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It was difficult to shrug, lying down, but she gave it a try. He palmed her breast, kissed her forehead. He liked her body. Tuck that fact away for use later. “It feels wrong.”
“Because you have more money than they do?”
“Because I have prospects, choices, and they don’t.”
“Your siblings had the same choices you had.”
“No, I was different.” Never satisfied, a pain in the ass, so everyone said. “They did the best they could.”
“You believe that?”
It was either that or hate them. “On good days.”
“No one starves if you stop. No one goes without a bed, or warmth, or shoes.”
She ruffled his hair. The bruise on his cheekbone was darker now, and his eye socket was shadowed in an ashy smudge. “But everyone deserves more than that.”
“There are people with less. Much less. You could spend your money a different way.”
“Ignore my own family to buy a condo like you.”
She blinked when he bopped her nose. “Don’t put words in my mouth. Secure your own future before you look to other people’s. Prioritize.”
This wasn’t like on an airline, the drill about fixing your own oxygen mask before you helped others. It couldn’t be. “Or drag them up with me.”
“Do they want to change?”
That was the problem. There was nothing she could do for Dad or the boys. Mom could leave. Elsie could make better decisions and have help to do that.
“I have this recurring dream about being homeless. I’ve never been homeless. It’s like the ultimate fall, the supreme failing. In the dream, I’ve made terrible mistakes and I’ve ended up with nothing. I’m in a strange place and I have a suitcase and that’s everything I own and I’m panicked.”
“That’s the dream you had just now.” She nodded. “Is that why you pushed me about moving in?”
“No.” Maybe. She laughed. “Dammit. Why did you let me move in? You didn’t want me. I figured I pushed you into agreeing in front of Jack because you wanted something from him.”
“Hmmm.”
“Is that true??
?
“On a good day.”
She tapped a finger on his closed lips. “Tom, tell me why you agreed to me moving in.”
“You were persistent and yeah, in front of Jack, and I did need him to agree to write a story, and you know how he hates taking tips from flacks.”
“I’m buying half that answer.” Her stomach made a rude whining sound.
“I’m buying pizza.”
They didn’t eat it in bed, but they did sleep together, big and little spoon. Tom at her back banished the dream this time. She woke refreshed but alone. He’d left a note. He’d gone to the office. It was the practical start of his withdrawal.
He avoided her, but not like before. They talked. They ate breakfast together, crossed over in the kitchen at night. She caught him watching her when he thought he was safe to without being seen, a look of longing on his face, part lust, part regret. There were no kisses, no touching, no invitations to his bed.
He was busy. He had a meeting coming with Rendel’s MD to talk about his promotion to office leader. It was a big deal. He had a hundred-day plan to write up. He told her all that so she wouldn’t have any expectations of him.
She had them anyway.
