Chapter 33 #2
His mouth twitched, but his eyes stayed too warm. “You started it.”
“I start nothing. I am a victim of your face and your emotional ambushes.”
“You bought me a love marble.”
“It was not a love marble.”
“It was a Never with romantic intent.”
“That sounds illegal.”
“There’s a detective out there pondering that very theory.”
I made a sound that wanted to be a laugh but turned into a careful wince, and Cade immediately leaned closer, all amusement vanishing for half a second as his hand tightened around mine.
“You okay?”
“Yes,” I breathed. “Just broken and offended.”
“Your brand is holding.”
“Thank goodness.”
His smile came back, small and private, and it made my chest ache because I could feel the thing we weren’t saying sitting between us. Big. Bright. Terrifying. Not ready to be spoken, but not hiding either.
He had said I loved him anyway.
I had told him I was getting there with the marble.
And he still hadn’t said it back, which was fine.
Totally fine.
Absolutely normal.
I was a mature adult woman with broken ribs and at least one pudding cup in my possession.
I could handle emotional ambiguity. I could be cool and mysterious and not at all the kind of person who spiraled into catastrophic conclusions because a man did not immediately declare lifelong devotion in a hospital room after I accidentally confessed via missing glass sphere.
Except Cade was watching me.
Again.
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Pip.”
“What?”
“You’re doing math in your head.”
“I’m calculating damages.”
“For what?”
“My dignity.”
“You had dignity?”
I glared at him. “Hospital bed, Cross Check. Be nice.”
“You hate nice.”
“I hate whatever this is more.”
“What is this?”
“You being calm.”
“I’m calm?”
“You are Cade-calm, which is different from regular calm. Regular calm is soothing. Cade-calm makes me think you already know where the bodies are buried because you put them there alphabetically.”
“Alphabetically feels inefficient. I’d sort by weight distribution and soil displacement, then bury them based on probability of discovery.”
“That is somehow worse.”
“It’s actually safer.”
“See? Terrifying.”
He kisses my knuckles again before looking at me with eyes as blue as my lost Never. “You’re spiraling because I didn’t say anything back.”
I stopped breathing.
Subtlety had never been one of his strengths, apparently.
My eyes shot to his. “I did not say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Okay, first of all, rude. Second, invasive. Third, I’m on pain medication, so none of my facial expressions are legally binding.”
“Pip.”
“No.” I pointed one finger at him, immediately regretted it when my ribs protested, and lowered it with as much grace as possible.
“Don’t Pip me. You don’t get to sit there with your stupid steady voice and your stupid lost-Never eyes and call me out like I’m not currently one bad cough away from seeing the afterlife. ”
His expression softened, but the amusement stayed beneath it. “You think I’m not falling for you too.”
My heart stumbled.
There I was, beaten bloody and still dancing on the edge of the one danger I had never learned how to survive.
The place where both of us stood close enough to see the other side but not quite ready to step over.
I swallowed, suddenly too aware of his hand in mine, of the warmth of him beside the bed, of the bruise around my throat and the ache in my ribs and the fact that even after a bad night, Cade still made me feel like something in me was alive enough to be scared.
“I think,” I said carefully, “you act like you aren’t.”
His gaze held mine long enough for the truth to show through.
“I’m not acting.”
My breath caught.
He leaned closer, his voice dropping lower, rougher, that Cade certainty wrapping around every word. “I know exactly where I am with you.”
I stared at him, pulse fluttering hard beneath bruised skin.
“That is not a normal sentence,” I whispered.
“No.”
“You can’t just say things like that.”
“I can.”
“Cade.”
“I’m not confused, Pip.”
My eyes burned again, but this time I didn’t look away. I couldn’t. He had me pinned there with nothing but his hand around mine and the kind of focus that made the entire hospital room disappear around the edges.
“You don’t have to say anything you’re not ready to say,” he said. “Neither do I. But don’t sit there hurting yourself over whether I feel what you are feeling.”
My throat worked painfully.
“Are you?”
His thumb brushed over my knuckles.
“Yeah.”
The word was simple.
Rough.
Certain.
So Cade it nearly broke me.
A tear slipped down my face, and this time I let it. “You’re doing it again.”
“I know.”
“You’re making it very hard to maintain my emotional brand.”
“Your brand is chaos and making the English language your bitch.”
“And lip gloss.”
His mouth curves. “And lip gloss.”
I sniffed, which hurt my face, and gave him the best glare my swollen eye could manage. “I hate you.”
His smile finally broke through, slow and quiet and so painfully beautiful I almost got mad all over again.
“No,” he said, lifting my hand to his mouth and kissing my knuckles like he had all the time in the world to keep proving it. “You don’t.”
And for once, I didn’t argue.
Because I didn’t.
Not even a little.