“What?” I hit pause around the middle of Pearl Harbor and toss the remote to the coffee table, turning to her and grinning in challenge. She slept last night. I slept last night.Halle-fuckin’-lujah.“Do I have a booger on my face or something?” I swipe my nose. “Food smudges around my lips?” I wipe there, too. “You keep staring. It’s wigging me out a little bit.”
Her cheeks burn a furious, fiery red.
“What is it, Rose?”
“Nothing.” She faces the television with intense determination. Yet, mere seconds pass before she peeks again. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s something!” I grab her shoulders and spin her around, her leg coming up to bang against mine. “Did you wander into town today while Iwas at work? Run into my dad in the street? Did someone tell you embarrassing stories about me?”
“No.” But still, she fucking blushes. “It’s nothing like that.”
“So you admit it’ssomething?” I wrap her fidgeting hands in mine and yank her closer until our noses stop just twelve inches apart. “Did I break out in teen acne since I last looked in the mirror?”
She snickers, shaking her head. “No.”
“Forget my pants?” I look down to make sure I didn’t.Just in case. “Walk around with toilet paper stuck to the bottom of my shoe?”
“No!” She laughs. “It’s nothing like that.”
“So, what?” I shake her. A month ago, I wouldn’t have dared. But she’s strong. She’s healing. And she isn’t scared ofme. “Got a dick growing out of my forehead?”
“No. I was just thinking about… it’s…” She frowns. “It’s a lot of weird, disjointed, random things. I couldn’t explain even if I tried.”
“Try!” I pinch her chin between my thumb and finger, holding her still when I know she’d rather turn. “Explain each disjointed thing and trust me to be able to connect the dots.”
She groans, circling my wrist with her palm. “But it’s embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing for me?”
“I wish. It’s embarrassing forme. You, as always, are just the poor bystander dragged into my mess.”
“Well, you can’t leave me hanging now.” Almost giddy with anticipation, I inch forward until our legs tangle and the warmth pulsing from her heated cheeks physically pounds in the air. “I had alongggggday today, and I was thinking about you the whole time. This dumbass kid, like seventeen years old, was on his daddy’s barn roof and thought it would be smart to slide down. Buck-ass naked.”
She screws her nose up. “Wow.”
“No shit. I spent eight consecutive hours plucking splinters out of his ass. It wasn’t fun foreitherof us.”
“And you thought ofmethe whole time?” She giggles. “I’m flattered. Not.”
“Had to dosomethingwith my brain.” I release her chin, but only so I can lay my arm across the back of the couch and finger a loose lock of her hair. “Doesn’t take a surgeon to pick splinters, just a pair of tweezers and a lot of patience. So then I started doing crossword puzzles in my brain. I’m pretty sure I wrote a play or two. Mentally. I even called Billy to see if he’d popped anything new on your case. And Inevercall Billy willingly. By the time I was done with all that, I was thirty-something minutes into my work and still had a teen’s ass in my face. Now Ineedyou to tell me what you’re thinking. Stretch my brain, I beg you.”
“You’ll think I’m ridiculous. No better than an impulsive teen peeling his pants off.”
“Try me.” I give her hair a gentle tug. It does nothing to dull the heat in her cheeks. “I’ve worked in the ER a long time. Not much surprises me these days.”
“Goddddd.” She drops her head into her hand and burns bright red. “It’s so dumb. But it’s Eliza’s fault too, so this isn’t entirely on me.”
“A lot of things are Eliza’s fault,” I tease. “She hasn’t matured beyond her sixth birthday. It was foolish of me to let you two hang out without a suitable chaperone.” I hook my finger around her wrist and pull her hand away from her face. “Please tell me.”
“It’s about you.”
“I know. I’m the poor bystander, remember? Lay it on me.”
“I dreamed about you last night.” She brushes my hand away and spins off the couch, bounding to her feet with a flurry of long black hair and the scent of honey left in the air behind her. She strides to the other side of the coffee table and paces from one end of my living room to the other. “I dream about you every night, of course. I even tell you about those dreams, since they sometimes have a little something in them that may help us figure me out. But I didn’t tell you about this one.” She stops on a dime and brings her eyes up to mine. “Icouldn’ttell you about this one.”
“So…” I straighten on the couch and lean forward, resting my elbows on my knees. “You told Eliza about it instead?”
She barks out a startling, wildly uncharacteristic laugh and resumes her pacing. “Absolutely not. She’s your sister! I wouldnevertell your sister about it.”
