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He slips the phone is his pocket and leans into the wall. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”
“What? No! It’s…” My eyes hop around the space.
He chuckles. “It’s okay, Hollie, you can say it.”
“Oh, John, it’s gorgeous. It is, it’s just…”
“Empty?”
Desolate and forlorn. I nod. “How long have you lived here?”
He straightens and takes a step. “A year last week.”
Oh. A year is plenty of time.
“Sorry about the wait. Tech issues. As you can see, I work a lot, and it’s just me here, so…I don’t know. I’m hardly a decorator, and fixing it up feels kind of pointless.”
“But it’s your home. Your retreat.”
He grimaces. “I’d hoped that Tyler might visit from time to time. Bring Brayden.” He moves toward the kitchen, shrugging out of his holster as he goes, dropping the contraption onto the end of a counter.
The tightness in my chest turns to an ache.
“Can I get you something to drink?”
“I’m fine.”
He goes to the stainless refrigerator. “You sure? Bottled water?”
From what I can see where I stand, water is about all the giant appliance contains. “Sure.” It’ll give me something to do with my nervous energy.
I join him in the kitchen. He uncaps a bottle, hands it to me, and plants a hip against the huge island.
“The kitchen is gorgeous. Do you cook?”
“At a subsistence level.”
A laugh pops from my mouth. That’s such aJohnanswer. “Did you build this place?”
Swallowing down a river of water, his Adam’s apple bobs. “Yes and no. It was a distress sale. The owners filed for divorce about halfway through the build. I came into the process in time for most of the finish out.”
“So you do get credit for the décor.”
“Only if I’m arrogant enough to take it.” He chuckles. “No, I hired someone for that. I don’t know white from—what do they call it? Greige? Or laminate from hardwood.”
“Sounds like you learned.”
“Oh, yeah. The decorator saw to that. Kept shoving samples in my face no matter how many times I told her it was up to her.”
Up to a stranger? “Well, it isyourhouse.”
His gaze drops to his palm flattened on the quartz countertop. “I suppose.”
Silence makes itself at home between us. I look around me, at the space crying out to be made a real home. The windows in front are equipped with beautiful shutters. The rear windows are empty. Yes, they afford a wonderful view of a pathway down to the river, but the tacked up sheets dangling on either side of the window bank kill the vibe.
My feet carry me into the living room where I’ve spied a stack of framed artwork propped against a wall, a stack five or six frames deep. I rest my palm on the first one. “May I look?”
“Of course.” John’s voice, closer than I expect given I walked away from him, jolts me.
