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Inside, I’m glowing, and outside, I offer him a grin. “Well, thank you. How sweet of you. In fact, if you’ve come here to shower me with compliments rather than question me, then you’re free to stay as long as you like.”
“There are too many questions for me to leave off here. You and I both know that.”
“Or you can simply take me at my word. I had nothing to do with Everett’s death. He was…a friend. Or as much of a friend as a person like me can have.”
Devan is silent, taking a pause, before he says, “I understand. It’s something we have in common.”
“What?” I question.
“Our friends are dead.”
“Awfully morose of you.” And because it’s somehow ridiculously hard to sit with him and not have something in my hands, whether it be flesh or pottery, I shift to get up.
Devan is quick to move his hands to his thighs, toward his crotch, to protect himself from me like I’m coming at him hard with any and all holes.
“It’s not like I’m about to hang off your dick. I’m just getting something to drink.” I roll my eyes. “I’ll make tea.”
“I don’t drink tea.”
“Well, tonight you’re getting chamomile, Tough Guy.”
I like the way he grumbles, following me into the kitchen and sitting silently at the moveable island. There’s a single seat for a single me, and he watches me prepare the tea. Loose leaves and blooms into a strainer, hot water in the kettle. A little bit of sugar to temper the natural bitterness of the chamomile and black tea I add for a kick.
The weight of his direct eye contact settles inside of me, quieting certain pieces as it wakes others. I’m not sure I’ve ever had a man stare at me the way Devan does. Hungry, but…protective.
It might not be a true cease-fire, but the conversation that allows it is enough to at least put me back on even footing. Or make me feel like we are, even if it’s all a lie. I’m not tired enough to let him stay despite the late hour, and he’s not stubborn enough to force me to answer the majority of his questions.
If Broderick finds out, then I can say with very real authority that nothing happened.
Even when I want it to.
ELEVEN
devan
Aria sendsme home at quarter to two, and I don’t blame her.
What the fuck had I been thinking going over there in the first place? I hadn’t been thinking at all, apparently, because if I had, then logic would have kept me home.
A combination of things forced me out of my own home, and using the GPS to get to hers, I think as I pull into the parking garage beneath my apartment and head upstairs. There were simply too many people in my apartment, closing me in. I needed a chance to grab some fresh air and clear my head.
Two…and this one stung…I wanted to talk to Aria.
Not because of the case, although I used it as my way through her door. I wanted to talk to her, to see what makes her tick, to see what kind of things might spill from her lips.
And yes, to apologize.
She deserved one after the way I treated her.
For some strange reason, the woman had lodged in my mind and stayed there. I hadn’t been disappointed in the anecdotes she offered nor irrational points she’d made, ones I hoped may lead us in the right direction.
Adam had forwarded her address to my phone, so it was only a small matter for me to send the others packing for the night and get in the car.
A small matter to cut across town, the traffic this time of night negligible, and knock on her door.
Except nothing happened this time around other than the simple comfort of a conversation between friends. It’s ridiculous. We don’t know one another well enough for the kind of aggressively easy way we operate together. We hadn’t touched each other except for a light brush of fingertips when she transferred the mug of tea to me.
A mug of damn tea.
