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Messy.
Demanding of people’s time and resources.
Geez, I miss those easy days of innocence.
The stacks of files at my back shield me from the rest of the building, and the rest of the building from me, but thedingfrom the elevator thirty or so feet away makes my stomach jump.
My ride has arrived. My knight in shining armor, but he’ll have brought with him a toddler who has a penchant for rainbow clothes.
He doesn’t speak, but the hum of the elevator door says he’s off and the car is leaving the ninth floor. He doesn’t shout in search of me, but his footsteps come this way.
Taking my finger from between my teeth and turning to collect my bag and keys from the leather couch pushed up against the wall, I get myself organized. Sling my coat over my arm. “I know it’s late, Fletch.” I find the correct key on my keychain so I won’t be standing in my hall all alone for too long. “I appreciate you coming out to get me.”
“Not Fletch.”
My heart stops in my chest, but my head snaps up with enough force to make the muscles ache and my throat burn bone-dry.
Thick jeans wrapped around thick thighs. White tank hidden behind a checkered red and black button-up. His forearms are bare, because he always rolls his sleeves up to keep them from getting in the way at work.
Before my eyes reach the top of his chest, that luscious beard he keeps well-maintained invades my vision. Then heavy lips, visible even amid facial hair.
I refuse to linger on his lips, and ignore his sculpted cheeks. But then I stop on a pair of glacial green eyes, and hate, hate,hatehow mine prickle with tears.
“Tim?” I look left, as though to search for an ally. Then right, to the boxes I could maybe use as a real fort. Hide inside. Make a bed and stay hidden within until morning, when Minka can reappear and save me from myself.
“What are you…” My pulse pounds in my throat so I can hardly push words around it. “What are you—”
“You need a ride home.” He takes a step back and to the side, leaving me a path to walk if I choose to pass. “It would be impractical for Fletch to come out with Mia. Archer is injured, and Mayet’s on lockdown.” He rolls his bottom lip between his teeth and spins his own keyring around his finger.
Spin.
Spin.
Spin.
“That means you get me,” he concludes.
I get him.Like running through molasses, my thoughts move impossibly slow.I get him.“What?”
“Let’s go.” He tilts his chin, less passive now, more commanding. “Time to go home.”
“No, I…” I wrap my arms across my chest. “I don’t want—”
“I’m at a point I don’t much care what you want.” Changing direction and stalking forward, Tim grabs my arm and pulls me from the tile that I could swear, a moment ago, I was glued to. His hand wraps around my bicep, and his aftershave fills my lungs to bursting. “You have to move, because it’s damn near midnight. You need a bed, and I have shit to do.”
“Tim—”
“I’m here because people are in Copeland that may have a vested interest in hurting you.”
“People,” I stumble through the office door beside him. “Like your family?”
“Exactly.” He keeps his voice low, his face neutral as we pass a doctor working the night shift. “More specifically,” he grits out, “my brother. You don’t like it. I don’t like it. No one fucking likes it, Emeri. But it’s my reality. And standing in front of a giant glass window while someone like that is running around the city is ridiculous and unsafe.”
He smacks the elevator call button and has the door opening only a second later. Shoving me in, he finally releases my arm so I stumble to the back of the car and press my hip against the handrail.
I stay as far from him as possible—not because I’m afraid.
Worse. Because I’m not.
