“Everything okay?”
Of course.
There was a beat of silence and he turned to find North staring at him contemplatively.
Fuck. They weren’t supposed to lie to each other. That was a rule.
“You’ll let me keep you safe.” He’d intended the words to come out hard. As a command.
But there was a thread of worry in there. A touch of uncertainty. Because you never knew what way things would go with North.
The other man narrowed his gaze for a moment. But he didn’t tell Jared that he was worrying about nothing. That he could take care of himself.
“We’ll keep her safe. Even if she still decides to leave.”
“I’m not letting her leave.”
Fuck.
Yes, he was aware that he’d told her she could leave. But there was no way he could let her go now.
North raised an eyebrow and he braced himself for what the other man was going to say.
“Good. She’s starting to freak out that you’ve been gone too long. She’s probably thinking something stupid like that you’re regretting what we just did. I don’t know how women’s minds work.”
“You probably should have led with that information,” Jared said, striding out of the bathroom to find the bedroom empty. “Fuck.”
“Hmm,” North said. “Seems you were right. I should have led with that.”
34
What was she doing?
Um.
Being an idiot. That’s what.
She nestled down in her closet with Wally and Wallina and scolded herself for being a complete idiot.
Why had she run?
She should have sat there and waited. Even if Jared was taking a long time, and even if North had disappeared and even if they were obviously having a conversation about her in the bathroom, that did not mean that they had changed their minds.
It did not mean that she had to run in order to avoid being hurt.
This is what she kept doing and it was frustrating. Hadn’t she just been warned against running from them?
“I need to be a fighter again,” she told her toys. “Stupid Angie.”
Beating herself up and hiding had become second nature and she didn’t like it. Forming a fist, she thumped it against her thigh.
Okay, that did nothing to help.
All it did was hurt her thigh.
Ouch.
And it reminded her that she should have insisted Jared ice his hand. Was it sore?
