He clenched his fists and turned away. None of this probably looked good to her. How’d he ever think he was going to convince her to stay with him in Manhattan when he couldn’t even say that he liked it?
“I could sell this place and the one in Irvington,” he said. “I could live somewhere closer to Peekskill.”
“Okay,” she said, still looking confused. “What’s in Peekskill?”
It was the stop nearest Bear Mountain. But she hadn’t been interested enough to look up the location this morning.
Teagan closed his eyes and pressed his palm against his face.
“At least the sex is pretty decent now, right?” he muttered. That probably couldn’t last. He was going to need to start taking the Lexapro again if he couldn’t make it through a nonconfrontational meeting with two other people without having a panic attack.
For a brief moment, he was uselessly, incandescently angry at his body. That it wouldn’t do what he wanted. That it forced these kinds of choices on him.
“What?” Darcy said, obviously wondering whether she ought to be offended. “When wasn’t the sex good? I’ve been nothing but spectacular.”
“Never mind,” Teagan said, biting into the side of his cheek. He needed to keep it together much better than this. “You are.”
Maybe he could still find Darcy that park ranger job she’dalways wanted. It was a slim hope, but he hadn’t been lying when he said he was good at applying to jobs. He hated asking for favors, but he’d do it even if he had to chase his leftover antidepressants with a Xanax kicker to do it.
“Anyway,” he said, moving to change the subject, “you’re right. I was supposed to see my sister more. Where the hell is she? It doesn’t look like she’s been here.”
Darcy blinked a few times at the segue. “Um. I thought she was staying here? Her stuff is here.”
“Sloane’s never made a bed in her life,” Teagan said, gesturing at the navy duvet. “Do you think you could track her down for me this afternoon? I’ll just be in the office.” Making calls to everyone he’d ever met who was even tenuously connected to environmental or animal welfare charities.
“Yeah, okay,” Darcy said, still eyeing him distrustfully. “You sure you want to go back to the office today?”
“I feel better now,” he said, which happened to be true.
Darcy snorted. “You had a soda, a walk, and an orgasm—of course you feel better right now.”
He gave her a tight smile and pretended to open an agenda. “Then I’ll pencil in the same before tonight’s banquet to support the art therapy program at the children’s hospital.”
He knew it wasn’t a nice thing to say when it left his mouth, but he was still smarting from her suggestion that she’d be gone as soon as this job was over for her. He saw her blink in momentary hurt before anger replaced the emotion.
Darcy’s eyes narrowed.
“Fuck you,” she said crisply. “You can pencil a short walk straight into the Hudson River.”
Teagan opened his mouth to apologize, but Darcy grabbed him around the waist and tackled him to the bed. She pinnedhim on his stomach, twisted his arms behind his back, and rubbed her nose into the side of his neck as he squirmed and struggled to reclaim his dignity.
“Never done it in an office before, so you might get lucky,” she said, and she bit his earlobe hard enough to leave teeth marks. “Shame about your crappy office carpet though. That’s going to be hell on your back.”
twenty-four
Sloane didn’t answer her phone when Darcy called her, and her text message back to Teagan was uninformative as to her whereabouts. Further investigation divulged that she was not showing up at whatever bullshit make-work volunteer gig Teagan had arranged for her at the Guggenheim. Darcy sensed that Sloane’s well-being was climbing up Teagan’s lengthy but fluid list of concerns.
The next time Darcy heard Teagan leaving Sloane a voice message, she plucked the phone from his hand.
“She’s on your data plan, right?” she asked, taking a wild guess.
“She is,” he acknowledged.
Darcy carried the phone into the other room and called the phone company to cancel Sloane’s service.Thatyielded a flurry of angry text messages to Darcy once Sloane—who had been couch surfing in SoHo—found a cafe with Wi-Fi, Sloane correctly assuming that her brother would not have cut her off. Darcy was out of line, interfering, welcome to fuck off, et cetera. Darcy didn’t particularly care, and she dictated as much right back to Sloane.
Darcy:Teagan is worried about you
Sloane:So? He worries about everything
