She sniffed, suddenly so very homesick. She really needed for Smith to not see her like this. She hated being weepy, and he’d already seen her lose it when Cody had dumped her. Erin needed to get back to her apartment, but she didn’t want to leave him. God, she hated feeling so emotional!
“Erin?” Smith stroked her hair.
She turned into his hands and cried. “I need to go home.”Back to my apartment,she meant. But saying “home” confused her, because she’d started to think of belonging with Smith. He was home, safety, love. Yet it hadn’t been that long ago that Kansas and the apartment next door had been home. Was she moving too fast? Making a mistake? Then why did she imagine Smith and feel so in love?
What a confusing mess. She cried some more, thought she heard the door close, but her head hurt too much to care. She’d nap away her headache and deal with life—and Smith—much later.
Chapter Nineteen
Smith couldn’t bring himself to talk to her. Two days after her pathetic crying jag, he felt like shit. He barked at the team, moved like an automaton, and dithered over whether to let her come to him or to demand they talk this out.
He hated talking. Talking lead to misunderstandings and bad news and dismay. But having her spend her time at her place or at Tilly’shurt.
He sat on his lunch break, rubbing his heart, his appetite gone. The temperature had chilled, freezing rains sweeping through, so instead of eating outside, he, Heidi, Cash, and Hector had driven to a nearby strip mall to grab some chow.
Inside the fast food place, he stared at the wrapped sub with no desire to eat. But to get everyone off his back, he pretended.
The great pretender, Smith Ramsey.
He didn’t understand what was wrong with him. Smith was no pussy. He could take a breakup and move on with his life. But the idea Erin was done with him didn’t register in his brain. Being without her, for even a few days, didn’t work.
He didn’t like her distance, and he liked even less that she didn’t want to talk to him.
I want to go home,she’d said. What? Home like Kansas or home like next door? So far it had been next door. His knee bobbed, his frustration and anxiety building.
What the hell had those women said to get her so riled up? One night out with the girls, what should have been a fun excursion where she finally made new friends, had turned into a nightmare for him.
He’d tried asking Jordan what the fuck had happened, but she seemed as much in the dark as he was. He would have asked Reid and Evan to ask their ladies, but he didn’t like everyone knowing his business. Or that he’d fucked up and had no idea how to right it.
The simple answer would be to ask Erin what was wrong. Except her possible answer, ending their relationship, terrified him.
He grabbed his sandwich when he saw Heidi outside, waving at him to come back. His phone rang, and he answered automatically, in case it might be Erin.
“You’d better be coming to help me,” Margaret Ramsey insisted, every inch the ice queen. “Because you can bet your ass I’ll burn this letter and any shot you ever have to get to know your father if you don’t. I have to out of here by next week, and I’m done waiting on you. Be here Saturday, one o’clock. Or don’t bother coming.” She texted him the address.
“Fuck.” He swore some more, ignoring the glares from several mothers with smaller children and stormed from the store, now feeling like a cretin for burning tiny ears.
“Yo, let’s go,” Cash nodded to his SUV. He’d been giving Smith a ride the past few days. Thankfully, Cash hadn’t asked any questions about Erin or why Smith might be needing help to get to work.
Smith entered the vehicle and slammed the door behind him, then put his head back and tried to tune out everything. Inside he was dying, and he was so stupid for thinking he might have a future with a woman who meant everything to him.
“So, you and Erin,” Cash said slowly. “Not working out?”
“Fuck off.” He seethed.
“What happened?”
“Who the hell knows?”
They drove for a while, until Smith realized it wasn’t back to the job. “Where are we going?”
Cash didn’t answer, and Smith didn’t feel like playing twenty questions, so he remained silent. They arrived at a large warehouse. A huge guy with a flat top stood at the back door in jeans and an olive drab sweatshirt. He didn’t look military or on the up and up despite the military haircut.
Cash left his vehicle, and Smith joined him because he had nothing better to do.
He watched Cash and the big dude bro-hug. Money exchanged hands. “Thanks, Ritter. I owe you.”
“Nah. This’ll do. And I was never here, right?”
