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He hummed while tracing the outline with his finger. “Yeah, that could actually work.”
Another text came through. A phone call jiggled the paper. Andres laughed while plucking my phone from under the page, holding it high enough to keep me from grabbing it.
“Come on,” I begged. “Don’t do this. Don’t answer it. No,Andres, don’t do that.”
Andres cleared his throat and held the phone to his ear. “Good afternoon! You’ve reached the offices of England Engineering. This is Sadie’s assistant speaking. How may I help you?”
Words rushed through the phone. Andres snapped the phone away from his ear with a muted chuckle, then held it level so he could hear everything my mother was spewing. Goddess, just let it be something about the wedding andnotabout reproduction.
I held my breath. Sure, I could listen in if I wanted, but I didn’twantto listen. Wolf hearing could be hypersensitive without meaning to be, but today, I had full control over my senses. I was blocking out my mother’s voice. While I could still hear the tones and recognize it as hers, I couldn’t understand the particular words she was using.
Andres smiled knowingly at me, but I wasn’t sure why. He cradled the phone like a gold coin that he refused to part with, holding to his lips to whisper, “Angelica, if you don’t stop calling, Sadie is going to block your number.”
My heart flipped. I tried to wrestle the phone from Andres, but he blocked me with his arm.
“Yes, ma’am. She will block your number. Reduce your calls to once a day or be subject to silence forever.Goodbye.”
Horror infected me like a virus. I gaped at my phone that now rested atop the rough drawing that Andres had created. I held my breath while waiting for the onslaught of calls and texts. That kind of thing would definitely make my mother go postal. She’d destroy everything in her path to get to me and chew my ear to pieces. Any minute now, my phone would explode.
My lungs creaked as I forced them to hold air. Ten seconds went by. Then twenty. Thirty. I exhaled hard enough to see spots, or maybe the spots had started before I released the air I had been holding hostage. That was neither here nor there considering how refreshing it was just to breathe.
One entire minute passed. My phone remained silent.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. “Forgive my language, butshit.”
Andres beamed. “A little boundary goes a long way.”
“That wasn’t a boundary. That was athreat.”
“No, it was a boundary.” He took my hand and pulled me away from the desk. “Darling, a boundary is what you do in response to someone else’s behavior. A threat is a promise.”
I laughed a little too hard for my comfort. “You’re ridiculous.”
“I’m defensive of my time with you.”
Wow, that was something. I watched his face go from cool as a cucumber to chaotic as an overgrown cumquat. A sly smile slid over his lips while he looped his arm with mine and guided me through the lobby.
“Hey, I’ve got a swell idea,” he said. “Why don’t we take the rest of the day off?”
“What?” I shook my head, but I never stopped him from taking me outside. I knew we were heading for the garden. I knew I’d be okay out there. “We have too much to do. I promised Raven you’d get that playground sketch to hertoday. I have to call the catering company again—Fudge.”
He snickered. “We can get fudge later.”
“No, fudge. Like a curse.Fudge. We haven’t even sent out wedding invitations, Andres. We have no idea who’s coming or what they want to eat or—”
“Sweet Sadie, you’re turning purple.Breathe.”
He cupped my face and held me still, forcing me to think about my lungs again. Satisfying oxygen rushed my tattered organs. Sheesh, I was going to faint if I wasn’t careful. It’d happened a few times in the past when organizing an event got to be too much. I didn’t want to worry Andres about something like that.
Slowly, delicately, I drew another breath. And then another. A third took away the dreadful urgency of needing to do everything right now. A fourth caused me to slump into his arms. He shushed me and rubbed my back, cradling my head to his chest with my ear squarely set over his heart.
Calm and steady beats lulled me into a state of peace.
How easily he did that was strange and frightening. But I loved that I could regain a state of calm with Andres. Other guys weren’t like this. Other guys didn’t care if I had a panic attack or cried. They weren’t that concerned with my emotions, only with themselves. But Andres was different.
I was starting to wonder what else was different about him.
“We’ll take the day off,” he stated confidently. “We’ll do something easy. Maybe we should go on a date.”
