But she didn’t realize by how much until she held out her hand. The move was just so easy to make, it almost startled at her. She found herself looking down at her own hand, so freely offered, with something like wonderment. And especially when she saw him hesitate.Somehow, in the last five minutes, she’d become more resilient than him.She’d created her own forcefieldthatquickly.
While his seemed to waver just ever so slightly.
Though, he soon recovered. In fact, he recovered so fast she wondered if she’d really seen anything at all. Maybe he just hadn’t expected her to agree so easily. Maybe the light had been in his eyes.
He did seem pretty unfazed when he swallowed her hand with his.
And his tone, when he finally spoke, was just as breezy as you please.
“Well, I better get going.”
“Sure. Yeah. Totally.”
“Got an early morning.”
“Oh yeah, me too.”
“Take care.”
“You too,” she said.
Then she just watched him stroll away, as if nothing had even happened.
Chapter Three
She didn’t really expect the things he’d taught her to have any kind of long lasting effect. Really, all he’d done was show her how to avoid a handshake, with a smattering of cautious compliments and a side of considering looks. It wasn’t anything big, when she fully thought aboutit. Or, at least, not as big as she’d imagined, when she’d first thought of asking him for advice.
Yet as soon as she walked through the door to their apartment, she knew something was different.Both Tate and Letty looked up from late night takeaway, but neither immediately fussed around her. There were no concerned glances exchanged. Nohow did it goes?
Instead, Letty looked as if the sun had come out all over her dimpled face.
Hell, so did Tate. He broke into that easy, aw shucks grin of his.
“You seem…” he started.
And Letty finished.“Almost relaxed.”
Lydia shrugged, as casually as she could.
But when she did, she felt what they were describing.
There was a new laxness through her limbs.A lack of strain through her back.
That meeting and the bus ride home should have put a rod of iron through her body.
But they hadn’t.“Yeah, I kind of am.”
“I guess it went good this time then, huh?” Letty asked.
And she nodded.
“It went…okay.”
“Less fraught than before.”
“Sort of, yeah.”
Now Letty was practically grinning.“Sort of is good. Sort of is better than plastic chair circles and socks with sandals and people staring. Right?”
