“What was it?”
“He asked, ‘Where’s Sutton?’ He woke up and only wantedyou.”
In the aftermathof the bomb Birdie dropped on me at Thanksgiving, I was unsure how to act around Lane. My mind was endlessly filled with questions I didn’t have answers for—questions I wasn’t sure I could askhimto answer.
So he’d woken up from his ten-day coma asking for me. Big deal. He’d probably only wanted to thank me for saving him. But I didn’t want or need his gratitude.
Hell, at that moment, I didn’t know what I needed.
Thankfully, we seemed to be mostly ships passing in the night. Now that he’d gone back to work, he was busy throwing himself into solving the break-ins mystery, spending longer hours at the department. I couldn’t go home until the repairs were finished, but I tried to make myself scarce around the house. Unfortunately, the place wasn’t that big, and living together made it all too easy to corner me when we both happened to be home at the same time.
And Lane, being Lane, didn’t beat around the bush.
After having worked the day before, I’d just gotten up from my nap and was getting coffee when he pounced.
“Why are you avoiding me?”
I jumped, the full mug I held sloshing over, scalding liquid burning my skin. With a curse, I set it down and moved to the sink, running cold water over the red splotches spreading across the back of my hand.
“Hell, Lane,” I breathed, good hand pressed against my rapidly thumping heart. “You scared me.”
“Sorry.”
“Why are you here?”
“Working from home today,” he replied, “but don’t try to evade me, sunny. Why are you avoiding me?”
“I’m not,” I said. “We’ve both just been busy.”
We both knew I was lying, especially because I refused to meet his gaze, but he switched tack.
“Were you planning on going to the first responders’ gala?”
Wordlessly, because I truly couldn’t believe it was already that time, I grabbed my phone and checked my calendar.
Shit.
That wasthisweekend, and I’d be on shift the night before, so I had no excuse to get out of it.
“Yeah,” I said, resigned.
“We can go together then.”
I raised a brow, my heart beating a little faster. “Together?”
“I just mean…we’re living together right now. Doesn’t make sense to ride separately.”
Right, I reminded myself, willing my pulse to slow, swallowing down my disappointment.He’s just being logical.
“Sure.”
“Great,” he smiled, but it was tense. “We’ll leave at like seven?”
“Yeah, sounds good.”
Without another word, I retreated to my room, sitting down on the bed, finding myself confronted by an entirely different problem.
When I’d packed up my things from my house to bring here, I’d both fully expected to be back there by this time and had also completely forgotten about the gala.
