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I looked back at Kobe, who had left my chair open for me for when I came back.
I looked over at the other men.
Though scary was a good way to describe them, they still looked open and approachable. Wake was smiling at something that was said. Aodhan’s eyes were glittering.
Then there was Kobe.
He did look rather unapproachable when you studied him.
His arms were crossed, his face was blank, and there was zero percent of his body language that gave anything away.
Okay, so I could see why she thought he was “scary.”
But really, he wasn’t.
When he was around JP and me, that scary factor just seemed to…go away.
“He’s not scary when he’s with me,” I admitted. “He does look rather unapproachable right now, but I think that’s because he just spent hours in a car alone with my daughter, who will talk your ear off if you let her.”
“She rode with him?” Dutch and Morrigan asked.
I looked at them in surprise. “Yeah. Why?”
Morr looked slightly hurt when she said, “You’ve only ever let me pick your daughter up twice. Once so, you could do some sort of drunk appearance for the police department right before you disappeared. And you still came and got her in that police car so she didn’t stay the whole night with me. Then that issue with that little kid being kidnapped from Kilgore. You left her with me all of seven hours. And I’m your best friend.”
I looked back at Kobe, who was now staring at me.
I gave him a small wave, and he offered me a wink in return before going back to the conversation.
“Holy hell, he just winked at you!” Dutch gasped, slapping her hand across her heart.
I looked back into the kitchen, taking in Morr’s still hurt face, before I said mainly to her, “I’m in love with him.”
Meaning I trusted him completely, with my heart and with my kid and her heart.
There was no doubt in my mind that if I needed to leave my daughter with him, I would trust him wholly and completely with her for however long I needed to be gone.
Now Morr was my best friend, and though I did trust her, it was nothing against her that I couldn’t leave my kid with her without worrying constantly.
“I spent years protecting JP,” I said carefully. “Years running from an invisible foe that wanted to see me dead, and her with the people that wanted to kill me for running. It was exhausting, and I can’t say that all my mental headspace was ‘there.’ I was just surviving until Kobe came into my picture. And I’m sorry to say this, but there’s just something about him that I instantly trusted. A year of me being away from him, and I felt like we picked up right where I left us off.”
“You are in love with him,” Morr said quietly.
“I’m so in love with him that I can’t see straight,” I admitted. “I love that he’s grumpy and standoffish. I love that he’s hard to read and can’t stand to be around other people for long. I love that he wants to protect me and my daughter. I love that for the last who knows how long, he’s allowed me to completely and utterly violate his privacy without caring. I just plain old love him, and sometimes, I don’t quite know how or what to do with that love. Do I tell him? Do I freak him out and throw all that information at him? What if he decides that he can’t handle it? It took him forever to warm up to me. What if he remembers how much geniuses freak him out and he leaves? What will happen then?”
“Honey,” Morr said at the same time that Dutch said, “There’s no way that man leaves you. For the last year, any time he’s been around, there’s not been a single incident where he’s happy. I’ve been around him a lot, too. I think he was afraid to spend too much time at home, so he was more ‘invested’ in all of our lives. I know him better. Which you changed. I don’t think he knows how to leave you. Or live life without you.”
That made my heart ache.
“He’s a ghost pepper wing dipped in wasabi,” I found myself saying. “Spicy as hell, and something that nobody ever tried because they’re too afraid of the aftereffects.”
“Are you trying to tell us you’re not scared of what might happen?” Morr asked curiously.
I finally allowed myself to look at her.
Scared? Yeah, I was scared as hell.
But I was excited to experience that scariness with him.
