But that was the only decision I’d made.
I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask Knox what we were going to talk about tomorrow, because it might mean we’d start talking about it now, that might upset one, the other, or the both of us, and I’d managed not to flip him off for a solid sixty hours. I didn’t want to break our roll.
I grabbed the glazed buttermilk and chomped off a big bite.
While still chewing, I told him, “I’m having dinner at Mom and Dad’s tonight. Do you want to keep Jacques until after, or do you want me to pick him up before?”
“Your choice.”
I looked to Jacques, who had his front paws on the back of the couch facing our way, his tongue lolling happily, and he was watching us.
Great.
Now I wasn’t only screwed in the head, it was worse.
I was a bad dog mom.
“After,” I said and chomped another bite out of my donut.
“You okay?” he asked, and I quit concentrating on my dog and my donut and focused on him.
He was watching me closely.
No, I thought, I’m in love with you, and I don’t know how to be friends, but I’m trying. You’ve been shot, in what essentially is a family dispute, and the former guts me, the latter worries the hell out of me. And your friends, not to mention my friends, all want to wade into that nightmare. Your ex is more than likely stalking me, which, if you knew, would make you lose your mind. You’re not talking to a bud, and haven’t been for months, because of my heartbroken yet idiotic tomfooleries. And I think I’m breaking through with my sister, but we’ve had thirty years of this emotional estrangement, so I’m hopeful, but pessimistic, and I think it’s great she’s saving for a house, but I also think she’s running herself into the ground to do it.
“Talk to me, baby,” Knox encouraged softly.
Mm-hmm.
He was watching me closely.
And he knew me all too well.
“Tomorrow,” I replied. “I’ll grab some food and come over after work. Think about what you want me to get.”
I then started toward the door.
“Babe, take the vanilla filled. If any of the boys eat that, they’ll go into sugar shock,” Knox called after me. “Only you could down that donut and survive.”
I laughed because he was funny and because this was how we were supposed to be.
But it hurt that he sounded like that achievement was akin to winning a Nobel Peace Prize.
In the beginning, I was certain he liked me because I was me, and his comment was a reminder of that fantasy.
I went back and got the vanilla cream, hefted it his way and said, “Thanks. But you don’t have to feed me in the mornings. I have Lucia and Willow’s pastry case to choose from.”
“And I have fuck all to do all day for at least the next week and a half, when I hope they clear me to drive and I can at least do desk work at the office.”
“That soon?” I asked.
“They’re flesh wounds, babe. And thankfully, I’m fit, so my recovery is going well. But I’m not going to be cleared to go back into the field for at least another five to seven weeks, and that’s gonna blow.”
Well, there was at least that.
“Just as long as you’re not going against orders.”
“I’m not.”
