Understanding clicks in Nash’s expression.
“Hear that, Cap?” He lifts his chin and wets his lips. “I think Rue here’s jealous.”
Cap grunts in agreement.
It’s my turn to laugh. “Jealous of the poor girl who’s fallen for your shit skills on the harmonica and mediocre storytelling abilities?” I pin Nash with a look. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“Bet you’d like to know how I sleep at night,” he volleys back, taking a step toward me.
“Been there, done that,” I say, bored.
His lips twitch. “And you kept coming back.”
“Did I though?” I purse my lips, squinting at the live oak branches stretched above us. “Seem to remember telling you I’m marrying someone else.”
“Yet here you are.” His tone shifts—slightly—but enough I notice. Notice the way the syllables lack the same lightness the same way his eyes do. His next step brings him to the opposite side of the opened car door. He wraps his hands around the top, right next to my arms and so his thumbs touch my elbows. “And still married to me.”
“Not for much longer,” I remind him. I’m acutely aware of his thumbs on my skin, but I don’t react. I don’t look at the points of contact nor jerk away. I’m also a masochist, because I can’t shut my mouth. “As I’m sure Emma would prefer.”
“Youreallywant to talk about this.” Now he’s the one who’s smug.
Damn him.
“I do not.” I sound defensive. “You got a text?—”
“That you read,” Nash finishes.
Cap grunts; I send him a scathing look.
“That you practically showed me,” I correct, flustered and borderline hostile. I shift my arms around the top of the door, but his thumbs tack them in place. “And I think it’s telling that you haven’t said anything about her.”
Nash stares at me, lips twitching like a marionette puppet from how funny he thinks this is. “And what does it tell you?”
“Nothing,” I snap.
“It must tell you something or you wouldn’t be all worked up.”
“Told you she gets like this,” Cap joins in.
I glare at them both.
“I’ll tell you what I think.” Nash leans closer to me over the top of the door, thumbs not budging. “I think you’re a wife who wonders what her husband’s been doing since you’ve been gone.”
Every quick remark dies on my tongue along with my need to fight him. Right now, that’s who I am. The wondering wife. I wonder what he’s been doing. If he makes her London Fogs. Dances with her when they fight, and what they fight about. Mostly, I wonder why I’m wondering about any of this.
Mostly, I’m wondering why he won’t say what I want him to say and put me out of my self-inflicted misery.
“Hate to interrupt,” Cap barks, “but I’m still hungry.”
“Right.” I shake my head to wrangle my thoughts and slip my arms from the door and Nash’s two thumbs of contact. “I’ll take you somewhere.”Like a soup kitchen.
Cap looks like he might argue, but at my wooden smile—my silent, desperate plea for him to be agreeable, just this once—he complies with an adjustment of his captain’s hat and a grin. Ashe starts hobbling around the car, he says, “If you wanted some father-daughter time, you just had to say so, kiddo.”
“Saw right through me,” I deadpan, turning back to Nash. “Thanks for your help today. It was ...”
“Fun?” he finishes.
A laugh puffs out of me. “I was going to say fruitless.”
