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“It’s not, but you get an A for effort.”
That earned him a slight smile. “I hadn’t realized that there were still houses with faux wood paneling.”
“And matching mustard yellow appliances, not to brag or anything.”
The crate door swung open, and Luna bolted out of the crate. She considered sniffing up André but made a beeline for the front door instead. Dante snapped the leash that hung by the door onto her collar.
“I think the color is called Harvest Gold,” André corrected as Dante and Luna headed outside, “and my grandmother had a set.”
“That you even know that—” Dante shook his head as he and Luna went out the door.
Once Luna had done her business, Dante had no trouble getting her back inside. Usually, she poked her nose around everywhere but tonight, apparently, she wanted to meet André rather than chase every scent she could find.
“Incoming,” Dante warned as they came back inside and he unclipped her leash. “I’ll be right back, grabbing the first aid.”
Was he dragging his feet? Yes, he absolutely was. He didn’t want André’s sympathy over Simone’s death. Snatching the red first aid box out from under the sink, he strode back to the living room. It was conversation time, and he wasn’t going to chicken out. After what he’d admitted at the station, saying the rest couldn’t be that difficult.
Could it?Fuck.
André had risked sitting on the couch and Luna was wiggling all over, demanding pets and trying to climb into his lap even though she knew better. She was not a lap-sized dog.
“Get down,” Dante ordered.
Giving him a look that translated towhy are you so mean, Luna plopped down on her haunches against the couch with her head under André’s hand.
“What did you and that Trent character talk about while Cooper and I were outside?” Dante asked. So maybe he wasn’t as ready to talk as he’d pretended.
When he and Lani Cooper had returned from not finding anything in or around the parking lot, Deputy Trent had looked like he’d swallowed a lemon. André had looked—aside from like shit because of being shot at—like a man who’d made his point.
Waiting for André’s reply, Dante opened the case and plucked out some antiseptic wipes and a butterfly bandage. When André didn’t immediately respond, Dante glanced up at him. He was watching Dante with a bemused expression on his face.
“What?” Dante asked as he ripped open the wipe and reached up to start cleaning up the cut on André’s cheek.
“What is happening right now? What did you mean back there?”
Byback there, Dante was going to assume André meant at the station when he’d been so scared and fucking pissed off that he’d blurted out that André was more than a friend to him. In front of one of his deputies. Hopefully, André was out, and Dante hadn’t just fucked up everything. What the fuck had he been thinking? He hadn’t been using his brain at all. He’d acted on instinct, scared that he’d lost another person who he—liked a lot.
A person he thought could easily be more, who could be a partner. A lover.
“I meant exactly what I said. You’re more than a friend to me.”
Tossing the used wipe aside, he opened the Band-Aid and gently pressed it over the wound.
“There,” he said, leaning away from André so he could see his handiwork. “I don’t think you need stitches, but maybe try not to get shot at again.”
“I’ll do my best,” André said, his gaze intent. “You didn’t really answer my question.”
The hint of a rumble at the end of his sentence had Dante’s thoughts heading in another direction. South. Something must have shown in his expression. Lust probably. André always did it for him.
“No,” André growled, shooting a glare at Dante’s crotch. “I want to know what you meant by not just friends.”
With a sigh and a few snaps and pops—he wasn’t getting any younger—Dante rose to his feet so he could sit next to André on the couch but a respectable distance apart. He wasn’t going to jump him. Not yet anyway.
André twisted to face him, eyebrows raised and one knee pulled up onto the couch. His fingers still moved restlessly across Luna’s head.
“Last time we saw each other in Portland, I was already thinking about getting out. About refusing more undercover assignments, maybe quitting the agency. But I had to finish the one I was on and when I came back, you were gone. I should’ve come clean with you before, but it seemed like it was never the right time. Or enough time.”
Or he’d just been a coward.
