“Talk about what?” she asked warily. If he wanted to talk about how he’d managed to miss a few details when explaining the plan, she would be very happy to have all sorts of conversation with him. Instead, he stood and gave her an intense look.
“Us,” he said. Her stomach dropped.
Allie was tempted to askwhat do you mean?or to pass off the question as some joke or some piece of silliness from an insecure boy, but Shank deserved better. Taking a deep breath, she tried to sort through her feelings, but she had very little success. “I don’t know that I can,” she admitted.
He gave a huff of laughter. “At least you’re being honest.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
He pressed his lips together for a second before moving toward her, his body stiff with tension. “That if you had said ‘I’m fine’ or ‘we’re fine’ one more time, I was going to start planning your murder.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?”
Shank threw up his hands and whirled away from her. “I don’t need you to feel better,” he almost shouted. Then he turned back around. “I need you to be honest. Whatever is broken...can it be repaired, or am I chasing after a woman who wants me to disappear?”
Allie could feel the heat rising to her face. “If I wanted you to disappear, I’d say so.”
“Are you saying so?”
“Does it sound like I am?”
“Yes.”
Allie slowly put the remote down, her skin flushing as she looked Shank in the eyes.
He started again, speaking more softly. “Yes, it feels like you’re telling me to disappear. I talk to you, and you spend the conversation sliding backward out of reach. I’m starting to wonder if part of the chemistry between us is more my imagination than reality.” Shank dropped back down onto the stool, and Allie could feel the misery rolling off his body. He angled his shoulders toward the floor and bowed his neck. She felt like shit.
“I don’t mean—” Allie stopped. She wasn’t sure how to end that.
“Yeah, I get it. I sometimes attach to people too much.” Shank shrugged and gave a self-deprecating grin. “When you’re as handsome as I am, you can’t help but assume everyone’s going to love you.”
Allie burst up off the couch. “Don’t. Don’t do that,” she snapped.
Shank nodded without answering her.
“Damn it, I do love you, and that’s why this is killing me.”
Shank jerked his head up, and Allie closed her mouth. Of course, shutting up now didn’t help because the words had already escaped, and Allie didn’t know what to do. She wouldn’t take them back. That would be dishonest. But she wasn’t ready to have her declaration of love hanging out there, dangling in the air like a booby trap ready to spring.
“You know I love you,” Shank said slowly. “So why is this killing you?”
His willingness to be logical annoyed the shit out of her. Allie threw herself down on the couch, her back to him. While she expected him to come around, to offer some gentle touch or soft word, only silence filled the air.
She turned on a random movie, only to jump out of her skin when the speakers were too loud. Unfortunately, she had the bad luck to land on a war film, and she was watching a bunch of virtual-created batface soldiers jump around on their four legs, leaping higher than they ever did in training films of real battle. The sight made her stomach churn. She turned it off.
“I never got to actually face them in a fight,” she said.
“Me either,” Shank agreed. “My family sometimes takes out a bat ship and steals the cargo, but I never faced one in war.”
Allie turned around. “Your family is dumb enough to attack bat ships?”
Shank gave her a disgusted look. “My family is anything but stupid. We’ve been preying on bat ships for three generations. We don’t kill them, they don’t kill us, and if we can steal from each other, it’s all considered fair game.”
“But we’re at war.”
“No, the government’s at war. The bats keep track of which ship is government and which is...well...one of us.” Shank moved slowly toward her. “Do you really want to talk about politics and war?”
Allie looked down at the soft fabric of the couch. “No. I just don’t know how to talk about anything else.”
