“Something like that.”
He nudges my coffee mug closer. “Then you’re screwed, brother. Because you only talk like this when it’s not a fling.” I know he’s referring to the PR relationship I had with his current wife, Ivy, a couple of years back. We were friends and nothing more, but it took a while to convince my brother of that.
“I know.”
“Does she?”
I glance out the window where the morning fog is still dragging its feet over the bay. “She knows enough. The rest… I think she’s still deciding.”
“Then don’t make her decide alone.”
Rowan stands, pats my shoulder, and leaves me with the kind of advice that sounds easy until you try living it.
By midmorning, I’m pacing outsideA Page in Timelike a guy auditioning for the role of “emotionally conflicted golden retriever.”
Bailey’s in the window, rearranging a stack of hardcover releases. She looks content in that quiet, dangerous way that makes you want to stay forever just to watch her exist.
I knock on the glass. She glances up, smiles, and gestures for me to come in.
“Good morning,” she says.
“Define ‘good’.”
“You look like you wrestled a decision and lost.”
“I did.”
“Want to talk about it?”
“Not really.”
She quirks a brow. “Then why are you here?”
“Because I don’t know how to not be.”
Her expression softens—barely—but it’s enough to pull oxygen back into my lungs.
“Help me unpack these?” she asks, sliding a box cutter across the counter.
It’s a small act of mercy, but I take it.
We fall into rhythm. She opens boxes, and I stack. She teases me for sorting romance alphabetically byhotness of cover models, and I tell her I’m a man of visual priorities. She tries to look unimpressed but bites back a smile that betrays her.
Somewhere between unpacking and shelving, I find myself watching her. The way she hums under her breath. The way she presses her lips together when concentrating. The way she steadies herself with one hand on the shelf, fingers tapping in rhythm like her body has its own metronome.
It’s domestic and dangerous all at once.
“Stop staring,” she murmurs without looking up.
“Didn’t realize I was.”
“You were.”
“Can you blame me?”
She turns, mock glare in place, but her cheeks have that faint pink that tells me I’m winning the kind of game that doesn’t have rules.
“You’re trouble,” she says.
