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I glower at her. “That you don’t need me. It’s a pointless waste of energy. Not what this is about at all.”
Her thumb brushes over my knuckles, and it hurts. This is too real. She’s not sick, and I’m not her boyfriend, and she can’t live with me forever. It’s an ache in my chest, like a knot in the chambers of my heart, and it runs down to the gentle, skimming touch. The only reason I don’t pull my hand away is that I don’t want her to know.
Bristol glances down at our hands. “What is it about, then?”
That I care about you and I don’t want you to leave.“That the twins like it here. I have Minecraft, and there’s a pool downstairs if you’re up to sitting on a deck chair. On the weekend there’ll be time to play pickleball, too.”
“Pickleball?”
“There’s an outdoor court and an indoor one.”
“Will.” She looks back up at me, one corner of her mouth lifted. “What onearthis pickleball?”
For some reason, I feel defensive about mentioning it at all. I pull my hand out of hers and fold my arms over my chest. “It’s like tennis, only the court is smaller, and you play with a paddle instead of a racquet. And the ball is more like a wiffle ball.”
“Do you…play?”
“Icanplay.” It takes every last ounce of my willpower not to step away from her. It’s a miserable feeling. I want to get closer. To put her on the floor and reset whatever the hell this is between us. I want her to stop pretending I’m some soft, playful dipshit. I want to be able to be that for her, and I can’t. I don’t know that my teeth are gritted until I have to force them apart to speak. “It’s not mandatory, Bristol. It’s just available.”
“Hey.” Bristol steps in, stirring the air. She still smells like sweet citrus, even though she’s been using my soap. There’s no fear in her eyes when she touches my arm, her palm resting there, comforting. I don’t need to be comforted. Christ. “You’re right. They like it here. We can stay for the weekend.”
“Fine.” I say it like she’s the one who wanted this, and I’m not relieved at all.
Bristol almost grins. She stops herself just in time, but the serious expression she puts on isn’t any better. “Come sit with me. There’s time before dinner.”
17
WILL
It’s spittingrain on Sunday afternoon. The clouds over Bristol’s neighborhood look as gray and surly as I feel. It’s un-fucking-believable, to be this weighted down and angry because they’re leaving. None of them are mine. Taking care of Bristol was the right thing to do. Holding her hand? Sitting up with her at night when her fever came back?
Those were right too, goddamn it.
This feels wrong, and that makes me want to tear down the apartment complex with my bare hands.
I don’t make decisions based on how thingsfeel,for fuck’s sake. I make them based on data. Yes, venture capitalism involves a certain amount of risk, but that’s what contracts are for. You don’t get fucked over if your terms are solid, and mine always are.
Except with Bristol. Except when I told her she could pay me back for that fifty thousand dollars by letting me fuck her. I did something else instead. Or—in addition to fucking her.
I started to feel things, and then, because I’m WillI heard that, you little bastardLeblanc, I took my only other physical outlet off the table for a month.
My only consolation is that nobody else seems very happy to be going back to Building C, either. The twins are quiet in the back seat. Bristol looks out the window, her shoulders drooping.
She could just not go. She could turn to me right now and say,Will, it is absurd for me to live in this joke of an apartment when you have room and we work at the same place and everybody’s better off with you.
And I’d have to tell her that they’re not. Not for the long term. Eventually, I’d fuck it up. That’s what I do. Which is why I can’t fathom the ridiculous ache all across my ribs. Why waste time and energy wanting something that’s wrong?
The raindrops get bigger as we roll down the block toward the complex. My face gets hot. My chest burns. Rain? Like this? I have one umbrella in the SUV, and it’s not big enough to cover all of them. Bristolfaintedlast week. She was that sick. And now she’s going to have to walk through a bunch of puddles on broken concrete to get to a place that’s not evensafe—
Something catches my eye on the sidewalk.
A man, standing next to the green Ford that my hired security drives to blend in with the neighborhood.
No. Itisthe guy I hired. Evan Donovan isn’t from my usual firm. I know him from the warehouse. He started working with Eddie a year before I did, but I don’t know why. He’s ex-military twice over. Trained once in Israel, and once in the U.S.
In the time he’s been keeping an eye on Bristol’s apartment, he’s never once reported having to get out of the car to respond to a security risk. There have been a couple of fights near one of the other buildings, and one time, a guy who’d mugged a couple tourists ran through the courtyard.
I don’t pay Donovan to get involved in that shit. He keeps an eye on Bristol and the twins, and that’s it. He didn’t tell me when her brother visited. He got a good look at him and double-checked his ID with a connection of his who’s a private investigator. That’s exactly his job. I don’t want a spy. I want her to be safe.
