Chapter 5
The guest room at Ziggy's house smelled like lavender and lilies. He would forever associate that scent with the specific awkwardness of him and Ziggy dancing around each other for forty minutes last evening, because neither one of them knew how to be together in the same house for an entire night.
He'd slept in fits. An hour here, forty minutes there, staring at the ceiling in the dark while the house settled around him, and he tried to convince himself that the person on the other side of the wall was fine.
That she was sleeping. That three texts from Jag and one from Troy and one from Reid—all sent within twenty minutes of each other—hadn't settled deep in his gut.
Each message was some version of don't leave her alone.
For some reason he couldn't fathom, the people who loved her had decided he was the only thing standing between her and whatever was coming next.
No pressure there.
He'd gone back to his place for clothes around eight, when Ried and Darcie came over with their kids under the pretense of dessert.
That had been right after Ziggy had stood in her kitchen with a glass of tequila and that look she got—jaw loose, eyes somewhere past the middle distance—when she was done processing and she just needed everything to stop for a minute.
Her sister and her family had been a good distraction.
By the time he’d returned, Darcie and her family were packing up to head home.
Shortly after, Ziggy had shown him to the guest room, which he’d seen a thousand times before, handed him a towel, and said goodnight without quite meeting his eyes.
He'd stood in the hallway and watched her door close.
Five years of careful professional distance had led him to sleeping six feet away from her in a bed with a quilt that had little anchors on it.
It was so Ziggy.
He smelled the coffee before he was fully down the hall.
And underneath the coffee, something warm and sweet and specific—vanilla and cinnamon—that pulled him the rest of the way out of the fog he'd been walking around in since the moment Jag had said, “Callie and I have suspected who you were for about two years.”
He stopped at the opening to the kitchen with his heart stuck in his throat.
Ziggy stood at the counter with her back to him, hair piled into a ponytail, pieces escaping and dangling down her neck in a way she would be irritated about if she could see them.
She was wearing cotton shorts and a shirt that he took a second to place.
One of his dress shirts. The pale blue button-down designer one that he hadn't seen in at least three years and had assumed was lost to the general entropy of his closet.
It hit her mid-thigh. She had it half-tucked on one side, not the other, and the sleeves were rolled up to her elbows, as she moved around the kitchen with the kind of efficiency she brought to everything.
He loved watching her, and he did it often at the station. Sometimes, he would stand at his glass wall, look over the bullpen, and see her in her office. She’d be focused on a task while he’d admired her from a distance. He’d been admiring her like that for five long fucking years.
On the counter was a fresh pan of cinnamon rolls. Next to it—frosting in a bowl. They were his favorite, and she knew it. That had to mean something.
He leaned against the doorframe and said nothing. He just stared while his pulse raced, reminding him that he’d spent years watching the woman he loved with other men while he pretended it didn’t bother him.
She pulled the pan toward her, picked up a spoon, and started spreading frosting across the top of the rolls with the same level of concentration she gave to a live broadcast.
She turned.
The spoon went one direction, and two cinnamon rolls went the other, hitting the side of the cabinets, one of them landing frosting-side down on the floor with a finality that seemed to surprise both of them.
“Jesus, Noah, you scared me.” His name came out about three registers higher than her normal voice. She pressed her free hand flat against her chest. “Why must you do stuff like that?”
“Like what?”
"You were just standing there all quiet and creepy.”
“I was in the doorway. Not sure what’s wrong with that.”
“Right. Because staring at me like a stalker isn’t weird at all.”
He laughed. “I’ve been here for less than a minute. Maybe two.” He pushed off the doorframe and crossed to the counter, where the fallen roll was making its frosting situation worse by the second. “I’ll take care of the mess.”
"I've got it." She reached for the paper towels.
But her beat her too it, and she groaned, rolling her eyes. Quickly, he dealt with the floor and the side of the cabinet, and when he rose, she was standing there, flushed and flustered, with frosting on her thumb and her hair falling out of the ponytail in three new places.
God, she was adorable. He picked her up and set her on the counter.
“What the hell?” She looked at him with an expression that suggested she had significant opinions about what he’d just gone and done.
He left his hands on her waist, and she didn't move away—which was kind of answer to a question he hadn't asked out loud yet.
"You made me cinnamon rolls," he said with a smile. “You know how much I love those.”
“I was being nice,” she said. “And was worried if you, like me, didn’t sleep well.”
“Tossed and turned all night.” He looked at her. At the shirt. The collar sat crooked because she'd buttoned it wrong by one. He reached up and straightened it, and her breath shifted slightly. He left his hand there at the collar for a second longer than he needed to. “You stole my shirt.”
"I have no idea how it got here."
“I’ve got a good idea, and it starts with you taking it from my dressing room.” A smile tugged at his lips. “For the record, I’m beyond flattered.”
“Don’t be.” She held his gaze without flinching, which was the most Ziggy thing she could have done. “I probably just meant to get it dry-cleaned for you and forgot.”
He reached up and tucked a piece of hair back behind her ear and tried to remember all the excuses he’d come up with on why they couldn’t be together. Or why it was a bad idea.
And there was only one that ever made any sense—well, it would’ve if he’d actually disappeared from her life.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"For startling me?” She cocked her head. “You’re forgiven. Just don’t do it again.”
“You’re so good at deflecting.” He traced her jawline with his index finger. “No. Five years ago."
Her chest rose sharply and she tried to look away, but he cupped her chin.
“Don’t turn away,” he said softly. "I'm sorry about how badly I behaved five years ago." He kept his voice even, the way he kept it even on air, except this time it wasn't professional. “I never wanted to hurt you. I thought if I ended us before things got too deep, you’d be protected. But I was wrong. I’ve been wrong about so many things. I know I can’t make up—”
“You don’t have to—”
"Let me finish." He kissed her cheek. "You’ve spent five years standing next to me. Watching me date women I had no business dating, none of whom were you, and you did like it didn’t destroy a little piece of you. I’m so sorry I did that.
You buried a story that could’ve made your career because I handed you something you’d never asked for, and then I pushed you away and asked you to stay anyway, and you did.
I’ve spent every day since then being grateful for that and terrified of it in equal measure. "
She was quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. Not to mention her body went very still.
"I know we've had the version of this conversation where it's about protecting you," he said.
"Where it's about the cameras and the headlines and what happens when Matias Salazar's son becomes the story, and everyone in the frame gets burned.
That's real. I'm not pretending it isn't." He studied her expression. Or lack of it. The way her eyes didn’t widen or narrow. The way her lips didn’t twitch. They didn’t frown or curl upward. But she had tensed, and he couldn’t ignore that.
"But it was never only that. I was scared.
I've been frightened my entire life of being something I don't want to be, of it affecting the one person I don’t ever want to lose.
So, I convinced myself I had to keep you at a distance. "
A couple of tears rolled down her cheeks, and she swiped at them as she glanced away.
He gave her that dignity. Outside, the morning was doing its quiet Langley thing—gray light through the kitchen window, the Sound somewhere behind the rooftops, the kind of Saturday that asked nothing of anyone. Yet, he was asking everything of her.
“That’s quite the speech.” She blew out a puff of air, turned, and held his gaze.
“It wasn’t meant to come off like that.”
"If this is you coming to me because I'm the one who knows and that makes it easier, then you need to stop.
Right now. Before this goes any further.
" She patted his chest. "I will always care about you.
That's never going to change. But I will not be the safe place you land when everything else gets hard. I can't do that again."
"That's not what this is." He covered her hand with his and held it there. "I love you. I’ve loved you for a long time, and I’ve been a coward about it for just as long. But I’m done.
" The moment the words rolled off his tongue, he realized he’d never said them before.
Ever. Nothing like laying it all out there.