Chapter 11 #3
I step back, leaving my arms hanging at my sides. The silence fills up the café, dense and choking. It wraps around my neck, cloying, like thick smoke. I took a step into the unknown, ground that was never meant to be tread on, and now I have to fix this.
“I don’t want to pretend it didn’t happen. I’ll make it right. I’ll hold myself accountable. I’m not an asshole and I’m not looking to take advantage of you. I don’t want to hurt you. I’ve never wanted to hurt anyone.”
Her brow arches. It’s easier to attack this than it is to talk about us. “The SEALs seems like a pretty shit career choice if you want to go that route.”
“It was. Sometimes.”
She studies me, never letting up on the intensity for a second. “You’re a weird guy.”
I’m baffled, but a small smile edges my lips up anyway. “I know.”
She softens at my admission. I don’t know if she was freaking out on the inside, but whatever she had going on seems to relax along with her shoulders.
She blows out a long breath. “There’s nothing wrong with being weird.
I’m weird too. Maybe your weird would match mine.
Maybe we’d like kissing each other, if things were different. But… I can’t do that to Liam.”
I want to ask her if she’d kiss me again, or want something more, if Liam wasn’t my best friend. I don’t ask. It would be stupid to. That’s not our situation. Hypotheticals will only make us crazy.
“I didn’t even think I wanted to do that at all.
I’m confused right now, but the facts aren’t going to change.
” She turns and grabs the box of bulbs from the top of the ladder, then mutters under her breath.
She climbs back up and changes them out, setting the glass back in place after.
“I accept your apology,” she says quietly as she’s working the screw back into place.
“I don’t want to hurt anyone either. Just because you’re an ex-soldier, and you’re a big guy, and you’re quiet, doesn’t mean you don’t have a lot going on inside.
I refuse to let this make things awkward. ”
“Right. You can’t exactly tell me to go stand in a corner. You could, but it might get weird.”
“Is that what you’re planning on doing when I open the café back up? Turning yourself into stone? People will notice. They’ll most definitely see you wherever you are. You’ll have another Mrs. Jenkins on your hands. Did you call her?”
“I did.” Sloane gave me that paper with Mrs. Jenkins’ land line number on it that very same night.
Sloane enjoyed the whole thing far, far too much.
“I called her and explained that I don’t do personal security.
I only set businesses up, and that I’m a friend of Liam’s.
She may or may not have begged me to come install cameras at her house and teach her how to use them.
I said that I’d direct her inquiry to my boss to see if there was anything we could do. She seemed to be okay with that.”
“Did you give her number to your non-existent boss?” she sasses me.
“I gave it to Wizard.”
I can hear her smile, even if I can’t see it. “So not so non-existent then?”
She climbs down the ladder. We’ve made our way to the back of the café, and I realize that there aren’t any other lights. She’s finished them all.
“Well… I guess I could make fudge. It always takes me a whole afternoon, and this way, I’ll be able to concentrate.”
I frown. She steps away from the ladder, holding her box of bulbs, and I fold it up for her. “Is that a euphemism for something else?”
“I’d really just like to think about something else right now.”
“What if you can’t focus and you blame me for wrecking all your fudge? I can’t imagine that it’s cheap.”
“Not going to happen. I’m an excellent fudge maker.”
Our gazes collide and lock again. I can’t look away. Apparently, she can’t either. She stands with the bulbs tucked to her chest. I hold the ladder at an awkward angle. Neither of us moves.
“I don’t want things to be weird between us either.”
“We’ll move past it then,” she says decisively.
“Thanks.” It’s a dumb thing to say. I should find literally anything else.
“Definitely.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
I motion to the ladder. “I’ll put this away then go sit over by the window. I’ll be quiet. You won’t even know that I’m here.”
Her brow furrows. “You seriously don’t have to sit in a corner. Read a book while you watch your phone.”
I haven’t checked the screen for a while, considering that I’m down in the café.
I move off with the ladder, tucking it in the small storage room next to Sloane’s tiny office. I can already hear her in the prep area, taking down bowls and grabbing ingredients.
How long will it take Wizard to figure this out?
I was anxious before, for Liam’s sake, to get this dealt with, but now I’m hoping that I can go back to the club, and back to my life the way it was before, for a whole different reason.
That kiss was one of those moments. A before and after defining moment where life is different after.
I’d say where it’s for better or worse after, but I already know this is worse. Far, far worse.