“You’re so annoying.”
“You passed out in my arms, Aden. Pretty sure that earns me thirty full minutes of sass-free silence.”
She opened her mouth, probably to tell me off again, but Nancy Reagan jumped up beside her, spinning twice before settling in with a huff that suggested she’d been the one carrying someone up five flights of stairs.
I brought Tally a glass of water and set it on the coffee table, trying not to look too long. Trying not to get caught in the way her expression had changed. She looked tired, and not the nap-fix kind, but the sort that lingers behind your eyes. There was a softness in her face now that hadn’t been there earlier, and a hollow sort of sadness I recognized too well.
I wanted to reach out to touch her. Whatever was simmering between us—hot and steaming, about to boil over—felt inevitable. I leaned in and brushed the damp curls from her forehead, resting mine against hers for a second. Told myself I was checking for a fever, but the truth was, I wanted to be closer to her. And I didn’t want to move from that spot.
“What in the actual hell is going on here?”
Both our heads turned toward the lanai, and the two of us moved apart at the same time, slow and guilty.
Doyle stood in the doorway with a wineglass hanging loose from his fingers, his mouth parted.
Tally, visibly defeated, groaned and threw an arm over her eyes. “God, I wish I were still unconscious.”
Chapter Nineteen
TALLY
Charliehadgonebackdownstairs, mumbling about cleaning up the cardboard carnage in the studio. The door clicked behind him, and the apartment fell into that awkward hush that comes after chaos. Paint still clung to my skin, mixed with his scent—warm, steady, a little too easy to miss already.
Doyle hovered near the couch like a worried parent, Jordan paced the living room, and Dig sat cross-legged next to me, his eyes boring a hole into the side of my head.
“Stop staring at me,” I whisper-hissed.
He pinched my arm.
“Ouch!”
He snickered. “Well don’t scare me like that, ever again!”
“I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“You literally collapsed,” he said, louder now, not bothering to whisper. “In a hot guy’s arms. While I was upstairs eating charcuterie. Do you know how tragic that is? I should’ve been there to document it. You know how I love a dramatic rescue.”
“You’re insane.”
“Andyouhave yourself a little boyfriend,” he shot back.
Before I could answer, Doyle’s voice cut through the room.
“What if you went by yourself and I stayed here?” he murmured to Jordan, though not quietly enough.
Jordan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “She’s going to be fine. The doctor said it was orthostatic hypotension—low blood pressure. It happens in the second trimester. She needs fluids and rest. Maybe we—”
"—Find a babysitter,” Doyle cut in, throwing a look over his shoulder like I wasn’t three feet away on his pristine white couch. “Because that’s what we’re talking about, right?”
I groaned, grabbing the nearest throw pillow and hurling it in their general direction. It landed with a pathetic flop.
“I can hear you, you know. And I don’t need a babysitter.”
Dig perked up. “Speaking of babysitters,” he said, eyes gleaming, “can we circle back to the real issue here? The very large, very broody man who apparently swept you off your feet, carried you to safety, and saved your life?”
He set down his glass with the flourish of a Broadway actor in the third act. “You know I require more details.”
I sighed, pressing the heel of my hand into my forehead. “It wasn’t that dramatic.”
