“I know. That’s why Brennan likes you.”
She smiled, the real one, full dimple, and my chest ached the way it always did when she aimed that at me. I wanted to pull her close, press my mouth against her temple. I kept my hands at my sides.
That evening I went looking for her and found her in the reading nook, curled up on the window seat with a book open on her knee and Buddy sprawled on the floor beside her. She was reading aloud, doing the accent, pausing to argue with the characters about their decisions. Buddy’s tail thumped against the floor every time her voice rose.
I leaned against the doorframe and listened. Her voice had always done something to me, the warmth of it, the way she dropped into characters without any self-consciousness. If she knew the effect she had on me she’d probably use it as leverage, so it was better that she didn’t.
She looked up and caught me.
“Stalker.”
“Guilty.”
“How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to hear the accent.”
“The accent is part of the experience.” She shifted over on the window seat. “Sit down. Chapter seven. You’re reading the next one.”
I sat on the other end of the seat. She handed me the book, open to the right page.
“Out loud?”
“That’s how reading aloud works.”
I read. My voice was wrong for it, too deep, too flat, no talent for character voices. She corrected me twice in the first paragraph.
“The heroine doesn’t sound like a tax attorney. Put some feeling into it.”
“I’m putting feeling.”
“You’re putting monotone.”
I tried again. Buddy lifted his head and gave me a look that was unmistakably judgment.
“Even the dog thinks you’re bad at this,” Andrea said.
“The dog doesn’t have literary opinions.”
“That dog has better taste than half the men I’ve dated.”
“That’s a short list.”
“Quality over quantity.”
She laughed, leaned against my shoulder, said “keep going.” So I kept going, reading badly, her warmth against my arm, Buddy at our feet. Her hair smelled like vanilla and the weight of her against my side was the closest to peace I’d felt in months.
A few pages in she stopped correcting me. I looked down. Her eyes were closed, her breathing slow. She’d fallen asleep against me.
I kept reading, quieter now, barely a whisper, for the sleeping dog and the woman on my shoulder who was not my partner, not my mate, not anything she was willing to name yet.
I read until the chapter ended, then closed the book and sat there with her weight on my arm, not moving, not wanting to.
My phone buzzed in my pocket. I pulled it free carefully, tilting my body just enough to reach without shifting my shoulder.
Lorraine. East side of the estate. Third time this week.
The warmth of the room receded behind the cold focus that clicked into place when someone threatened what was mine.
