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“Not long as in five minutes? Or not long as in two hours and you’ve just been sitting here watching me sleep?”
“Not long as in it’s fine.”
I reach for her hand but find her wrist. I pull her back into bed. She curls into me, burying her face into my neck. I run my hands up and down the length of her spine, eventually settling at the small of her back.
“Sex first thing is my favorite,” she says, lifting her head so that our eyes meet. “Sets you up to win the whole day.”
“Are you trying to kill me?”
She offers a suggestive grin.Damn it, we went for a triple-header last night. But I suppose I could rally.
“Maybe. Unfortunately, though, I can’t stay,” she tells me as she practically jumps out of bed. “I have a thing in half an hour.” With her hands on her hips, she gives me the once-over. “Rain check?”
I sit up and search the floor for my clothes, then remember they came off in the kitchen. “Let me grab my keys.”
“It’s okay. I already called for a ride.”
“Oh.”
“You stay put.” She leans down to pat my arm. “I can see myself out.”
Throwing the covers off, I plant my feet on the floor and stretch my arms toward the ceiling. “About that rain check.”
“I’ll call you.”
Something in her tone surprises me and I’m almost certain she’s lying. “Will you?”
“Maybe.”
I follow her down the hall and into the living room, and even though we’re in my house, my behavior makes me feel pathetic. Like I’m grasping at something that cannot be held. Ali locates her shoes in the kitchen and quickly slips them on her feet as though hasty exits are a game she’s well-versed in. She chews at her lip and knits her brow, making it obvious she’s concentrating hard as she searches the living room. She’s misplaced something and it gives me an uneasy feeling.
Finally, she shakes her head and lets out a short sigh. “There it is,” she says, swiping her purse from the chair.
It’s exactly where she left it last night.
“Coffee?”
“Thanks,” she tells me with a tight smile. “But my ride’s just around the corner.”
I realize then that I’m probably not going to see her again. There’s always that moment when a woman decides,this is not for me.And we’ve hit that threshold, apparently. What looked good in the dark doesn’t appear to be quite as appealing in the light.
“Oh, before I forget.” I pull her clip from the drawer where I keep the sandwich bags for the kids’ lunches and hold it out to her. As she takes it from my hand, something in her eyes shifts. I can see the barely contained annoyance in them. I’m not sure if it’s something I said or if it’s always this way with her, but in order to find out I fill the silence. “When’s the last time you shot?”
“I don’t know,” she says in a way that tells me she does know. “It’s been a while.”
“Yeah, for me, too.”
I remove a mug from the cabinet and set it on the counter. “We should go sometime.”
She mumbles a yeah or an okay. It’s hard to tell because her head is down and she can’t take her eyes off her phone. I don’t want to feel left out, so I reach for mine. “Sorry.” She shakes her head and shifts from one foot to the other. “There’s an emergency at work.”
I don’t respond because whatever I say wouldn’t matter. I’m searching for the lid to the coffeepot when I spot the stack of bills laying on the bar, along with papers I emptied from the kids’ backpacks but never read. The name on the envelope stares back at me and my breath catches.Ethan Lane.
Shit.
“I have to say—” My head jolts up as I hear her click off her phone and set it aside. “I’m a bit surprised. And that doesn’t happen too often.”
I lean around the bar so I can see her directly. Our eyes meet. “Oh?”
