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I aligned the two index cards on the copier, the light zapping before it spit out a sheet of paper. I reinserted it and copied the opposite sides. Doing this simple thing for Trish gave me this odd sensation. A good one. Yet foreign.
I sent up a quick prayer that I had a thousand more chances just like this one. I stopped in the doorway. Long-term wasn’t a word I frequently associated with my relationships. Not that I didn’t want that. It just never felt right.
With Trish, I couldn’t imagine not having her in my life. And as it stood, she barely had a toe in it. I wanted it all. I didn’t care if that was foolish or a complete one-eighty from how I’d lived so far. I’d never believed in soul mates, but everything within me knew that she was the person I wanted to be with.
Permanently.
How the hell was I going to convince her of that without scaring her away? There was a fragility underneath her strength. One false move, and I’d lose her. Yet another fact that I just knew.
I tapped the doorframe a couple of times and went back to the kitchen with a smile on my face. It was ridiculous, but I couldn’t wait to see her again, and it had been less than two minutes.
Trish was pale and clutched her phone. Patrick shrugged and gave me a helpless look.
“Bright Side?”
“I have to go.” Her voice was wobbly. Her hands trembled.
“I’ll take you.”
“No.” Her tone was too sharp, the word too quick from her lips. “Stay with Patrick. Celebrate his win today.”
Her troubled expression morphed quickly into one at ease. She’d learned to do that. To hide her emotions. I didn’t like her doing that with me.
“My dad would kill me if I didn’t see you home. You know that.” Plus, if I knew where she lived, this fiasco of a week without being able to find her wouldn’t happen again.
Her phone rang in her palm, and she nearly jumped to the ceiling. One glance at the caller ID and what little color she had on her cheeks drained.
“Is there somewhere private I can take this?”
“My office is down the hall. Help yourself.”
Once she was out of earshot, I lit into Patrick.
“What happened?”
“She looked at her phone and went white as a sheet. You came back around that time.” He fiddled with his cuff link. “I see why you like her. Honestly, I do. But there’s trouble behind those eyes.”
“I know.”
“Shit. You’re already a goner.”
I didn’t deny it. What was the point? Patrick knew me better than my father, and that said something. I’d always trusted him—implicitly—and vice versa. He could read me like a book, and this moment, I had an overwhelming need to help her. Except I didn’t know what to do. She’d asked for privacy, yet I had this urge to barge into my study and demand to know what I needed to fix. Because goddammit, I was going to fix whatever worried her.
Patrick touched my shoulder. “Be careful, Dixon. She’s sweet, but I’ve been around more broken people in my life than I wanted to be. Whatever’s going on with her you can’t fix.”
“I can,” I said through gritted teeth.
“You can love her. Be there for her. But you need to accept right now that it might not be enough.” He clamped my shoulder. “You do this, and you’ll get sucked into her stuff.”
I leveled him with my gaze. “Maybe I want to.”
Patrick held up both hands. “Just don’t do it blindly. I’ve never met a woman who was worth it.”
“She is.”
“Then I’m behind you.”
“I’m gonna go check on her.”
