She swept past him again in the hallway, her hands laden with papers.
He really couldn’t sweep any more glass into the decent size pile he had accumulated. He pushed it into a heavy-duty garbage bag, tied the ends together, and hefted it outside to the dumpster.
He needed to find something to board up the door. Yes, that was it. Be useful.
As he turned back toward the studio, a glint of metal sparked in the periphery of his vision.There. On the sidewalkbetween the parking lot and the studio. He leaned over and picked up a tarnished silver lighter, the kind with the flip top. It was embossed with a growling cat of some kind. Wildcat.It reminded him of lazy weekend mornings practicing with Anita in an empty classroom at Villanova.
Weird. Maybe it was a good luck charm or something. He could use a little luck.
****
Damn it.Thump. Stupid stupid.Thump. I never should haveThump.
Anita banged the hammer harder against the nails. One more nail. One more board.
Fuck.
Patrick emerged from the shadows, flipping the top on a lighter open and closed. The sound drilled into her brain like a thousand angry hornets.
“Can you stop that?” she snapped. God, was that her voice? That harpy-ish crunch?
He slipped the lighter into his pocket, his movements slow, like he was worried she was going to explode.
Well, she had every goddamn fucking right to explode. She pounded another nail into the boards across the door.
“Can I hold the boards at least?” His voice was soft.
That soft voice against her neck, in her hair—
No. Another nail, another board.
“No.” She pounded in another nail. She could not look at him, could not see that expression of concern, of pity on his face. Tears pricked in her eyes. Her father had been right.
She grunted and struck the hammer against the board, missing the nail entirely. A shock traveled from her fingers to her arms, and she almost lost her grip on the hammer.
She needed to slow down, needed to focus.
“We need to talk about this,” Patrick said softly behind her.
She wiped at the tears with the back of her hands and focused on covering up the shattered glass in the door. “There’s nothing to say.” It was destroyed, completely destroyed.
“Anita, look, I—I don’t think you should be alone tonight—”
She whirled on him, brandishing the hammer in one hand. “Are you fucking insane?”
He held up his hands in the universal gesture of surrender. “Jeez, Anita, just to sleep! Not—not anything—just to sleep. I’ll stay on the couch, okay? I just don’t think it’s safe for you to be alone.”
Anita choked on a sob. “Don’t you get it? I’m not safewithyou.” His eyes widened, and he seemed frozen in place. “Someonesaw us. Someone saw us in here, and that’s why they broke my door. It’s because of what we did.” Even if it had been one of the best moments of her life, she would shove it down deep and throw away the key. “We can’t, Patrick. Not anymore.” She turned back to the door and hammered the last nail into place halfheartedly. “I can’t risk anything else.”
She knew he had not left, could feel the heat of his gaze on her back. If only things were different. If only she could lean into the warmth of his arms.
“Anita, no.” His voice was hoarse, rough. Broken. “You can’t—look, you don’t know how long I’ve lov—how long I’ve waited for this. How long I’ve waited for you. Please, please don’t push me away.”
He put a hand on her arm then, and electricity jolted through her. The tears ran freely now, she wasn’t strong enough to contain them.
She pushed him aside and grabbed her purse and keys from behind the check-in desk. “I’m going to my parents’ house.”
Patrick blocked her exit, arms out by his sides. “Anita—”
