“I just thought you’d lost interest, but I mean, you’ve been doing your job. I’ve been working. This must be—” she cut herself off, changing directions. “How are you not crawling out of your skin?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“The other night was amazing and I’ve been completely freaking out. Obsessing over whether I should text you. Ask if you enjoyed yourself, if you were annoyed that I didn’t get you off. But you’re just walking around, cool as hell. How do you do that?”
Again, there had been a massive miscommunication. He wanted to touch Sloan every time he was near her, but they were miles away from that kind of casual ease. And then he remembered what she’d said. She wanted him to make this easy for her. He moved closer and lightly brushed the side of her neck. Her eyes closed and she leaned into his touch. Fuck, she was really exhausted.
“Okay. Let’s nail this out, once and for all. I’m not a—what’s the right word here? I’m a tall White dude with a bunch of tattoos. I know how that freaks people out. I’ve also spent my whole life being calm and gentle with children. It’s alright just tobea calm and gentle guy.”
“I’m seeing that.”
“I want to make this easy for you, but I don’t want to scare you away, so I’m not going to run up on you every time I see you or every time we’re alone. I thought you were avoiding me. And I thought you were going to text me. What happened to that?”
“I was kind of avoiding you. And as far as the texting goes...I chickened out. I don’t know. Maybe this was a bad idea. I am not casual.”
“Okay. Let’s forget about texts and pretending we’re not attracted to each other until one of us cracks. I like you, Sloan. Period. I’m calm and I’m gentle and I’m not about the bullshit. I’m also not looking for some reason to not like you.”
“It’ll take, like, eight years for that to sink in.” Sloan slid off the stool and faced him. At her full height, she still only came up to his chest. “I like you too. It hasn’t been a whole week and I like coming home to you. I thought if I pretended you weren’t taking up so much space in the room, I would somehow stop wanting you.”
“Did you get a chance to talk to your mom?”
“Yeah.” Another sigh. Maybe Rafe shouldn’t have brought Pauletta up. “We talked about Tess, actually. Every time there’s a change in my life, my mom gets anxious. In a nutshell, she’s not used to not being at my side, even though she has my nephew to look after now. She’s worried. I get it. It’s just—I don’t know. I miss her, but we still need space.”
The toaster oven dinged. “Hold that thought.” He brought her the plate, then fixed her a glass of the rosé she seemed to be rationing. She groaned with pleasure as she tossed back half the glass to wash down the first bites she’d taken of her enchilada.
“Oh, god. This is so good.”
“You were saying, about your mom?”
“It’s nothing. I’m not moving back to Rhode Island. My family can’t move here. I’m definitely not moving back to Seattle. Lots of complex, conflicting emotions. You wanna see the heart I operated on yesterday?”
“Uh, sure.”
Sloan grabbed her phone and turned to Rafe with a bright smile. It was Avery all the way. “Today we’re going to learn about coronary artery bypass grafting.” She held out her phone and, sure enough, there was a human heart right in the middle of an open chest cavity. It was pretty fucking gross, but Rafe sat back and let Sloan tell him all about the procedure she’d successfully performed.
Rafe understood about a fifth of what she said. His GED didn’t cover advanced medical knowledge. Still, he liked the way Sloan lit up when she enlarged the picture and walked him through the procedure. He might never fully understand the issues she was having with her mother, but Pauletta Copeland could not deny that Sloan had found her calling.
“I can’t imagine cutting someone open, let alone fucking with their organs.”
“I mean, I didn’t fuck with his organs. I fixed it.”
“Sorry. Poor choice of words. I would not trust myself to even attempt to fix someone’s organs. Can I offer the lady more wine?”
Sloan smiled, “No, I’m good.”
“More water then?”
“I will take more water. Thank you.” Rafe felt her eyes on him as he took her plate and her wine glass over to the sink, then got her more filtered water. “This isn’t a part of your job,” she said when he joined her back at the island.
“It’s a part of the other job I might want to interview for.”
“What job is that?”
“The man in your life,” he said with a little cock of his head.
“Woooow.”
“What? What’s the problem? Why won’t you let me be great?”
