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His attention went to the French braid style she’d chosen. An indefinable emotion crossed his face that intrigued her. Though his next observation killed the curiosity.
“You’re tense as a wire, your mouth looks like it couldn’t smile if your life depended on it, and your eyes...” He paused, lingering there. “It’s all there in your eyes, Les.”
She backed up, sinking down on the arm of the sofa. “You haven’t asked me about it. Do you not want to know?”
Because it might change how he felt about her? Stupid, she knew, but the thought came to mind anyway.
Though he stayed in the doorway, his expression made him seem closer. “You told me the important part. You’ll tell me more when you’re ready. I also texted Rory to let him know where you are. He’ll handle things on the family front, but he said he wants you to call him, soon as you feel up to it. Or within the next couple days, whichever comes first.”
He’d told her last night he would take care of contacting her family and friends and she hadn’t told him not to. She took a beat to remind herself of that, and that he hadn’t taken any decisions from her, just bought her some breathing time.
The answer wasn’t lashing out at him. It was behaving like she could handle her own shit. “When you said today’s agenda, what did you mean?”
“I need to drop by a friend’s place. He’s helping to collect items for a local family who had home damage from storm flooding. Our captain at Major Crimes approved donating some furniture we have in storage.”
“If you loaded your truck, picked me up clothes, did my laundry and made me breakfast, I’m checking your closet for a cape and tights.”
Humor was a step in the right direction, wasn’t it? Except it slammed into the wall of her conscience, which demanded to know why the fuck she thought she was allowed to make a goddamned joke.
“I gave up the tights. They irritate my leg hair. I’m picking up the furniture at a storage place near the office. We can grab some lunch after and have a picnic at the Potterfield bridge, watch the kayakers and tourists.”
He straightened from the doorway, his voice remaining casual. “That group event, where I took Tish? They’re in the middle of a three-day demo party, and tonight is day two. I’ll take you tonight, so you can see what some of it is about.”
“What? I can’t…”
Panic was replaced far too quickly by a not-so-dormant desire to reach for what he was offering. Which was replaced just as quickly by something else.
The part of the mind that managed stress had no actual conscience. It would do what was needed to move forward, pretending something awful hadn’t happened, that the direction she’d chosen for her life wasn’t over.
She lurched off the couch like a snapped rubber band and paced to the door. When she turned, her rusty voice cracked. “You do understand what I did, right? I can't go have fun, keep skipping along with my self-absorbed twenty-something life. ‘Oh, I messed up, but it's okay, it's all right. It's all about me and my pain, and not…’”
He moved toward her. She tried to dodge him, but his arms were just too damn long. He held her, his expression resolute. “It's not about that. It's about taking a step back from that pain and figuring it out. So you don’t let it mire you down and make you do dangerous things, like you did last night. Driving when you were that upset.”
She summoned a glare. “I have roadside assistance and a gun, plus brothers and a father who taught me how to use it. I'm a better shot than Rory, who won ribbons for marksmanship at the county fair. I also know how to change a tire and do basic repairs on my car.”
“None of that covers your state of mind. Do you remember anything about the drive at all?”
She started to say of course she did, but defensiveness couldn’t override honesty. He crossed his arms. “Right. So it goes on the list.”
“What list?”
“The list I’ve been keeping since I first started thinking about you without clothes.”
She blinked. “When was that?”
“How about you guess? I’m betting you know.”
“I don’t,” she said truthfully. “Until you showed up at my condo, it never crossed my mind you were considering anything…like that.”
“Even at the wedding? When the two of us were looking at each other during the vows? Walking down the aisle afterward?” He arched a brow. “You bailed the next morning like your tail was on fire.”
Her stomach fluttered. “When you’ve been the little kid mooning after your brother’s best friend, it’s hard to let go of the idea that you’re imagining the way he’s looking at you, even as an adult.”
“Mooning after me?”
She gave him the finger. He captured it, took it into his mouth. It brought her closer to him, and she couldn’t breathe as he tasted her.
“Brick…” The word was a plea, a hope. A need. He didn’t respond to it, not with words. Just kept teasing her flesh until her forehead was pressed against his shoulder and she couldn’t think beyond the sensation of his mouth, the edge of his teeth on her captured fingers.
