Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Alicia
The past couple of minutes had left me flabbergasted, and I wouldn’t have thought that it could get more surreal, but then where there’s a will apparently Remi will find a way.
With all the enthusiasm that I did not feel, I looked directly at him. “That’s gonna be a hard ‘no.’ ”
“There isn’t any way to keep anyone out at this point. Let’s take a second and look at the situation,” he reasoned.
“Second taken, I’m good. I’ll be staying here.”
Gesturing to the gaping hole in the front of my apartment, he said, “I can’t fix this tonight.”
“I have cardboard and duct tape; it’ll be practically indestructible.” I shooed him away with the wave of my hand. “You can go now. Thank you for taking care of the bird, I’m good from here.”
He remained planted where he stood. “I fucked your door.”
“Well, don’t.”
“Come on, you know what I’m saying.”
“I do, and there’s no way that I’m sleeping at your place.
” I gave him a shove that did nothing to move him.
He was . . . very solid. Touching him was like trying to take only one spoonful of my favorite ice cream, it just made me want more—all the more reason for me to do a better job avoiding him and definitely not sleeping anywhere near him.
It wasn’t like I would backslide into that toxic mess, but I was also only human.
“If it was that easy to break through when it wasn’t broken, it’d be nothing now,” he pointed out.
“I bet your shoulder is going to hurt like hell tomorrow.”
“I can’t stress how much I didn’t feel anything.”
“Aren’t you just a big strong man,” I deadpanned.
“That’s not what I’m saying.”
“I’m not safe if the door is perfect. I’ll take my chances.”
“Alicia, please, if someone gets in here—”
“Who is this person? I haven’t noticed a dark crime circuit in the mean streets of Grand Ridge.”
“If something happened to you because of me I’d never forgive myself.”
“It wouldn’t be because of you. It would be because of whoever this terrible person is lurking in the shadows and lying in wait.”
He scraped a palm across his mouth. Behind his hand, I knew that his jaw was clenched by the way his eyes pierced me, these tell-tail signs of barely restrained irritation. My guard snapped back into place, ready to rise above whatever shitty thing he was about to do or say.
Instead, he pulled in a deep breath and visibly forced himself to relax. “Just take mercy on me. You saw what I did when it was just a bird.”
“Bit of an overreaction, BTW.”
“Probably, but you sounded like you needed me—help.” He corrected quickly, but his first sentence still hung there pushing us both off-center. “Please, Leese, put on your pj’s and I’ll change my sheets. You can have my bed. I won’t even talk to you if you want that.”
Bad idea.
I couldn’t really put my finger on why, but it was. Probably. It could also be just fine.
Yes, we had treated each other terribly.
But that had been years ago, I’d grown and gone to therapy.
He couldn’t hurt me like he used to, and I was a little curious to see who he’d become while I was away.
Who was this Remi who broke down doors, captured and released birds, shoveled his neighbor’s walk, and took care of sick animals?
Who was this man who despite all the ways I damaged him years ago would still rather have me spend the night in his bed alone than risk me getting hurt?
Furgie placed her front paws on my calf, and I bent to scratch her head happy for the excuse to avoid looking at him.
“So many more birds are gonna get in,” he said.
Shithead.
I couldn’t fight back a little smile. “I can’t believe I’m going to do this.”
“You will,” his voice carried more relief than was entirely reasonable.
“For just tonight.”
“Great, thank you.”
Cutting my gaze up to him, I added, “I will decide if we’re speaking or not when I get there.”
The smile he gave me was a bit too knowing for my taste, but I found myself wanting to smile back.
“I might not,” I insisted.
“Where’s that cardboard and duct tape, I’ll get this as good as it can get.”
Furgie remained on her leash when we got to Remi’s a few minutes later; he wanted to see how she’d behave around his cat before giving her free rein of the space.
He held the door for us to enter, Furgie’s nose investigating the smells on the air, and me in my joggers and a sweatshirt.
The kitchen and the window I climbed through was to my right, and unlike my first time being in his space, I didn’t avoid taking in the details of his home.
It had the same dated interior and appliances as my half, with some improvements.
Four pots hung over the sink from a simple rack, and the blinds were nicer than the cheapest option the store offered that were at my place.
I recognized the quilt that his grandma made and gave him for his high school graduation, folded and hanging off the arm of the sofa.
I wanted to run my fingers over it, to find the little stitch imperfections that I used to fidget with when it was draped across my lap.
It was the coziest thing I’d ever “owned”—I’d never found another blanket to replace it despite how much I tried.
I was surprised how many photos hung in frames on the walls, most of them contained people that I recognized, his family and such.
There was one of him and Owen—time had been good to that man—on the beach.
There was a group photo of the staff at the vet clinic sitting on what I assumed was a bar patio.
A string of warm-colored globe lights were strung overhead and lit their smiling faces.
Hazel, who I remembered from Remi’s time in vet school, sat next to the receptionist, Nora.
There was a second man sitting next to Remi who I couldn’t quite place.
It didn’t matter anyway, because I was too busy taking in the light-hearted grin on Remi’s face.
It was more than happiness alight in his expression.
He was confident and completely at ease.
I didn’t ruin him.
With more than a little relief, I sighed. He was more than okay.
“Lots of smells, huh, Furg?” He crouched to scratch her face in both of his large hands.
“I like your pictures,” I said.
“Yeah, thanks. I put a bunch up when I was in Pheonix—my therapist thought it’d make me feel more connected. When I moved I put them all back up and added some more over the years.”
“You have a therapist?”
It wasn’t an easy image to reconcile, the man I knew talking to a stranger, possibly crying in front of a them. He never would have when we were married, he hadn’t been willing when I’d asked. But then I’d waited too long to ask. The papers that sealed our fate, our division, clutched in my hands.
“Yes, but we stopped regular sessions a few months ago.”
I scoffed. “Great timing with me moving in next door and all of that.”
“Tell me about it.” He laughed. “No, I’m good. I’m surprised how good, actually.”
The comment was off handed; it wasn’t meant to inflict any pain.
I was sure of it. But it did. I almost said a shitty comment about being happy he was so unaffected by me but stopped myself just in time.
My reaction to cut him for an unintentional pain unsettled me.
Especially, when there was truth to what he’d said, seeing him caused me so many feelings, most of them were confusing, but a great many of them were . . . good.
“I’m surprised too.” Needing to look away, I spotted a photo of a young toddler on the fridge. “Is that Maisey?”
Reaching for the image, he plucked it from underneath the magnet. “Yeah. I took it when I visited for Christmas this year.”
He’d clearly caught her mid-giggling fit, the smile on her face was so big, I couldn’t help but smile back. She had big gray eyes, and blond curls ending around her jaw, and a onesie on that read, I’m Santa’s Favorite.
“She’s a cutie,” I said, not just because it was polite—she was actually cute.
The affection in his eyes and his little lopsided grin as he considered his niece almost didn’t hurt at all. I was almost entirely happy for him, which felt like progress.
“She is. She’s a little charmer.” Putting the photo back, he added, “She reminds me of you, actually.”
“Me?”
“She has that same effortless charm that you have, people just lean toward her when she’s in a room.”
My cheeks were beginning to warm, and it wasn’t from the embers dying in the woodburning stove. “She’s a baby, everyone is charmed by babies.”
“Not everyone. And yeah, I’m her uncle, and I think she’s the best baby to ever be a baby, but it’s more than that. She’s magnetic. She’s got this genuine soul.”
With my gaze dropping to the floor, I tucked my hair behind my ears. “Does her maturity level remind you of me too?”
He snorted. “No. She would never scream at a bird.”
“It was a good-sized bird.”
“Repeating that doesn’t make it true.”
“So now you’re the bird expert?”
“I kinda have a degree in it.”
“You have a degree in birds?”
“My textbooks mentioned them.” He moved into the living room as Furgie and I trailed behind. “Want me to get the fire going again or are you going off to bed?”
“Is it your bedtime?”
“No, I’ll be up for a couple of hours.”
I noticed what he was offering for what it was, it was barely late evening, definitely before I would normally go to bed. But he was giving me the option to retreat, and gain distance.
I shook my head. “I’m not tired.”
“You hungry?”
“Not really, but I could snack.”
He moved toward the kitchen, and despite how he squeezed past me trying not to enter my space, his arm brushed mine. Even though it wasn’t even skin on skin, my stomach flipped, and my heart skipped a beat or two. Nothing I couldn’t ignore.
But then his back was turned to me, and the full breadth of his shoulders were fully displayed.
I pinched my lips between my teeth to keep from groaning.
Forget the quilt, he was the coziest thing in this place.
Stop it. You do not lust after this man.
But I did.
I really did.