Down, boy. You don’t want to take advantage of her, and Kevin’s just down the hall.
"So," April said, hands wrapped around her mug. "What's the verdict? Am I safe from my ex-husband for the foreseeable future?"
Shane appreciated that she could just ask it straight. "Flint's got him on full monitoring. Vince is still in Vegas. He checked in with his parole officer yesterday, like clockwork. Working that dishwasher job, going to his apartment, not making waves."
"That's good." April's shoulders relaxed a fraction. "I mean, I figured. But you know how it is. I feel like since we’re watching him, he’s suddenly going to find me. It’s irrational.”
Shane grinned. “It’s not like you to be irrational, unless you’re talking irrational numbers.”
“Ha! You still remember some math I taught you, huh?”
“Despite my best efforts to forget.”
“Ah.” Some of the glow went out of her eyes. It took Shane a moment to speculate why.
Does she think I tried to forgether?“April?—”
If he'd found me, he wouldn't be subtle about it."
"You knew him pretty well."
"I thought I did." She took a sip of coffee, eyes distant. "Turns out I didn't know him at all. Just the version he wanted me to see."
Shane's jaw tightened. "If he ever does show up here?—"
"I know. You'll handle it." April looked at him then, really looked at him. "You've gotten good at that. Handling things."
"It's my job."
She shifted and looked deep into her coffee mug. "Is that all this is? A job?"
The question hung between them, weighed down by their history.
"No," Shane said quietly. "You know it's not."
April's fingers tightened around her mug. "Shane?—"
"Remember that night after I failed the calc test?" he said suddenly, shifting gears before the conversation went somewhere they weren't ready for. "You made me redo every problem while you sat there eating those terrible gas station nachos.Withranch."
Her laugh surprised them both. "Those werenotterrible. They were a delicacy."
"The cheese was radioactive-orange and came from a machine that probably hadn't been cleaned since the Reagan administration."
"You're just mad because I wouldn't share."
"I wasn't going to eat those things. I had standards." Shane grinned.
"Hey, when you're living on a tight budget, you learn to appreciate the finer things. Like questionable gas station cheese sauce." April kicked his thigh lightly with her socked foot.
Shane caught her foot before she could pull it back. He pressed his thumb gently against her arch. April's breath hitched.
"I missed this," he said. "Just... talking to you. Being near you."
"Me too," she whispered.
They sat like that for a moment, Shane massaging her arch, the house quiet around them except for the distant sound of Kevin reading out loud to Pete and the crickets outside singing their springtime song.
"How's the espresso machine holding up?" Shane asked, because he needed to say something that wasn'tI want to kiss youorI never stopped thinking about youor any of the other desperately true things crowding his throat.
