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“Can I ask you a question?”
He nodded, studying me with intensity.
“When I asked you before about Axel Everett… You honestly haven’t heard anything about him living here?”
He bristled. “I don’t know anything about it.”
“Okay.” My shoulders dropped. “I kind of screwed up an assignment a few months ago, and even though she’ll just rewrite most of what I send her to suit her own needs anyway, my boss is riding my ass about this one. Also, I think she’s mildly obsessed with Axel Everett.” I forced an awkward laugh, even though I had no idea what I was going to do now that I knew for a fact the Everetts were here.
I couldn’t tell him that the short amount of time I’d spent here had kind of made me want to quit my job and move to his quaint little town. That seemed like a surefire way to scare him right back into his shell. Besides, that was crazy talk. Soul-quaking sex aside, this whole thing was still temporary.
He nodded in understanding but didn’t say anything for a moment.
“You get through all your messages?” he finally asked.
“Almost.” I moved on from Ward’s and found the slew of text messages and missed calls from Aileen. “Good grief. No wonder you cracked and answered one of Aileen’s calls.”
“About that…” He turned on his side to face me. “I’m sorry I pried. I had no business going through your phone like that.”
“I’m not sorry. I’ve got nothing to hide, and if you hadn’t done it, I doubt we would have gotten everything out in the open last night.”
He gave me a soft smile and leaned down to kiss me. Instead of the usual urgency, his lips were gentle and reassuring this time. “I don’t want you to think I’m the kind of guy who would be snooping through your stuff all the time.”
My pulse quickened at his use of future tense. Did he even realize he’d done it? Was he talking about the next few days, or was he also imagining a future where I stayed?
The phone in my hand buzzed with another message from Aileen. I rolled my eyes, shaking my phone in front of him. “I would say there were extenuating circumstances. The way she blew up my phone would make any sane person think something was wrong. Now she’s worried you’re a serial killer and that I am, in fact, not okay.”
“If I was a serial killer, wouldn’t I just text her back saying everything was fine?”
My fingers sputtered to a stop with the response I was typing. “I should call her—”
“You should call her—”
We laughed off the fact that we said the exact same thing, but inside I got the warm fuzzies at his shift over the last twenty-four hours. I went from having no idea what the hell this man was thinking, to us thinking and saying the exact same thing.
I held up a finger while I gave Aileen a quick call. Reassuring her Drew was not a serial killer, and I wasn’t tied up in his cellar, I kept the call short, telling her I was still on an assignment and had a busy day planned.
Quiet enough that Aileen couldn’t hear him, Drew whispered, “Busy day of getting plowed,” with a grin.
I shoved his shoulder, eliciting a straight up chuckle. Playful Drew was even sexier than broody Drew.
“Is she confident I’m not a serial killer now?” he asked after I got off the phone.
“I think so, although I can never quite tell if she believes me when I tell her I’m okay.”
His face grew serious. “I think that’s part of why you’re able to see me in a way other people here can’t. Hell, in a way I can’t even see myself.”
“How do you mean?”
“Aileen. She still sees you as the person you were in the year right after you lost everything, instead of who you are now. She remembers your worst moment and is afraid you’re going to head back there, instead of seeing you for what you’ve become.” He gave me a piercing look. “You know what it’s like to be defined by others as a victim of terrible circumstances instead of being seen as having survived it and moved on.”
My breath caught in my chest. I was relieved Drew was talking openly this morning, but also caught off guard at feeling so seen by him.
“I’ve been stuck there,” he said, “not able to see myself past that one moment where I didn’t feel the way I thought I was supposed to. For years, that was all I could see—how the accident destroyed my view of myself—instead of moving forward and thinking about who I could become after it. I’ve been defining myself by this one awful moment.”
I rubbed his arm. “You’re so much more than that.”
He sighed. “I’m starting to think maybe I could be.”
