don’t care.
Layne was looking at him expectantly.
Crap. She’d said something.
This was ridiculous. He cleared his throat. “What?”
Her cheeks sparked with pink. “I . . . ah . . . asked if you wanted to go back to the kitchen to work on the trig stuff.”
He really wanted to stay right here and figure her out.
But this wasn’t why she’d asked him in. She wasn’t flirting with him. She hadn’t even asked him up here he’d asked for the tour and had practically strong-armed his way into her bedroom.
He was being an idiot, standing here thinking about her hair.
Gabriel stepped back. “Sure. Whatever.”
The air in the hallway felt cooler, fed by the new distance between them. It reminded him of Nick.
He didn’t like that.
Gabriel touched her arm. “Hey.” He paused. “Thanks. For trying to help.”
She looked up at him, her eyes shadowed in the darkened hallway. “Thanks for helping Simon.”
He could hear her breath, as quick as his own.
Then he could hear a key in the front door.
He instinctively jerked back not like he’d been doing anything.
Layne’s eyes went wide. “Crap. It’s my dad. Come on.” She grabbed Gabriel’s hand and tugged.
He jogged down the steps behind her, but there was no way they’d make it to the kitchen before her dad came through the door.
“Layne,” he said. “Christ, just relax. We weren’t ”
“You don’t understand.” The door started to open and she stopped short, turning, like maybe they should run back upstairs.
God, it was like being dragged by a panicked bird. Gabriel almost ran into her. One hand caught the banister, and he grabbed Layne around the waist to keep from knocking her down the stairs.
And that’s exactly how her father found them.
If Layne hadn’t told Gabriel that her dad was a lawyer, he would have guessed. The guy could have played one on television, what with the long camel coat over a black suit, the dark hair threaded with gray, the calculating eyes and angled jawline.
Eyes that narrowed on seeing them.
Gabriel let go of Layne and straightened. Nick was way better at doing the parent thing, and this guy didn’t look like the kind of dad to ignore their predicament, crack open a beer, and ask how Gabriel felt about the Ravens’ defensive line.
Layne’s face was bright red. “Dad. Look. It’s not ”
“Not what I think?” Her dad had a handful of mail that he tossed on the hall table. Those eyes leveled on Gabriel. “I certainly hope not.”
Gabriel stared back at him. “We were studying.”
