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“I’m not hurt,” Andi said, slipping off her flats and swinging her legs onto the couch. “I’m not exactly all right either.”
“Oh, honey,” Eliza said, tone gentle. “I’m so sorry. Did they take anything?”
“Besides my already-shitty sense of security?” Andi huffed. “No. Not that I can tell. The police think the door might’ve blown open, but IknowI locked it. They’re not going to gaslight me about it.”
Eliza nodded, frowning. “Good. Don’t let them. You know what your habits are.”
Andi rubbed her forehead, a vague headache lingering at the spot where she’d headbutted Hill this morning.
“So I’m guessing you didn’t get any sleep,” Eliza said, leaning back in her chair, her curtain of dark hair framing her concerned face. “You could’ve called me, you know. Stayed at my place.”
“I know. I would’ve, but my neighbor ending up staying with me,” she said, the image of Hill sitting next to her this morning coming back to her. “I ran over to his side of the house when I discovered the back door was open. He stayed after the cops left to help me calm down.”
“Wait. The retired firefighter?”
Andi pulled her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around them. “The very one. Though ‘retired’ doesn’t seem like the right word. He’s got a below-the-knee prosthesis from what I assume was an on-the-job incident. He was taken off duty.”
Eliza’s expression sparked with interest. “Oh. I was picturing an old guy.”
“Oh no. This guy is definitely not old. Probably around thirty. Could definitely pose shirtless in the firefighter calendar.”
“Oh.”
It was the kind ofohthat meanttell me everything.
“He slept over.” The words fell out. Flat. Still slightly shocking even to her ear. She’d let a strangersleep in her house.
Eliza blinked as if Andi had started speaking another language. “Wait, what? Holy shit, Andi—”
She lifted a hand. “Don’t get too excited. I don’t mean he slept in my bed or anything.Ididn’t even sleep in my bed. It wasn’t some breakthrough. It was inadvertent. He offered to stay a while so I could calm down. We got to talking, and I eventually dozed off.”
Eliza took a slow sip of her coffee. “Wow. Inadvertent or not, that’s still a pretty big deal. You were able to let your guard down enough to fall asleep with him in the room.”
Andi shook her head, still searching for an explanation—like she’d been doing all day. “I think I was just exhausted.”
“I’m sure, but don’t you think you had to trust him on some level to even let yourself doze off?” she asked, that probing therapist tone entering her voice. “Normal Andi would’ve sent him out the door the minute she felt sleepy.”
Andi rubbed the bridge of her nose, her headpound, pound, pounding. “Yeah, I don’t know. Nothing about last night was normal. Hill seems really nice, but he’s also kind of hard to read. He’s quiet. But that kind of observant quiet where you can see he’s thinking all these things he’s not saying. He could have all kinds of secrets. He could have bodies in his freezer next to the ice cream for all I know. But…”
Eliza cocked her head a little. “But?”
“Ugh, I don’t know.” Andi blew out a frustrated breath. “He made me feel safe last night—which I guess, as a firefighter, is in his skill set. But it wasn’t that ‘We’ve got everything under control, ma’am’ thing. Instead, it was almost like he was wary ofmeinstead of the other way around, andthat’swhat made me feel safe. Like when he offered to stay over, I got the vibe that he didn’t really want me to say yes.”
Eliza set her chin in her hand, her pondering face on. “Hmm, interesting. It wasn’t an attempt to be coy?”
Andi laughed at that. “Not even a little. I don’t think he’s interested in me like that. Honestly, I think I freak him out.”
“Really.” Eliza looked thoughtful. “Huh. What’s he look like?”
Andi gave her a sly smile. “If you were really my therapist, you wouldn’t ask that.”
“Good thing I’m not,” she said, giving a conspiratorial look. “So?”
Andi tipped her head back and examined a water spot on the ceiling. How to describe Hill? Normal words didn’t seem to fit but she tried. “He’s over six feet tall. Dark, shaggy hair. Brown eyes, maybe hazel, because there’s some green mixed in. In good shape.”
“Sounds like a police description,” Eliza said, clearly unimpressed. “Tell me what he looks liketo you.”
Andi lifted her head and gave Eliza a pointed look. “Bearded, broad, probably prone to growling in bed.”
