“Yup, that’s me.”
“She liked the engines,” I supply. “And the dancing.”
“What about you?”
My throat closes as his voice dips again. “I liked the dancing too.”
Galen snorts. “Christmas gets on my nerves, so they weren’t my best moves. I’m taking those home in a bit to bust out in front of the mirror.”
“On your own?”
The numbskull question spills out of me before I know what’s happening.
Galen’s grin slides from Esme to me, and his gaze flickers a touch. “Yeah, on my own. Why? You free?” I start to shake my head, but he grips my wrist with perfect pressure, cutting me off. “Course you’re not. It’s okay. Our time will come.”
I’m beginning to nurture a real fear it won’t, and it’s only a matter of time before I lose Galen to a bloke who’s availableandknows his dick from his elbow. But the rare moments I have him this close, it’s hard to feel anything but safe and content, and it makes the goodbye I see building on his lips even sharper.
“Sweet dreams, little lady.” Galen musses Esme’s hair with his free hand. “Night, Sab.”
He releases my wrist and backs up. And then he’s gone, swallowed by the night, and my vision’s too blurred to track him.
Breath caught, I tighten my hold on Esme, turn back the way we came before Galen called my name, and?—
I freeze.
Tam’s behind me, leaning against a wall, his face cast in shadow, but his eyes—myeyes—lit with enough bewildered curiosity I know he’s seen way too much to let me go.
He makes me wait, though. Hestares, and it’s so unlike my brother to keep his mouth shut that I give in to the ludicrous panic surging up my spine.
“What?”
Tam cocks a brow. “Don’t fuckingwhatme.” He inclines his head in the direction Galen disappeared. “Who was that?”
“Galen. He’s a firefighter.”
“You don’t say. And who’s Galen the Firefighter toyou?”
“A friend.”
“A friend who cuddles your kid and looks at you like he wants to fucking devour you?”
It’s so close to Galen’s dirty whisper I almost laugh. But that unearthed panic, it’s spiked and mean, leaving me scrambling for words. “I?—”
My brother has a grumpy back, but he’s as fast on his feet as he is in his mind.
He’s in front of me before I can blink. “You don’t have to explain. Désolé, frangin. Je suis juste paumé.”
He’s right to be lost. How can he be anything else when I’m this messy over someone and I haven’t told him a fucking thing? Tam’s everything to me andI knowI could’ve shared this with him, but I didn’t—I haven’t—and now we’re here.
“You like him?”
“Hmm?”
“Do youlike him?” Tam nudges me. “Because it sure looked like he likes you.”
“We’re not twelve.”
“What are you then?”
