AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A ding signaled the opening of the elevator doors.
Ezra shook his head, hesitated, but then followed me in. As the doors shut, he murmured, “I keep thinking about what you told me and picturing Lana every time I get into one of these things now. And I have this awful sensation I should be nicer to her because of it.”
I smiled at him sadly. He had such a good heart. “I know,” I agreed. “I’ve given her the benefit of the doubt too many times because of it, too. But trust me, it doesn’t make a difference. I swear, kindness or sympathy to her is like an insult. She sees such emotion as weakness, and they make her more bloodthirsty and determined to attack.”
“That’s messed up,” he said, shaking his head.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “But that’s Lana for you.”
Ezra studied me intently before he murmured, “You want to fix her, don’t you?”
I flashed my gaze to his face. He looked too serious for me to crack a lame joke to, so I shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, yes, I’d love it if she could work through all the demons plaguing her so she didn’t make everyone around her suffer—me, my brothers, even you, included. Plus, she’s technically one of the three family members I have left, if you add in Hayden and Brick. So, yeah, it’d be nice if she were, I don’t know, less hateful. But…” I limped out another helpless shrug. “I mostly just want to escape her these days.”
“You really have no other family left?” Ezra asked softly, his eyebrows knit with sympathy.
I shrugged again, playing it off as no big deal. “Both my parents were only children and any grandparents I had were gone by the time I came along.”
Ezra reached out. I looked up at him, holding my breath. His palm hovered inches from my cheek. Then he blinked and shifted his hand to my hair, grasping a flyaway piece that had escaped from my ponytail.
Tucking it behind my ear, he shook his head and huffed out an amused sound. “I swear, this is like a rebel lock of hair. It refuses to be contained by any ponytail holder, doesn’t it?”
I merely blinked at him, soaking in his troubled expression. He wasn’t sure how to treat me now. He’d wanted to touch me and comfort me, but he held himself back. He must not be sure if he could completely trust me yet. But he was still here, following me to my apartment, which must also mean he at least wanted to trust me.
His caution made me hurt for him as much as all this hurt me. It was a sucky situation for both of us.
“Dammit,” he rasped, hovering his face over mine. “Stop looking at me like that.”
My lips parted as I met his gaze. “Like what?”
He eased closer, but the elevator came to a stop and the doors opened. Hissing out a breath, he stepped back, putting space between us, then he took my hand and led me into the hall. “Where to?”
“This way.” I pointed and steered him in the right direction. When we reached my door, he stopped behind me, hovering as he glanced suspiciously left then right as he remained close like some kind of bodyguard while he waited for me to release all the bolts and locks.
Once I had everything open, he followed me inside, shutting the door behind us. I shed my coat and purse, hanging them on their hooks. He kept his wool overcoat on, too busy wandering the front room as he headed straight toward my big front box window and stared at it in awe. He touched the window frame reverently as if he knew how special this spot was to me. Then he picked up my e-reader I’d left on the cushions, only to gently drop it back down and spin toward the shelves along the wall. Lifting knickknacks and examining them one by one, I swear he learned me one object at a time. When he picked up a pink, ceramic baby shoe, he glanced my way, eyebrows raised in silent query.
“It was a flower vase,” I answered. “My dad gave it to my mom in the hospital when she had me.” I shrugged. “The flowers are gone, of course, but I was able to hide it after Lana came to live with us, so it’s the last thing left of my mom’s I have left.”
When his eyes narrowed with confusion, I shrugged. “When she married my dad, Lana disposed of everything that had been my mother’s.”
Nodding, he set the pink shoe down. “When my mom died in the house fire, so many of her things burned with her.” He shook his head, looking momentarily lost. “Losing sentimental mementoes attached to a loved one sucks almost as much as losing the loved one themselves, doesn’t it?”
I nodded mutely, touched that he understood.
Turning back to the shelf, Ezra picked up a set of small tap dance shoes.
My face grew hot. “I was awful,” I rushed to say. “But yes, I tap-danced for a few years when I was little.”
“I bet you were adorable.” He ran his thumb over the glossy finish before studying a pair of gaudy high heels with beads on them that mirrored a peacock’s tail. They’d been a present from Brick.
“Yes, I like shoes,” I admitted, self-consciously.
Ezra stopped snooping through my things and turned to face me completely. His chest lifted as he inhaled. Then he blew out the breath.
“So, the last time we talked…” he started, only to trail off without continuing.
When he didn’t say anything else, merely stared at me pensively, I helpfully supplied, “In Brick’s office. When you told me about Christopher being a spy.”
He nodded, his blue eyes darker than usual. “Right.” Glancing away, he added, “I owe you an apology for that. For the things I said. The way I treated you. I was… I was jealous, and my head was still spinning after everything else I’d learned about you. I wasn’t sure what to believe. What to think about any of it. But I… I shouldn’t have treated you the way I did, regardless.”
