“Maybe himself? But what do I know.” He nudges me with his knee. “I’m just the rookie who doesn’t ask questions, remember? You’re the inquisitive one.”
“I can’t ask him that,” I say, holding out the picture.
I want him to take it. Give it back himself. Throw it away for all I care, because I can’t look at it anymore.
“You should keep it. Wait for the right time.” He closes my fingers over it, tucking it in the palm of my hand. Then he changes the subject. “What are you doing with your days off?”
Spending time with you, my heart wants to say.
I slip the picture in my pocket and stand. He stands too.
“I… don’t know. I guess I’ll head back to town. Get away for a couple of days.” A trip that involves saying goodbye to him and riding in an ambulance with Ben.
I decelerate my pace.
He slides in front of me, sweeping his palms beneath my thighs and wrapping my legs around his waist.
“Change of plans,” he whispers with that dimpled smile I’ve come to love.
It’s hard to stay sad with him looking at me like that. I palm the crown of his fire helmetand fit it over my head.
“It looks better on you,” he says, dropping his gaze to my lips.
Suddenly, all the air sweeps from my lungs. “Does it?” I ask, pressing my fingertips to his jaw.
When we’re nothing but a breath apart, our smiles finally touch.
“You’re mine tonight, Red.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
HAILEY
“How long has this place been open?” Reed asks as he takes in the chipped paint of the evergreen walls and the one random missing tile from the drop ceiling with the duct work showing.
Grenaldough’s is old,yes, but in the most charming, small-town way. Residents don’t seem to mind the dated wallpaper in the back either, from the way the line always stretches the entire length of the self-serve salad bar. People come here for the food. It’s not uncommon on a Friday night to wait an hour for good pizza.
But my attention is elsewhere. On the lazy grazing of Reed’s fingertips against my hand, to be exact. A simultaneously soothing yet distracting pattern that has me forgetting all about the painfully long commute back to the barracks earlier. Listening to Ben drone on about the upcoming Brundage ski season was not my idea of a relaxing scenic drive.
I net my fingers with his hand. I can’t focus enough to respond to his question with him touching me like that.
“At least since I was eight,” I reply. “Aunt Karen and I usedto eat here on Friday nights. Sometimes twice a week if I was lucky.”
“The candy connoisseur is that good of a cook, huh?” He gives my hand a playful squeeze.
“She has her talents.”
“Like raising you,” he says.
“Like raising me,” I confirm.
His hand slips into the back pocket of my jean shorts as he leans in close and rasps against the shell of my ear, “Is this okay?”
The punctuated swallow that bobs down my throat leaves me speechless.
Hah, is that okay…
Is it okay if the room catches on fire?Because his hot palm feels like a branding iron burning through the denim fabric. I tilt my head onto his shoulder in acknowledgement. A good thing, too, as he breathes in through his nose and moans around an exhale. My face flushes at the sound.
