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Mourn Adrían’s death.
“Keep them safe,” Adrían said. “Or else.”
Joel raised an eyebrow. “Or else? How about you don’t come near my family again, or else.”
“I’ll still look out for them.”
“Then that tells me you don’t value your life.”
“You think you can protect her better than I can? With what, your fountain pen?”
“Come near her again if you’re that fucking curious.”
Adrían started to respond, but he turned and headed back to Ayesha and the boys. They finished the tour, grabbed a bite to eat, and took the train home.
Although they’d talked about communication, he fell back on old habits.
He shut down.
The familiar walls went up.
For the rest of the afternoon, he avoided Ayesha. He didn’t hold her hand or kiss her and discreetly pulled away when she tried. Each rebuff made her further confused and hurt, and it hurt him to hurt her, but Adrían knew too much shit. Shehadto be talking to him, and she definitely dreamed about him.
Passionately.
He never heard his or even Curtis’ name trickle from her pretty lips at night, but he’d surely heard that asshole’s.
On the way home, he sent the Lavigne information to Julien. When they got to the house, Ayesha asked if they wanted to help her with dinner, but he took the boys out back to kick around a soccer ball—in falling temperatures.
At dinner, Theo and Josiah did all the talking, and he caught each time she looked at him, her eyes a mix of that same confusion and pain.
After dinner, he cleaned the kitchen and declined her help when she offered, and raising Theo and Josiah had to be the only reason she put up with him like this; she had experience dealing with extended periods of immaturity. But he didn’t know how to prepare for the fact that she was still, in addition to dreaming about Adrían, talking to a man who’d fucking seen her naked.
On her way to give Theo a bath, she stopped at the bottom of the stairs and called out to him as he set a stack of plates in one of the high cabinets.
“Joel, what’s wrong?”
He shrugged. “Nothing.”
Her palm suddenly graced the middle of his back, and it was amazing how much that simple touch made him want to hold her and bury his nose in her hair. Yet, he closed the cabinet and went to search the pantry for absolutely nothing.
She sighed a low, “Okay,” and went upstairs.
While she bathed Theo, he helped Josiah with his homework. Once she was done, he grabbed Theo and stayed up, talking with the boys, until Theo fell asleep and Josiah’s eyelids drooped. Then, after saying good night to Josiah, he took Theo to the owner’s suite.
Ayesha looked up from her book, smiling. “Hey, honey. I missed you.”
“Hey.” He set Theo on the mattress next to her and avoided her eyes, intensifying the pain radiating behind his sternum. “I’m going downstairs for a little bit to watch TV.”
“There’s a TV in here,” she said.
“I don’t want to wake Theo. Night, babe.”
He left the room, went downstairs, and turned on the TV as he collapsed onto the sofa. Ayesha and Josiah had gotten him hooked on thatGrimmshow, and he was already three seasons deep.
At some point, he fell asleep.
“Joel, wake up.”
