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“I want you to stay,” I repeated, and for a moment I prayed she could understand the true meaning behind the words. “I want you both to stay.”
“O-Okay,” she said, nodding her head. “Okay, we’ll stay.” She blinked a few times then furrowed her brow, taking another step toward my desk. “Can I paint?”
“What?”
“Can I paint… inside the bunkhouse.”
I looked down at her, noticing the way her eyes suddenly gleamed with… hope.
“We were never allowed to… make a place our own before. Being renters, and all.”
“I’ll add a pool and an extra bedroom to the bunkhouse if it would make you stay,” I said with a little laugh, and at that moment I knew whatever weird standoff had been going on between the two of us over the last week had been broken. “And yeah, you can paint. Paint it pink, for all I care.”
She laughed, her blue eyes creasing as she met my gaze.
“I… Thank you, Grant. I mean it.”
“You have nothing to thank me for—”
“But I do,” she cut in, absently tapping her fingers on my desk. “Day wants to stay. He’s been talking about it already. He wants to live in your house but I told him that wasn’t… that’s not—”
“You could, you know,” I said, leaning back in my chair. “I have plenty of room. Two of the empty bedrooms are actually adjoining.”
“I couldn’t—”
“Why?”
“Because you—” She shut her mouth, her eyes blazing with an emotion I couldn’t quite decipher. Heat, that was what it was, and I understood her meaning without needing her to even finish the sentence.
“Me…”
“You,” she said, almost accusingly. “You are very distracting. And if I’m going to continue being your employee there needs to be boundaries.”
“Would you stay if you weren’t my employee?”
A silence settled between us, and I instantly regretted saying it.
“Fuck, Moira, I didn’t mean—”
“I’d consider it, yeah,” she answered, still holding my gaze.
Something like hope bloomed in my chest but I bit back.
“Only because of Day,” she concluded, but her words wavered ononly.
I rose from my seat behind my desk, keeping my eyes trained on her face as I rounded the desk and came to a stop with only a foot of space between us. She didn’t move, but her cheeks went ruddy—the deep pink color that set my blood fire every time I saw it.
She hadn’t been herself this week. Her usual spark was gone, and I hated the idea of me being the reason for it.
“I kissed you because I wanted to,” she whispered, dropping her eyes to the ground in an uncharacteristic way.
I closed the distance between us and reached out to touch her chin, silently commanding her to look at me again. When she did, I replied, “I know. Is that why you’ve been so weird this past week?”
“I’ve been busy,” she said firmly, but she didn’t look away as she continued, “and yeah, I needed to avoid you.”
“Why?”
“Because all I could think about for days after I got home from Bozeman was the text you sent me.”
