“So you and him…?”Alicia wriggled her eyebrows.“I thought you said there was no you-and-him.But obviously, you left some crucial details out.”
“There’s never been a me-and-him before.I told you that.”
“Honey, the way that man looks at you.”Alicia clucked her tongue.“You’re leaving out important details.”
“No way.”But she was certain her blushing cheeks gave her away.
“I know what I see.”
Grace pushed out of the chair but didn’t have anywhere to escape.She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the lemonade again, topping off the glass that she’d barely sipped from.“Want some?”
“You’re telling me you two never ever?Never?”
Never ever didn’t mean kissing.“No.Never.”
“Well, what’s stopping you?”
That was an excellent question.
“See?Right there.That look.”Alicia hummed, nodding.“The way you want to protest but wouldn’t be stupid enough to say no.Nothing’s stopping you.”
“Alicia.”
“You’re not blind, so maybe just dense.”She shrugged, took the lemonade carafe out of Grace’s hand, and poured herself a glass.“I thought he noticed you at the library, but then I figured that was just the pepper spray.”
“It probably was.”
“But that growly, possessive way he watched you walk into the kitchen?Nowthat timeI didn’t have to think.I know.I saw, double-checked, and saw again.”
“Can you really see that?”Grace could still feel his kiss on her lips.“No, whatever you saw was aggravation.”But was it?Kissing him could have burned the house down.“That’s not—”
Callum walked into the kitchen with his phone outstretched.“It’s Hayden.”
Hayden.
Talk about whiplash.From thinking about Callum likethatto thinking about Hayden, who was one reason she shouldn’t think about kissing Callum.
God, wait a minute.She was a grown woman.Her brother should have absolutely nothing to do with her thoughts about Callum and wouldn’t keep her from kissing him again.
But that wasn’t the reason she wasn’t ready to talk to Hayden.She didn’t know how much Callum had shared and didn’t want to admit to bouncing from one alias-rented house to another.Now that Callum had forced her to slow down and talk about the decisions she had made, she saw how strange her life-after-fake-death looked.
“Grace?”Callum held out the phone.
She took it but didn’t press the phone to her ear.She needed a game plan, or at the very least, to sound confident in her decisions.Just because Dominic had found her didn’t mean she’d made the wrong choices.
“Callum and I will walk the dogs while you talk to your brother.”
A different type of panic sparked.If Alicia so much as breathed their never-ever conversation to Callum, Grace would fall over dead.She flashed her friend a pleading glance.
“Don’t worry.”Alicia lifted her fingers to her lips and mimicked the twist of a key in a lock and reached for the dogs’ leashes.“I might be right, but I will not rub it in anyone’s face.”
Callum tried to decipher Alicia’s meaning, but he didn’t ask for clarification and followed her out the back door that led out of the kitchen to the backyard patio that wrapped around the side of the house.
Alone with the phone call that weighed heavily on her conscience, Grace pressed the device to her ear.“Hey, Hayden.”
She adored her brother.He was a hero.Her role model.She’d worshipped him as a kid and followed Hayden and Callum everywhere she could.Whatever he was about to say would come from a place of love.
Their connection crackled, coating his voice in static.“Gracie, what the fuck?”
