I’d give her time.
“I want to go back to the office,” she said suddenly, determination in her voice.
Not that kind of time . . .
“We should take the day,” I argued. “Talk.”
Her head moved in small, stubborn shakes as she shifted only far enough away from me to continue painting, while still remaining in my hold. “Not today.” Again, there wasthat determination in the words, but it didn’t fully mask her desperation.
“Peach—”
“There’s a lot happening at work,” she said over me, “and Tessa needs to be found.” A thoughtful hum rose in her throat. “Your phone kept going off while you were sleeping.”
I didn’t look back at where I’d tossed my phone onto the nightstand before falling asleep, I just watched as she painted before saying, “We need to talk, Mallory. This isn’t something we can just ignore.”
The hand holding the paintbrush twitched, but she just carefully moved it away from the wall as she drew in a pacifying breath. “I can’t—Gray, I can’t get my thoughts to settle for even a second. I need—just give me a day. I’ll figure out how I’m going to take care of this then.”
I wasn’t sure my body had ever locked up so forcefully so quickly.
It was painful.
Or maybe that was the shattering of my soul at her implication.
Denials and pleas gathered and choked me as I stood there, feeling like every scene she’d painted in the time I’d been asleep, feeling exactly like what she’d just described: Like I couldn’t get my thoughts to settle.
Don’t.
I love you.
You’re just scared.
I love you.
I know this isn’t what you want, but there are other options.
I love you.
You don’t know what you’d be doing . . . to all of us.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Eventually, I managed to force out the only consistent thought. “I love you,” scraped past the gravel in my throat as I made myself release her and turn away.
Passing a hand over my face, I drew in slow, methodical breaths before focusing on just taking one step. Then another. Until I made it to the nightstand, when all I wanted was to wrap Mallory up in my arms and beg her to understand what she was saying.
But I knew her.
Even with this new side of Mallory that kept surprising me at every turn, I knew doing that when she was in shock and denial would cause those shields she loved so much to snap into place. And as much as I loved pushing her toward the inevitable resulting fight, I wasn’t sure I had the mental strength for one.
Besides, I needed her to be able to talk to me.
Resisting the urge to even glance back at her, I grabbed my phone off the bedside table and ignored the shaking of my hand as I tapped on the screen.
One of my eyebrows ticked up when I saw the amount of messages and calls I’d missed, but I just swiped into my phone and went to the oldest messages first. I skimmed through updates from my cousins and Emberly, letting me know Tessa hadn’t returned to her apartment or come in for work today either—since Emberly had been holding out hope that she’d just uncharacteristically bailed on everyone yesterday—before they’d asked if we’d found anything.
After typing outnothing new, I went to Thatch’s messages, and nearly crushed my phone when I read the messages there.
Thatch
