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“You were in the way,” he informed me, lips curing up as his eyes found mine again. “I knew how you felt about your work reputation, how you had a rule about not dating anyone at work. I heard you say it once when Gemma was going gaga over Lincoln when she first met him, asking why you didn’t ‘tap that.’ And I knew I wasn’t your type, honey. That doesn’t feel great to admit. And it didn’t feel great to realize, but it was true. I wasn’t your type. And going for it and getting shot down might have been worse than never going for it at all.” He paused then gave me a slow, almost sad smile. “I didn’t – and don’t – check your boxes, Jules. I get that. I’ve always gotten that.”
My stomach lurched at the mention of my list. The first thing I was going to do when I got home was burn that damn thing in the fireplace. Along with anything left of Not-Gary’s.
“What’s that look for?”
I exhaled slowly, shrugging. “I want to go home, but I don’t want to go home. If that makes any sense.”
“It makes sense. Why don’t you want to go home?”
“Everything in my apartment reminds me of him now. He’s touched everything. He’s been everywhere. It all seems tainted.”
“So go home, but don’t go home,” he suggested. “Go stay with your mom. Or Gemma.”
“Look at me,” I said, waving a hand at my face. “I would have to tell them the whole, ugly truth. I mean, I plan to do that. Eventually. Once I sort it through. But if I went to them, I would have to explain right now. I just… I don’t want to go there. Not yet.”
I didn’t want to say it, but I felt it went without explanation.
And I have no money to stay somewhere else.
“Come stay at my place,” he suggested because, well, of course he would. Because he was just the most selfless human being on the planet. “Don’t. Don’t rush to say no just because you feel like you can’t ask it of me. You’re not asking. I’m offering. Come stay at my place for a week. Heal. Get your head on straight again. Then you can figure out what you are doing from there. We can stop on the way back, grab everything you will need, and then go to my place.”
I wanted to.
I had no idea what Kai’s place was even like, and I had gotten a bit picky about such things over the years. Maybe he was as sloppy at home as he was in his office at work. Maybe he put his shoes up on the coffee table or left dishes in the sink for days. Maybe he wasn’t anal about soap scum in the shower like I was.
But, somehow, I found myself genuinely not caring.
I wanted to go to his place.
“Say yes,” he demanded. “I will even learn how to use my coffee maker for something other than brewing hot water.”
“Okay,” I agreed, nodding.
“Okay?” he asked, like he was sure he had misheard me.
“Okay,” I affirmed, feeling that chest tightening thing again.
–
“Is it an apartment or a house?” I asked after we had stopped to load up a few pieces of my luggage with clothes, toiletries, makeup, some books, and my own pillows. It was a weird, maybe somewhat insulting habit I had picked up from my mother who had always insisted we bring our own pillows when we went to stay over somewhere. Not because someone else’s pillows were dirty, but because ours smelled like home, would make it easier to sleep in a foreign place.
Plus, well, I paid the big bucks to get the best pillows I could find – ones that wouldn’t go flat in five seconds. I slept on my side. I needed a good pillow or I’d get a crick from hell in my neck.
“You’ll see when we get there.”
“I hate surprises.”
“I know.”
“I could Google it. I know your address. Get the street view.”
“But you’re not going to,” he agreed with me.
And, well, he was right.
I wasn’t going to.
I was going to metaphorically sit on my hands and wait.
Luckily, it wasn’t long.
“No way,” I said when he turned into an industrial part of town, nothing but old warehouses around.
“Why not?”
“I picture you with a yard.”
“I’m on the road a lot. I don’t have the time to maintain it. I’d like that though. Someday. A house. A backyard with a dog and some kids in it. Right now, though, this works best for me,” he told me, pulling up to what had been a textile factory.
“This is your place?” I asked, not even bothering to mask the disbelief in my voice.
“Got it on a song. It had been home to some raccoons and opossums. They had their own ecosystem going. But I dropped some money into it, got it all cleaned out. Humanely,” he specified as if I could ever imagine he hired someone to bludgeon the poor raccoons and opossums. “Then got to build it up the way I wanted.”
