Chapter 21
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ON MY LIST of semi-rational phobias, thunderstorms took first place. Followed closely by worms and millipedes, because nothing should have such statistical outliers when it came to number of feet.
So when thunder rocked the house, I’d hopped out of the shower as fast as humanly possible.
If I was going to die, it wouldn’t be from getting zapped in my birthday suit.
I’d had no plans to leave my room the rest of the night and risk interacting more with Colt, so I’d changed into my pajamas, drawn the blinds, and left the belly to dry in peace after its post-spa deep-clean.
And that was how I’d remained, llama-clad and vegging out in bed while watching The Princess Bride to take my mind off the storm, when Colt knocked on the bedroom door.
His knock was punctuated by another clap of thunder and flash of lightning through the blind’s cracks, and I nearly jumped out of my skin as I rushed to the door.
The listening device connected to the bedside lamp’s power probably wouldn’t pick up on something as faint as my spouse knocking on the door to the room we supposedly shared.
Not in this storm. But I didn’t want to risk it, just in case.
I whipped the door open, and a wave of tantalizing aromas crashed into me. It was sweet and spicy and savory all at once and unmistakably familiar. Of all the meals Colt brought for lunch at the office, this one was my favorite. My mouth watered at the thought of tasting it for myself.
When I locked eyes with Colt as he stood in the doorway, though, I shoved my hunger aside in lieu of feeling and expressing nothing. A blank slate.
His frown and furrowed brow hadn’t changed since I’d seen him in the backyard an hour ago.
If anything, they’d become more pronounced as his eyes flicked over me.
His hair was uncharacteristically haphazard, like he’d brushed it out of his eyes while it was still wet and called it good. No gel. No styling.
It was so unlike him I almost let my mask of indifference slip.
Almost .
He raised the plate in his hand toward me. Chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans that smelled so heavenly I considered checking for a halo hidden among them, with a set of silverware rolled into a napkin on the side. “You didn’t eat dinner.”
“I’m not hungry.”
At my blatant lie, my stomach growled. I ignored it.
Colt’s frown deepened, and his eyes sparked dangerously when they dipped to my silicone-less torso. “You need to eat, Lex.”
“I will. Tomorrow.”
He huffed in frustration. “You need to eat tonight, too. You can’t keep skipping meals. It’s not good for you.”
I stared blankly at him, my mind puzzling through his behavior despite my resolve to think about him as little as possible. Why did he care so much? One missed dinner wouldn’t kill me, no matter what my stomach had to say on the matter.
Come to think of it, he’d noticed exactly how many times I’d skipped lunch at work before this assignment, too. But why? Was he worried I’d keel over and fail to do my job?
Rather than asking him any of this, though, my attention wandered to the plate again. My eyebrows pulled together before I could school my neutral expression back into place. “You made chicken. On a Tuesday.”
As I’d learned the past few weeks, the lunches Colt brought to work were usually the leftovers from dinner the night before. Last night was chicken Caesar salad, yet he’d made chicken tonight. He’d broken his routine. Again.
He looked away, a faint pink spreading across his cheeks. “Yes. I did.”
“Why?”
The corner of his mouth relaxed. It wasn’t a smile or even a smirk, but at least his frown wasn’t as pronounced. “You don’t have a monopoly on spontaneity, you know.”
“In this marriage I do,” I mumbled, too baffled to hold my tongue.
Was today some sort of fluke? Delaying making dinner and deviating from his original plans for it?
I could barely tell a whisk from a spoon most of the time, but even I knew this meal couldn’t have been the fastest option out of all the alternatives.
Getting back on his schedule had nothing to do with it.
His lips curled into a faint smile, and he offered the plate to me again. “Now will you please eat?”
Thunder exploded outside, shaking the walls. I flinched involuntarily.
Colt, naturally, zeroed in on the reflex immediately. His frown returned with a vengeance, and he took half a step toward me. Almost as if he were… concerned .
Before another crack of thunder could expose my phobia even more, I snatched the plate from Colt and stepped back, my hand already on the door to close it. “Actually, you’re right. I’m starving. Thanks for dinner.”
I’d only budged the door a few inches when Colt put his hand out to stop it. The sudden movement, brazen and out of character as it was, stopped me in my tracks, too. He was full of surprises today.
Rather than explaining what had possessed him tonight, he studied me closely.
Intently. Eerily close to how he’d looked at me outside when I’d decided it was a grand idea to try to kiss him.
But it was different, too. More all-seeing rather than appreciative, like he was breaking down whatever barriers concealed my soul, one by one.
Picking the locks, cracking the safes, and setting them aside.
My skin crawled from his intensity. A chill danced over my spine, equally delicious and unsettling. But I didn’t let any of it show.
Until thunder crashed overhead, less than a minute since the last one. Lightning flashed with enough violence to illuminate the hallway behind Colt and bleed past the blinds. The lights flickered ominously.
I flinched again and cast a wary glance at the window. What were the odds that the howling wind would turn into a tornado? Did Detroit get tornados? I didn’t want to find out.
“Lex?” Colt asked, inching farther into the room and eying me like I might bolt at any second. When I didn’t, his shoulders relaxed a touch. “You don’t like thunder.”
“Storms,” I finished, white-knuckling the plate and casting a backward glance in the direction of the lamp with the listening device. “Thunderstorms, yeah. As you know , I’m… not a fan.”
That was putting it mildly, considering how I used to hide in Dekker’s room with her whenever there was a thunderstorm. All the way until she graduated high school, at which point I hid alone in her empty room in the basement.
None of which I would tell Colt, in threat of death.
A smile ghosted across his lips, and I narrowed my eyes. Sure, it was odd that a full-grown adult FBI agent was scared of something so commonplace as thunderstorms, but he didn’t have to look so amused about it.
“It’s not funny,” I hissed.
He sobered immediately. “I know it’s not. I was thinking of something else.”
That seemed as likely as me turning into a potato, but, hey, he’d broken his routine twice today, so maybe anything was possible after all.
“Thinking about what?” I accused.
Another monstrous boom blasted through the sky, and I shut my eyes. My heart accelerated like it always did during these storms. Dread settled across my shoulders like a familiar wet blanket, heavy and unwelcome.
I scurried to the bed, carefully balancing my plate as I pulled my legs up under me.
It was remarkably easier to sit cross-legged without the belly strapped to me.
I unrolled my silverware and cast Colt a wary glance.
He hadn’t moved, choosing instead to continue studying me like I was some otherworldly specimen.
“I’m going to inhale this like a feral cat who hasn’t eaten in days, and you’re going to be okay with that.” I arched an eyebrow at him, conveying the unspoken or leave now if you have a problem with it .
The corner of his mouth inched upward with the threat of a smile. “I don’t care how you eat it, as long as you’re eating.”
I waggled my fork at him, a piece of spiced and saucy chicken already skewered on the tines. “Famous last words right there.”
And right, I was. After one bite, nothing could’ve ripped the delectable piece of divinity out of my hands.
The chicken was tender and perfectly seasoned, the mashed potatoes even better than my own—a fact which I would never admit to him, thank you very much—and the beans surprisingly delicious.
For being green and vegetable-y and not a potato, that is.
At some point during my feasting, Colt moved to sit beside me on the bed, watching with disgusted fascination. To his credit, though, he hadn’t run screaming yet.
I’d just swallowed the last bite of potatoes when, with another earth-shaking clap of thunder, the lights flickered twice before going out entirely.
The alarm clock on the bedside table went dark, too.
The house was eerily still. A mausoleum in a tempest. Faint gray light leaked through the blinds, punctuated by bright bursts of lightning, and only the vague outlines of furniture were visible.
The food churned in my stomach, and I stifled a groan. The only thing worse than enduring a thunderstorm was doing so while the power was out.
“That was… impressive ,” Colt mused, sounding completely unbothered by this turn of events. “Have you considered entering a hotdog eating contest?”
His question ended in a grunt as the back of my hand connected with his gut.
“You’re hilarious” I deadpanned, gingerly feeling my way through the room to set my empty plate and silverware on the dresser, the closest piece of furniture from my position at the foot of the bed.