Was that what my brother meant?
But Brutus simply shook his head. “Nope. Just need to know where to set your drinks.”
I felt my stomach deflate. “Just in here’s fine.”
It almost pained me, watching him set those drinks down before he retreated from my room. He didn’t even look back at me over his shoulder before he grabbed the doorknob and closed the door behind him. I just stood there for a moment, holding my bowl of food, waiting for him to come back. To say that all he needed was to grab something for himself before he joined me in my room for dinner.
I listened to his bootsteps retreat, though, knowing damn good and well he wasn’t coming back.
I sighed heavily, slowly turning toward the bed in the room that I claimed for myself in the safehouse. I walked over and set my stuff down long enough to crawl onto the damned thing, andthen I used one of the pillows that wasn’t flattened within an inch of its life as a makeshift table in my lap.
My bedroom door whipped open without warning.
“Whoo!” I exclaimed breathlessly as my gaze darted to the door.
I saw Brutus standing there.
Holding up a stack of napkins.
My heart leapt into my throat.
“Don’t think you grabbed one,” he said as he motioned with his head toward the bedside table at my side.
I just waved at him. “Come on in, don’t be shy.”
He nodded before he slipped inside, bringing the napkins over. I reached toward the bedside table and cleared off a little spot, just in case I was about to get lucky as fuck. He placed the stack of napkins down as I looked around me and, sure enough, I didn’t grab anything of the sort in terms of napkins.
I looked back at him and gave him a cheeky little smile. “My hero.”
That was when I found something new out about Brutus.
He snorted.
My eyebrows rose. “Did you just snort?”
He just shook his head before he stepped away from the table where he placed the napkins.
But he didn’t leave.
Please, please, please, please—“Yes?”
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out.
It took me a second to realize what he said, because out of all the things I hoped he’d say, an apology wasn’t one of them.
I blinked. “Why?”
He cleared his throat and jammed those gigantic hands of his into the pockets of his black cargo pants. “For touching you in the kitchen. Without your permission.”
It took me a second before I realized he was talking about the?—
“You really did have grease on your face,” he mumbled as he gazed off at the wall behind me.
I felt myself melt a bit inside. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Bee. You don’t have to apologize.”
“Are you sure?”
God, there was a desperation in his eyes. “Of course, I’m sure. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?”
