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Jonah
Gray moves a lot in his sleep. Or he doesn’t sleep. But when I wake up at six, he’s not moving anymore, and he doesn’t come out of his room until an hour later, when the entire house smells like breakfast. He hobbles into the kitchen, sniffing the air in confusion.
“How do I smell food cooking?” he rumbles, eyeing me suspiciously. Even his sleepy face looks controlled, like he checked it in the mirror before he came out. I like his hair better mussed than gelled back, and he keeps absently ruffling a hand through it like he’s trying to drive me crazy.
“I’m making pancakes.” I hold up the spatula with a tag still hanging from the handle.
“Did you go shopping?”
“Nope.” My skin aches as he comes up behind me, his shoulder bumping mine, and studies the skillet. “You had bananas and eggs.”
“But those are pancakes.” This close, his voice vibrates in my chest.
“That’s what I just said.” I smack another perfectly fresh, slightly lopsided pancake onto the pile by the stove.
“Bananas and eggs?” He sounds fascinated and annoyed at the same time, which makes me want to smile even though I feel like shit.
“My mom can’t eat wheat or dairy. I found this recipe for her. Do you have jam or syrup or fruit oranythingwe can put on these besides wilted lettuce?”
He swallows, flicking on the coffee maker. “Peanut butter.”
While he gets out knives and a jar of pretentious, hand-ground peanut butter, I serve up two plates of flapjacks, giving myself the ones I dropped on the floor. He neatly spreads topping on each of his pancakes and takes a careful bite.
“Do you like them?” I look up from dunking my entire pancake into the jar to realize he’s watching me with his nostrils flared in disapproval. “Sorry.”
“They’re fine.” He reaches over and snags two more from the serving plate as I put my dishes in the sink and grab my bag. I need to get out of here. It’s easier to self-destruct when you’re alone and hungry in the rain than in a bright, cozy place where everything smells like him.
“Where are my clothes?”
His eyes narrow. “We’re going to talk first.”
I stare at him, my bag heavy in my hand. He lied. All that no questions asked bullshit. Like you lie to a kid to get them to calm down. He just wants to lecture me and ship me back to school so he can feel good about saving me. “I’m going to walk down the street in nothing but your underwear if you don’t give me my clothes.”
“They’re in the dryer. Are you going home? I texted Elliott to let him know you weren’t dead, and he wants to see you.”
“Maybe, but I was thinking of hitting up none of your damn business on the way.” Ducking into the half bath, I pull my still-warm clothes out of the dryer. I keep my back to him as I change, but I can feel his eyes on me as I strip off his luxury boxers and trade them for my own flimsy ones.
When I turn around, he props his arms on the counter, muscles bunching in his biceps, his eyes a hazy green in the morning sun. “Don’t you think you owe me some version of the truth?”
Owe. Asshole. I dig my wallet out of my jeans. “How much did the soup cost?”
“Jonah.”
“Should I include the shower? How much is your monthly water bill?” The twenty in my wallet is the last cash I have, but I fumble it out one-handed and slap it on the counter. “Am I allowed to leave now?”
I stuff my feet into my sneakers and yank open his front door, jerking to a stop when his hand reaches past my head and slams it shut with a bang so loud that I think it scares both of us a little.
I don’t turn around, just stand there with my face an inch from the door and his big body right behind me. “You’re gonna be a psychopath now? Tie me up and keep me in your bathtub?”
His hand slides down the door, wraps around the handle, tugs it open. “I told you,” he says quietly. “I’m a control freak. Professionally speaking, I don’t care where you go or what you do. But personally speaking I can’t promise I won’t come after you, hunt you down until you talk to me.”
I turn around, and he takes a step back. “Psychopath.”
“If you say so.” He crosses his arms and stares at me. Mom said I’d never meet another person as stubborn as me, but she was wrong.
“I dropped out of school.”
His shoulders collapse. “No, no. That’s not what Avery and I wanted to—”
