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His phone rings again before he finally stumbles back, studying me through hooded, hungry eyes.
“Go,” I urge. “I’ve got things to be doing.”
With one final chaste kiss on my lips, he turns and walks away.
His fingers are twisted around the handle before a thought hits me and I call his name. He freezes before turning back with a smug grin.
Ignoring it, I rush toward the dresser beside him and pull the top drawer open.
“I know you don’t like this, but here.”
Pulling two keys free, I pass them over.
He stares down at them, confusion written all over his face.
They’re for the building. For this flat,” I add in case he hadn’t figured that out.
“Shit, I—”
“For emergencies. For peace of mind.”
“Not for letting myself in in the middle of the night and fucking you senseless?”
“I guess that would depend on your definition of an emergency.”
His phone rings again, and he lifts his other hand to look at the screen once more.
“Go, before I get whoever it is to drag you out of here themselves.”
He kisses me again and then finally leaves.
I close the door behind him and lock it up tight. But at the last minute, I pull the bolt loose again, assuming that he’s not going to make it much past sundown before he reappears with some bullshit emergency.
With a laugh, I take off across my flat, making quick work of tidying up. Then, I throw myself in the shower to freshen up, and get to work.
I don’t have all that much prep to be prepared for the morning. With fuck all else to do while I was stuck at Jodie’s this past week, I got myself up to date, so before long, I find myself in bed with my Kindle and a hot chocolate, losing myself in the steamy age-gap romance I was in the middle of before my life got all dramatic.
Unsurprisingly, I’m soon struggling to keep my eyes open, the words all blurring and swirling around the screen in front of me.
Putting it on my bedside table, I pad through to my bathroom to brush my teeth and pee before heading back to bed. Although, something startles me when I’m almost at my bedroom door, and I can’t help but laugh as the front door opens behind me.
“I knew you wouldn’t be able to stay away.”
31
NICO
Ignoring Alex’s phone calls, I focus on the other name that’s lit up my phone in the last ten minutes. But I don’t bother calling her back. I might want to hear her voice, but I need more than that.
She’s the only one I trust to give me sensible advice when it comes to Brianna anyway, so instead of turning around and heading back to my flat again, I go in the opposite direction toward the building I called home for eighteen years.
I have avoided this place since Dad died. There are too many painful reminders of him in every inch of the house, and I couldn’t bear to see it, to feel it.
But facing it seems a little bit more possible today.
Although, I start to question that when I pull into the driveway and find Mum’s car parked up.
I was hoping that she’d at least do me the favour of being out. Seems like my luck has run out.
