Chapter 26
LAINE
My car makes a sound like a dying animal and lurches to the right.
"No. No, no, no—"
I grip the steering wheel as the Honda pulls hard, that awful thump-thump-thump telling me exactly what happened before I even get to the shoulder. The tire's flat. Completely, totally flat.
I slam my palm against the wheel. "Are you kidding me?"
Forty-eight hours. Reid, Blake and I finally — finally — have forty-eight hours where none of us is working, sleeping, or recovering from a double shift.
We've been dating for two months. Two months of stolen moments, shared dinners, and a terrifying amount of domestic stability. It's good. It's so incredibly, wonderfully good.
I am also losing my absolute mind.
I haven't slept with either of them. Not because I don't want to—my body is currently operating on a permanent, low-level vibration of need—but because taking that final step with one of them while the other isn't around feels…
wrong. Unbalanced. Like crossing a boundary we haven't figured out how to negotiate yet.
It feels like a line we all need to cross together, or at least be on the exact same page about.
Which is why this weekend is crucial. I've been counting down for a week. I shaved my legs this morning. I packed the expensive, matching underwear. I have wine in the backseat and a playlist queued up and now I'm sitting on the side of the road in the rain with a flat tire.
I drop my forehead against the steering wheel and groan. I was so excited to own a car for the first time in my life. But it kind of sucks.
Okay. Think. I know how to change a tire. Dad taught me when I was sixteen, somewhere in Thailand, on the side of a road with a truck full of building supplies. I've done it before. I can do it again.
I pop the trunk and get out. The cold hits immediately — sweater and jeans, not exactly roadside mechanic attire. The spare is buried under everything. I haul it all out, find the tire iron, and then stare at the undercarriage trying to remember where the jack point is.
Twenty minutes later, my fingers are numb, I've scraped my knuckles on something metal, and the diagrams in the manual look nothing like what I'm seeing under the frame.
Blake would know. Blake would have this done in five minutes without breaking a sweat.
I hesitate, thumb hovering over his contact. I don't want to be the kind of woman who calls a man every time something goes wrong. Blake told me at the flea market he'd do anything for me, and I believe him, which is exactly why I don't want to abuse it.
But my fingers are going numb. A semi blows past and rocks my entire car. And I really, really want to get there before midnight.
I hit call.
Blake picks up on the second ring. "Laine?"
"Hi. So. Don't panic."
"What happened?" His voice sharpens immediately. "Where are you?"
"I'm fine. Totally fine. I just — my tire blew out. I'm pulled over on the shoulder of Beltline, just past the River Road exit. There's a big green sign that says—"
"I know where you are. Stay in the car."
"Blake, I'm okay, I just need help with the jack—"
"Laine." His tone doesn't leave room for argument. "Stay. In. The car. Lock the doors and don't open them for anyone. I'll be there in ten."
He hangs up.
I stare at my phone. My heart's beating faster than it should be, and it's not just from the cold.
I climb back into the Honda, crank the heat, and shove my hands in front of the vents. The warmth stings my scraped knuckles. I'm annoyed at myself for needing rescue, annoyed at my car for betraying me, annoyed at the universe for sabotaging my weekend.
But also — and I'm not proud of this — there's a tiny, traitorous part of me that liked the way Blake's voice went sharp. The immediate command. The I'll be there.
Headlights appear in my rearview mirror. Blake's truck pulls up behind me, hazards flashing. He's out of the cab before I can even unbuckle my seatbelt, crossing to my window in three long strides.
"You okay?" He's scanning me like he's checking for injuries. Head to hands to torso. Professional. Thorough. "You hurt?"
"I'm fine. Just cold and frustrated."
"Let me see your hands."
"Blake—"
"Laine."
I hold up my hands. He takes them, turns them over, frowns at the scrape on my knuckles. His thumbs are rough and warm against my frozen fingers.
"You tried to change it yourself."
"I know how to change a tire."
"In this weather with no gloves?"
"I have gloves. They're just... in my apartment."
He exhales through his nose. Releases my hands. "Stay here."
"I can help—"
"You can stay in the warm car and not get fucking hypothermia." He leans closer, and his voice drops. "If I see you get out of this vehicle, I will put you over my knee. Understand?"
My brain short-circuits.
He says it like a joke. Mostly. But his eyes are completely serious, and something hot unfurls low in my stomach that has nothing to do with the car heater.
I've been with enough men to know the difference between posturing and presence. Blake isn't performing. He means it. And the part of me that should bristle at being told what to do is instead doing something very inconvenient.
"I—"
"Good." He straightens up, heads to my trunk.
I watch through the rearview mirror as he hauls out my spare, finds the jack immediately — it was under the floor mat, apparently, which I definitely checked — and gets to work.
His movements are efficient, practiced. He doesn't fumble with the lug nuts or struggle with the jack placement. He just handles it.
He's so attractive when he's competent. The focus. The economy of movement. Those forearms.
I squirm in my seat. I'm supposed to be frustrated.
I am frustrated. But I'm also watching Blake crouch beside my car in the cold, changing my tire without complaint, and I can't look away.
Can't make myself stop cataloguing the way his shoulders move under his jacket, the sure grip of his hands on the wrench.
Who asked him to be like this? Who said that was okay?
Ten minutes later, he's loading my ruined tire into his truck bed. He comes back to my window, hair dripping from the rain.
"Done. I'll follow you home."
Home. I turn the word over in my head. Let it sit.
"You don't have to follow me—"
"Not asking."
I open my mouth to argue, but he's already walking back to his truck.
Okay then.
I pull back onto the highway, Blake's headlights steady in my mirror the whole way.
I haul my overnight bag up the stairs, still feeling the ghost of Blake's hands on mine from the roadside. My knuckles sting where I scraped them. Worth it, probably, for the way he looked at me.
The guest room is the same as always. Clean sheets, lamp on the nightstand, that quilt Blake's grandmother made folded at the foot of the bed. I toss my bag down and start unpacking. Pajamas. Change of clothes. The wine I brought.
"Hey!" Reid's voice carries up from somewhere downstairs. "I cleared a drawer in the bathroom for you!"
I head to the bathroom, curious.
The drawer he cleared isn't just empty. There's stuff in it. My stuff. My brand of moisturizer. The expensive shampoo I splurge on. Hair ties — the specific kind that don't pull. A new toothbrush still in the package. Even the specific kind of tampons I use.
I stand there staring at a bathroom drawer. My fingers close around the bottle of moisturizer, and I just hold it. Turn it over once. Set it back down.
Who does this? Who pays this much attention?
My whole life, I've lived out of bags. Two suitcases for eighteen years of missionary kid childhood. A duffel bag for nursing contracts. A carry-on for every country I've worked in. Everything temporary. Everything designed to be packed up and moved.
And now I have a whole set of my favorite products in my boyfriends' house.
I press my palms flat against the bathroom counter and lean into them. The tile is cool under my hands. Solid. Not going anywhere.
So this is what it feels like. Someone making room.
I feel Reid behind me before he speaks.
"Is it okay?" He sounds nervous. Shy, almost. "I remembered what you use from before. I wanted you to have some of it here. So you don't always have to pack everything."
I open my mouth and nothing comes out. "Reid."
"If it's weird, I can—"
I turn around. He's leaning against the doorframe, shoulders hunched like he's bracing for rejection. This giant, capable man who runs toward emergencies for a living, looking at me like I might break his heart over a drawer of toiletries.
"It's not weird." My voice comes out rougher than I intended. "It's perfect."
His whole face changes. That big, real Reid smile — the one that takes up too much space on his face, the one he doesn't seem to know he's doing. "Yeah?"
"Yeah."
I grab his shirt and pull him into the bathroom. He comes willingly — more than willingly, his hands are already finding my waist — and I push the door shut behind him, flip the lock. The click echoes off the tile.
"Laine—"
I kiss him. Hard. Not a thank-you kiss. Not a sweet little peck I could play off as gratitude for remembering my face wash. He makes a surprised sound against my mouth, and then his hands tighten on my hips and he's kissing me back, walking me backward until my thighs hit the edge of the sink.
"Missed you," I mumble against his lips.
"Saw you three days ago."
"Still missed you."
His hands slide under my sweater, warm against my ribs, and I arch into him.
He groans — low in his throat, the sound vibrating through both of us.
I want him. I've wanted him all week. Every time I closed my eyes, I thought about this.
His hands on me. His mouth. The way he looks at me like I'm everything, which should terrify me, and maybe it does, but right now the terrifying thing and the thing I want most are the same thing and I'm so tired of pretending they're not.
"We should—" He pulls back slightly, breath ragged. "Dinner's almost—"
"Don't care about dinner."