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“Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to frigh
ten you. I shouldn’t have come.”
He kept shifting his weight from side to side in a way that made her as uncomfortable as he appeared.
“Why are you here?”
He didn’t speak for so long that she was convinced he wouldn’t.
“Tomorrow.”
At his single-word explanation, Willow swallowed. Like her, Asher had been thinking about the test results they were scheduled to receive the next day. How she’d managed to rest when the shadows beneath his eyes suggested that he hadn’t slept in days, she wasn’t sure.
“Would you like to come in?” She stepped back and made room for him to pass.
“Thanks.”
He closed the door and gestured to his boots, asking if he should remove them, but she shook her head.
He clearly needed to talk to someone, and since she was the only other person who could relate to what he was going through, he’d come to her.
“It’ll be okay, you know.”
“Will it?”
“I don’t know. I just said it because you looked like you needed to hear it.”
“I did.”
She headed into her kitchen but slowed and spoke again. “Did it help?”
He stopped in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, bracing his hands on the door frame. “Want honesty or kindness?”
“Kindness.”
“I feel completely better.”
“At least you’re being honest.”
The heavy air between them seeming lighter for a moment, Willow crossed to the counter, stuck a filter in her coffee maker and added several scoops of dark roast.
“Neither of us will be sleeping tonight if we drink all that,” he observed.
“You don’t look as if you’ve slept much lately, anyway, and I probably won’t now.”
“Sorry.”
“You keep saying that.” She set two mugs on the counter, along with teaspoons, napkins and a bottle of fancy creamer from the refrigerator.
He eyed the bottle. “You remembered.”
“What?” Her gaze shifted to the items on the counter. “Oh. You like the sweet stuff.”
How could it have been only a week since they’d been introduced in a body slam of circumstances and had commiserated over coffee at Java Jane’s? Now she couldn’t picture a time when she didn’t know Asher and Harper, when their lives weren’t connected with hers and Luna’s by either the truth or a lie.
“I don’t have any whipped cream, but hopefully this will satisfy you.” She coughed into her elbow. “Your sweet tooth, I mean.”
Their gazes connected, but she quickly looked away, ignoring the spike in her pulse. That sizzle between them never knew when to stop shooting off sparks. Now would have been a good time for a dousing to put out that fire.
