“Is something wrong with them? It’s hot. Did the ice cream melt?”
Ice cream?My stomach grumbles. I clamp my hand over it and pray Callum didn’t hear it.
“You don’t deny it.”
“No, I don’t deny it,” he says.
I was expecting an argument. Possible denial. Potentially something else. “Oh.”
“I have to go.” Rustling paper and the soft clicks from a keyboard drift down the phone. “Something is pulling at my attention. The food is yours. No strings attached. If there’s anything you don’t want, pass it out to anyone who might need it. Call if you have questions.” He hangs up.
I look at the phone in my hand, then I turn around to take in all the food I laid out on my kitchen counters.
I spy ice cream, and not just any ice cream.
Chocolate chip cookie dough. The expensive kind I have wheeled my shopping cart past in the grocery store, not daring to stop in case it found its way into my cart when I knew I couldn’t afford it.
It’s morning, and I need to get back to my shower and then tidy up my apartment. But I continue to stand there, my mouth filling with drool.
Damn Callum, and damn my stupid weakness for chocolate.
I pick up the ice cream and dig out a spoon from my drawer. “I’ll just eat the ice cream so it won’t melt, then I’ll give out the rest of the food.”
Thirty minutes later, I’ve demolished the ice cream and gone back for the cookies.
The next day, I’m leaving for work when I pass a man patching up a hole in a wall on the staircase. I don’t recognize him. He’s wearing khaki overalls, black steel-toe boots, and has a bunch of tools sticking out of the tool belt wrapped around his waist.
“Morning,” he says with a nod.
“Morning.”
Curious, but conscious I’m going to be late for work, I keep going, my container with my salad for lunch bumping against my leg. The sounds of banging and drilling come from everywhere. On the first floor, I spy another man in identical overalls plastering another hole in the wall.
What is going on?
He calls out, “Good morning,” when he spots me; I do the same and continue out.
I push open the front door of my apartment and slam to a halt. Archer is sitting on the top step, two paper cups in a coffee holder beside him.
“I haven’t forgiven you,” I tell him when he stands up and turns to face me.
He nods. “I know. I’m not here asking you to. Just here with a coffee if you want it, and an offer to walk you to work.”
Alarm spikes in my gut, and I sweep my gaze up and down the quiet street. Licking my dry lips, I edge back half a step, ready to run depending on Archer’s response to my question. “Why do you need to walk me to work?”
An expression passes across his face too fast to read. He lowers his gaze, releases a sigh, and refocuses on me. “I said something that scared you. I’m trying to make things right.”
“But it’s true, isn’t it? Oscar—Wilkes—is a threat to me; otherwise, you wouldn’t be here offering to walk me to work.”
“Wilkes was looking to strike out at us.Youare not the target. We are.”
I chew my lip as I study him, unsure if I can believe him.
“Has he called or texted you since?” he asks.
I shake my head. I’d been surprised, but relieved, that he hadn’t called or texted since I canceled our date. There’s been no sign of the silver car parked near my apartment, and I’ve stoodwith my nose to my window enough over the last two days to have seen it.
“Then he knows you’re aware he was pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He wanted to use you to hurt Torin and us. Not you.” He picks up the coffee holder and holds it toward me. “I got two coffees at random. One will only go in the trash if you don’t want it.”
