AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Acton held me at a small distance, watching me carefully. “I know. I love you too.”
His figure blurred as my eyes filled with salt. “If you knew, why did you— say what you did?”Is this really important right now? There’s a dead man on my floor.
“Cunningham.” Andy’s familiar voice broke into our conversation. “You need to see this.”
Acton leaned down and slowly and very deliberately kissed my mouth. “Come with me?”
My heartrate picked up. I nodded blindly, the tears spilling forth to cascade over my cheeks, uncaring who saw. Those words were loaded with meaning and I followed him to where Andy knelt, Ella’s delivery boxes torn open.
White power filtered out of it, and when Andy gestured toward the stack I dropped earlier, tiny sachets of pink and white pills tumbled to the floor.
“Your drugs,” I murmured, staring at them. “How— weren’t they picked up at a different, I don't know, level?”
“Should have been.” Andy was already on the phone—to Ella, I assumed.
“Tell her I’ll clean up after. She doesn't have to come in,” I called.
Andy threw me a thumbs up, but I could already hear Ella’s squark from the other end of the line.
“I’ll help but we could be here all day. Process.” Acton sent me a lopsided grin. His fingers folded around mine. “I was so damn scared knowing you were down here alone.”
“You mean it?” I blinked, his words still turning over in my brain. “What you said before...why, Acton? I—that really hurt,” I whispered.
He nodded somberly, gathering me into his arms, and I let him. “I hurt bad, too. Knew straightaway I made the wrong choice and fucked it up. But I didn’t think you wanted to see me again.”
“I was fairly pissed,” I admitted. Someone draped a blanket around my shoulders, and Acton gathered that into his arms too, creating a barrier between us and the rest of the world. “But I’m glad you came. I was trying to stall. I sucked at it. And I tried to remember all the things Andy told me about hold ups. It seemed so silly at the time.”
Acton glanced over his shoulder and back to me. “No so silly now, huh? How about we go into the back office? You talk, I’ll listen. About this. Us. Whatever you want. I won’t go unless you tell me.” He raised an eyebrow to make it a question.
I nodded. “Okay, but I gotta warn you, the office smells like puke. Ella,” I added.
He grimaced. “How abouts you pick somewhere, and same deal. Good?”
“That sounds good,” I whispered, energy draining from me as he kissed the top of my head, then my nose, then my lips. “But only if it’s all one hundred percent real from here on in. Everything, no matter how much it hurts or how scared we are. Deal?”
Acton smiled against my lips, kissing me gently. “Deal,” he whispered.
