Conversation drifted to Tyler’s day from there. He grinned and bounced in his seat as he told me about the offer from Red, the owner of Grounds and Gears. “She was really great. And Ihave to say, I never would’ve considered her offer before you came back.”
My cheeks heated. “You’re the one doing this, making stuff happen for yourself. You’re just using my laptop. You had this in you all along.” His grin was too tempting. I leaned in and kissed him. Then, my lips didn’t want to leave his alone. Some time passed before he sat back a bit, and I dropped a kiss on his nose.
“One thing that worries me about you working at Grounds and Gears—” I gathered both of his hands in mine. “—is that it’s pretty popular.”
He frowned. “And you think that means I shouldn’t work there?”
The hurt in his tone churned the acid in my stomach back to life. “You should! I’m worried that eventually you’ll run into my dad if you’re working with the public.”
His eyes widened as if he hadn’t considered the possibility. “Don’t worry. I’ll?—”
“No.” The sensation that crawled through me was so horrific I considered going out and jumping in the freezing lake to wash it off, hypothermia be damned. “I don’t want us to have to deal with him.”
“You still love him?” He squeezed his eyes shut. “I guess I understand that,” he said flatly.
“No! I’m screwing this all up. I loveyou. He already hurt you. He’s a scary prick. I want you to just avoid him, and I think—I think as long as he doesn’t stop at the house, we should just leave it alone. He’s a cop. Perhaps we should just.... I hate this, but perhaps we should just let it go.”
“You’re scared.” At least he sounded surprised. My pride wasn’t too wounded, though, because you’re damned right I was scared of a man who slept with two guns beside his bed—a Glock and a Remington shotgun.
“Yeah, I am. He’s always been a monster. He isn’t a good guy. He’s probably the only person in the whole world who scares the shit out of me, especially after—” I brushed my fingers over the scarred half of his face.
“Okay,” he said, chin firming up. “Wewill avoid him.”
“Exactly.” I smiled at him. “And from now on, we’re a real team. We tell each other everything.”
He dragged me close with a hand on the back of my neck and rested his forehead against mine. For a few seconds, we closed our eyes and breathed each other’s air. A faint whiff of coffee, rich and earthy, clung to him, and I loved it.
“You’re really asking me to let the guy who did this go?”
When I fluttered my eyes open, he was touching his right eye.
Guilt ignited in me again, squeezing my heart. “It’s not that I don’t think he deserves it or that I don’t want someone to do it,” I whispered. “But my luck has never been good with him.”
He pressed his lips to mine and drove off some of my anxiety. “Let’s go eat something. I’m starving.”
“Yeah?”
“And then, take me home. I want to try out the rest of the toys from the advent calendar.”
Laughing, I put the car in Reverse.
I couldn’t stop smiling during the drive. Tyler hadn’t saidtake me to your house. No, he’d said,take me home. My house was home to him and that was perfect.
19
TYLER
Lying on the bed with Eddie, my cheek planted firmly on his chest as it rose and fell gently, was the relaxing evening I needed. It was hard to believe I was finally feeling happiness. I never wanted it to end. I had him, and now I didn’t want to give him up. He wasn’t going anywhere, and I could finally believe it. Eddie was still here with me, and he’d opened his heart and spilled his deep, dark secret.
Not a killer.That was about right.
The idea of all those murders not being murders at all, rather gruesome accidents, had me chuckling into his pec. I should be mad, but I wasn’t. My pleasure in him being a murderer hadn’t been about himkillingfor me, but rather that he cared enough to try to make my life better. He’d shown how he felt about me.
I pinched his side, and he squirmed.
“Still thinking about it?” Eddie groaned, embarrassment leaking into his voice. “So stupid.”
“It was great.”
