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“What are you doing?” I snap.
Her head jerks up, a guilty expression on her face, and I hear the quiet beep again, the drawer sliding back in. “Nothing,” she says quickly.
Women.
I go back to my tried-and-true method of dealing with them.
Ignoring.
I ignore Nova as I head back into the garage to grab her shit from the back of my car. Only this time, she doesn’t freeze and stare off into space, ignoring me right back. She follows me into the garage, too fucking close, that hint of cinnamon in my nose again.
More shit to fucking ignore.
I yank at the door handle, pull the metal panel wide, and lean in to grab her shit.
“Here,” she says, trying to reach past me, “I’ve got—”
I straighten, nearly taking her head off with my elbow in the process.
Luckily, she ducks and I lift my arm in time to avoid disaster, but she’s still all up in my fucking space. “Christ,” I mutter, deliberately gripping her shoulders and setting her away from me. “Back up.”
Hurt in those pine green eyes. “I’m just trying to help,” she says softly.
“Yeah,” I mutter. “That ship has long sailed.”
Now the hurt disappears and she glares at me instead. “They’re my things, and—”
I turn my back on her, reaching for the bags, looping the handles around my wrists, yanking them toward me, nearly taking her out a second time—only this time it’s with the bags. “Are youtryingto be annoying?”
“I’mtryingto get my stuff,” she snaps, lifting a hand and extending it in my direction, flicking her fingers a laThe Matrix.“Give it here.”
I’m not Agent Smith.
Or Malfoy.
I’m not going to be goaded into this fight.
Except, she doesn’t let me go that easily.
She grabs at the bag, tries to tug it down my shoulder, reaches with her other hand and seizes the duffle hanging from my wrist.
“I’ve got it,” I say, turning my body from hers and starting for the house.
She doesn’t let go of either bag.
And I don’t stop walking.
Rip.
I frown, not registering the sound as I take my next step—
RIP!
ThatI register, and though I stop walking, I don’t do it in time.
The bag explodes—paper and photos and trinkets flying in all directions. I see a handwritten note flutter to the garage floor, watch as a journal bounces off my foot and is lost beneath the tool bench. A tin of thumbtacks drops, the top opening, the tiny pins scattering on the concrete.
It’s not the bag of someone who’s planning on spending a couple of days in the mountains.
