Way to throw that back at me.It hit me just as hard in English, too. “Only dangerous if you want to slap me for doing that.” I tried my handat a smile, doing my best to be charming and hoping nothing I did was creepy. I mean Ihadgone through her dresser.
“Not mad at all. In fact, very grateful. Skipped right over the thank-you I owe you.Gracias.”
“De nada.”
Her smile was contagious, and I gave her the best one I had in me right back. Well, my mom said it was. A little teeth. Let the dimple show. Something like that. Probably looked like a psycho instead.
“So, um, why’d you do it despite being all wall-y on me?” She made a littlehmmmnoise. “Wall-E, ha. One of Chase’s favorite movies. We should’ve watched that last night.”
“I’ve, uh, seen that a few times myself.” I tipped my head toward the hall. “Don’t tell the guys.”
She laughed, and it was as innocent as the expression on her face.
How were we stealing a quiet, easy moment like this after what she’d gone through? I had no clue, but I didn’t want her having to deal with any dark topics again. I wanted to keep her in the light forever.
“I was just trying to be nice. Friendly.Brotherly.” Partially true. Not thebrotherpart.
“You see me as a sister?” Both brows shot up.
“Not even a little bit,” I couldn’t help but admit. “Don’t have one to know how I’d act around a sister, though,” I tacked on.
“Right.” She flicked her tongue across the front of her teeth.
Yeah, don’t do that.
“I’m not supposed to even be talking about this, am I? I promised to not talk aboutthemyesterday, right?”
Them?Underwear. Drawers. Panties. Pretty in motherfucking pink.Not that I’m gonna ever find out.“You can talk about whatever you want.” I waved the white flag, surrendering. How could I not? She was smiling, and when this woman smiled it made my chest feel too small to contain my heart.
“Because friends can talk about anything?” Was that a question or a statement? “But one thing I know for sure: Friends don’t let friends wear granny panties.”
I wasn’t sure what I was doing, but instead of answering her, I dropped down on one knee in front of her. A totally normal thing to do. And to an outsider, it probably looked as though I were about to propose. Hell, thirty minutes ago I’d been holding her husband’s wedding ring. So this absolutely made sense.
I rested my forearm across my leg, and she took me by surprise by reaching for my hand. Our fingers threaded together like it was the most natural thing in the world.
Dios mío.
She exhaled, shaky and soft, the sound brushing my skin.
“Friends don’t see each other naked or talk about their underwear, now that I’m really thinking hard about it.” She kept a tight grip on my hand. “Well, Hollis knows why I have so much lace, but she’s never had the pleasure of seeing me in any of it,” she added in a teasing tone. “That’s my best friend, by the way.”
“Ah, I see.” I was tempted to ask to be the second person to know why she loved lace, but I managed to behave. “I hate to say I’ve seen your brother in his skivvies before, but happy to report our friendship somehow survived. You can just put that in the ‘shit that happens during war’ box, though.”
Her smile reached her eyes, and I could barely breathe at the sight.
“Anyway.”
At my use of the awkward-killer word, as she’d called it yesterday, that beautiful smile of hers stretched even more.
“I think we’ll survive what happened and forget all about it soon enough.” I’d try, at least.
And now, time to pull away and locate that wall I was supposed to have up. But before I had a chance to do that, Trevor walked in with his impeccable timing, like he’d done in the kitchen last night.
“Everything good? Why are you on your knees?”
Good question, Trevor. No damn clue.
Audrey didn’t yank her hand away like I expected, so I had to do it.
