Then I grabbed the sugar, mumbled something about work, and fled like a goddamn coward.
Or this afternoon. I’d been heading to my office when I saw her coming down the hallway from the opposite direction. We’d both slowed, our eyes meeting and holding for a beat too long.
The hallway isn’t narrow. There’s plenty of room for two people to pass comfortably.
But somehow we’d both moved to the same side. Then corrected to the other side. Then stopped completely, standing there like idiots, and the air between us had become so thick with tension I could barely breathe.
“Sorry,” she’d said, moving right.
“No, I—” I’d moved right too, blocking her again.
We both stopped and laughed, a small, strained sound that did nothing to ease the awkwardness.
Then I pressed myself against the wall to let her pass and she had to slide by me in that space, so close I could smell her shampoo
For those few seconds, I’d forgotten how to breathe. I had forgotten every reason I should stay away from her and I wanted nothing more than to reach out and pull her against me and?—
She hurried past, her cheeks flushed, and disappeared around the corner before I could do something stupid.
Every encounter is like that. Awkward as fuck and loaded with everything we’re not saying.
She looks at me, and I have to look away before I do something I can’t take back. Like pulling her into my arms and kissing her the way I’ve been wanting to since that night in her room when we almost?—
I slam that thought down hard.Nothelpful.
I force my attention back to the files, to anything that isn’t the memory of her lips so close to mine, her hand in my hair, the way she’d looked at me like she wanted?—
My phone buzzes. A text from Roman.
Still no leads on the bomb components. The supplier trail went cold.
I curse and type back.
Keep looking. There has to be something.
But I’m starting to wonder if there is. If maybe whoever is doing this is too good, too careful, too protected by people I trust.
The thought makes me sick.
It’s two a.m. and I still haven’t slept. Coffee cups litter my desk (evidence of my spiral into obsession). My eyes burn and my head pounds. But I can’t stop. Not when someone is out there, planning the next attack, waiting for another opportunity to?—
The door opens.
I look up, expecting Mrs. Kozlov with another punishing lecture and I’m already forming the words to (respectfully) tell her to go away, when they die on my lips when I see who it is.
It’sVera.
She’s wearing a robe over her nightgown, her hair loose around her shoulders, and her eyes shadowed with the same exhaustionI feel. But there’s something else in her expression too. Determination. Frustration. Worry.
“You should be asleep,” I say tiredly.
She frowns. “So should you.” She doesn’t leave. Instead, she walks further into my office, her eyes tracking over the chaos I’ve created. There are papers everywhere with photos spread across every surface. The evidence of my obsession laid bare.
“Go to bed, Vera,” I respond, not liking that she’s seeing the physical state of my mind.
“No.” She crosses her arms. “Not until you do.”
“I’m fine.”
