She rolled her eyes. “You’ve made it obvious.”
“I have?”
She sighed heavily. “Remember when you showed me the yearbook with your parents’ pictures?”
He nodded.
Great. Back to contributin’ to the convo.
“I grabbed your thigh when we were flipping through the pages, and you jumped up like you were snake bit and said you were going to go get us something to drink. And remember when we took Freedom for a ride and stopped at the beach?”
You guessed it. He nodded.
“Remember how, when we were walking back to the bike, I faked a trip and you caught me? Our mouths were this close together?” She held two fingers an inch apart. “But instead of kissing me, you set me back on my feet and brushed the sand off my jeans like I was a toddler. And then there was the first night we all went to Red Delilah’s.”
His voice sounded raw when he managed, “What happened there?”
“Not there.” She shook her head like he was ten kinds of idiot. Honestly? He was beginning to think she was right about that. “When we came back. I was teasing you about getting the brunette’s phone number, giving you a hard time about having a type. Basically, leaving the door wide open for you to tell me if I was your type. But did you walk through it? No. You just said you didn’t have a type and—” She stopped and tugged the halves of her robe together. “Hey, Boss. What’s up?”
“Uhhh.” Frank Knight stood in the open doorway and glanced awkwardly between them. “Martin’s on the phone for you. The business phone,” he stressed. “Said if you’re ghosting him, that’s okay. He understands that’s how things work in the modern world. But he asks that you let him know. Or that you tell me to let him know. Because he’s been trying to get a hold of you ever since you missed the show last night. And he’s worried.”
“Oh, my god!” Sabrina jumped up. “I can’t believe I forgot Martin!” She put a hand to her head and threw the stuffed lobster back on the vacated chair. Hew felt like maybe that was a metaphor for something he didn’t like in the least. “We were supposed to meet at the Lyric Opera House. What must he think of me?”
Hew dumbly watched her slip out the door, his eyes clinging to her the way dew clings to flowers on a spring morning.
After her footsteps sounded on the stairs, Boss turned to him and lifted an ash-gray eyebrow. “Y’okay?”
Hew nodded. It seemed to be the only thing he was capable of. Then he shook his head and admitted, “I actually have no idea.”
20
The White House
Lura sat perched on the edge of her desk chair, fingers hovering uselessly over her keyboard, eyes gritty from lack of sleep.
She’d stumbled into her D.C. apartment at 1:42 A.M., hair a mess, deodorant long-since worn off, and head pounding from the flight.
Air travel always left her with a headache. Something about the rapid change in pressure.
She’d kicked off her shoes and gone straight to bed, hoping to catch a couple hours of sleep before her alarm screamed its wakeup call and she was forced to shower and head for the office.
Alas…sleep had eluded her. Her mind had been far too full.
She would’ve liked to say her thoughts had been dominated by the Black Knights. By the electric hum of their shop, by the steady discipline belied by their cocky swaggers, by the sheer thrill of rubbing elbows with the president’s very own covert fast response force.
She would’ve liked to say her brain had been preoccupied with thoughts of the rescue operation underway when she took off from Chicago. With Sabrina Greenlee, and whether or not she’d made it home safely. With Kerberos and their unlikely insertion into the whole mix.
And, sure, all of that had crossed her mind. But what had kept her staring at the ceiling all night as headlights painted undulating shadows across the drywall was…
Graham Coleburn.
Heaven help her, she hadn’t been ready to run into him.
Not just because he was a blast from the past in the middle of a present-day fiasco. Although that was enough to throw anyone for a loop. But because she’d been unprepared to feel…
What?
What exactly was it that Graham made her feel?
