Chapter 23 #3
“Headaches are minimal. Sleeping okay. No screens. Bored to death. That’s Quinn’s grandma’s chicken paprikash.”
“Good,” she says. “And so is the paprikash. Is Quinn a chef?”
She wraps her pretty pink lips around a spoon I’ve used many times and may use exclusively henceforth.
“Kind of. She’s a chemistry professor at Barrow University.”
Rue’s brows lift. “Chemistry? Interesting.”
“It is?” It’s useful for the Gomez side of me, but I’m curious what’s got Rue so intrigued.
She wrinkles her nose and laughs it off. “Impressive, I mean. Especially given…”
When she doesn’t finish, I help her out. “Given her clothes, her hair, her height, her gender, and her sunshiny personality?”
“Of course not,” she says. “I had all kinds of professors in college. I was just thinking about how bad I was at organic chem.”
“Same.”
We smile at each other again, then her eyes drop as she swirls her spoon through her stew. “So she’s the scientist you told me about? Your girlfriend?”
I’m exquisitely aware that Rue asked the question casually, but her shoulders are tense as she waits for my answer. Those tight muscles are the most captivating thing I’ve encountered in ages.
“She’s my oldest friend. Only a friend, always,” I say firmly. And fuck if those tense shoulders don’t relax at my words.
“A friend,” she repeats. “That’s good.”
“Why is that good?”
Please say it’s because you don’t want me to have a girlfriend. Please say it’s because you want to be my girlfriend.
“I dunno.” She drags her spoon around some more as she considers her words. “I guess if some night I just… don’t come home, I’m glad you’ve got someone to check on you. Bring you food.” Her eyes flick to me. “Make sure you get properly teased about being so tall.”
I’m slow to process what she’s saying. “What do you mean if you don’t come home?”
“Oh.” She blinks and offers me a weak smile. “The downside of my job. You start thinking about car crashes or freak accidents.” She shifts on the stool, lifting one shoulder and letting it fall. “Sometimes people just don’t come home.”
“Rue, I…”
I swallow back the responses that roar to the surface.
I’d notice immediately. I already have contingencies in place. The geofence. My cameras and Pell’s. I’d hunt down whatever motherfucker tried to take you from me and make him die ugly.
She brushes her pinkie against mine on the granite island, sending my spiraling thoughts in a new direction.
She had to stretch to do that. She touched me on purpose. She’s still offering comfort when I’m upright and mostly myself again.
“If anything happens to me,” she says quietly, “I’m just glad to know you won’t be alone.”
“I wouldn’t be alone.”
“Right, because you’ve got Qui—”
“I wouldn’t be alone because I’d find you.”
Her smile falters under the heat of my words. “What?”
“I would find you, Rue.” I turn to face her, burning with the need to wrap her in my arms to show her that she’s here, she’s mine, and I’d do anything to keep her safe.
Neither of us breathes as her eyes roam across my face. Then she exhales shakily and stands.
Goddammit. She’s leaving, and she’s doing it because I showed too much of myself just now. It’s exactly what I’ve been bracing for since the day I met her, and my gaze falls to the floor in anticipation of the blow.
Except I don’t hear her footsteps exit the kitchen and move down the hallway.
I don’t hear the rattle and slam of the front door.
Instead, I hear water in the sink and the clink of spoons on ceramic.
When I drag my eyes up, she’s rinsing our dishes and carefully slotting them next to Quinn’s in the dishwasher.
I’ve seen this before on my cameras. When she’s feeling anxious about something—work, upcoming travel, tomorrow’s dentist appointment—she moves through her half of our house keeping her hands busy with dishes and laundry and list-making until her brain can settle.
On those nights, she works in silence as she puts herself to rights.
Tonight, she talks. I don’t even have to ask her to do it.
She just… tells me about her day. Who she bumped into getting coffee.
What she had for lunch. Where she found a shell casing on her latest investigation.
And she does it in those low, unguarded tones I’ve heard through the walls when she’s on the phone, dictating case notes, or muttering to herself. They’re even lovelier in person.
When the kitchen’s back the way she found it, I hold my breath, but she still doesn’t leave.
She leans against the sink and sweeps her gaze around the room, taking in the framed botanical print I hung the week she moved in and the Breville Oracle espresso machine on the counter that would make her the best coffee of her life if she ever stays the night and is still here when I wake up.
Her eyes fall on the red box I set on the island.
“Should I make us a cup?”
I forget about my bruised forehead, about the headache threatening to return, about my Halloween murder date with Morticia. I smile at her and say, “I’d love that.”
She smiles back. “Then I guess I’m staying.”