“I know.”
She side-eyes me as I move to shrug my jacket off. “Didn’tlooklike you knew.”
I drape my jacket around her shoulders. “Didn’t like the way he assumed he could touch you.”
She pauses, glancing at me again. Her fingers slide around the lapels of my jacket, tugging it closer around her frame.
“Thank you.”
I nod and look at the ground, biting the inside of my cheek for a beat before glancing back at her.
“You good to drive?”
She shakes her head. “No, I got a cab here.”
“I’ll take you home.”
There’s a pause.
“Okay.”
When we reach my truck, I open the passenger side for her, and she slides in, brushing past my front as she does. I watch her as she leans around to grab the seatbelt, the swoop of her jaw, the curve of her throat where it meets her shoulder, then click the door closed. My truck is warm, and she shifts in her seat toward me when I climb in my side, one knee angling in my direction as though her body’s already made a decision her mouth hasn’t caught up to yet.
“Okay, so,” she says lightly. “Directions.”
“Yeah. I’ll need those.”
She gives them, and I repeat them back, jumbling up the numbers on purpose, mostly because I don’t want the sound of her voice to stop yet.
The city moves past us as I drive, and the streetlights throw soft bands of gold across her face, catching the edge of her mouth, the sharp line of her cheekbone, the shimmer of amber in her whiskey eyes.
She twists the cap on her water bottle and takes a long drink, and I rip my eyes away from the way her throat bobs as she swallows, focusing on the road.
“Andrew Collins,” she says after a beat, wiping the water residue from her lips. “An orthopedic investor. He’s endowed three fellowships.”
I keep my eyes on the road, but my hands tighten on the wheel. “He’d be endowed with three assholes too, if I had my way.”
She huffs a laugh. “Men like him either think I’m not good enough to be in the room… or that I fit so well, they get to touch me.”
Something ugly and hot simmers through me.
“Not tonight.”
“No,” she agrees quietly.
We stop at a red light, and the silence stretches. She shifts in her seat.
“Thank you, again,” she says after a moment, looking straight ahead. “For stepping in and saving me.”
“I didn’t save you,” I reply. “I simply gave you an out.”
Her mouth curves as she considers that.
“Well, I took it.”
She subtly shifts to look at me, and I look right back at her. Our eyes remain tied, neither of us moving to fill the silence.
The light turns green, and a few minutes later, I pull up outside her apartment building. When I finally cut the engine, silence rushes back in.
