His moan tightened my groin, and I stopped mid pour to glance around.
“The butter is all melty.” He purred, munching on the roll. “Just like the chocolate chips in that cookie you left before.”
“About that,” I said, remembering I had a bone to pick with him. “You didn’t order room service.”
He paused in chewing but then licked some of the butter off the top of the bread. Bad, dirty thoughts rolled through my imagination at the sight of that pink tongue.
“You left food on the nightstand,” he answered.
“But you should have ordered room service. I told you to.”
He shrugged. “You already did enough.”
Clearly not, or I wouldn’t have found him shivering in a box.
“It’s my fault,” Pip said, lowering the roll from his lips. He had crumbs stuck to the corners of his mouth.
And he thinks he isn’t a mouse.
“What’s your fault?” I asked, grabbing the coffee to take a drink so I wouldn’t go over there and brush them away.
“That I’m sick,” he said, pushing the rest of the roll into his mouth. “I had a plan, and I didn’t stick to it.”
“All right, spill the tea,” I said, coming over to sit on the side of the bed.
“I planned to get a bus ticket out of here. Someplace warmer where the windchill doesn’t strip the skin off your bones.”
“So graphic,” I admonished.
“I was doing odd jobs, saving up. I planned to get out of town, find a job, maybe rent a room.”
“So what are you still doing here?”
His eyes turned to his soup, the crackers, then strayed to the Gatorade. Basically, his gaze flirted with everything around there but me. Shrugging, he said, “I got sick and didn’t feel like making the trip.”
“You’re lying.”
His stare fired up, pinged off mine, and then scattered away. “I am not.”
He’d be a terrible poker player.
“Garrett,” I intoned, causing his spine to straighten. I waited for his eyes to meet mine, and when they did, I held his stare. “Tell me why you’re still in Buffalo.”
The wrapper crinkled loudly, and then the crumbling of the cracker as it fell into the soup cut through the silence.
I waited him out, letting the tension build, letting him feel my steady stare.
Finally, his shoulders slumped. “I wanted to see you.”
Well now, this tea was piping hot.
“Me?” I repeated like maybe I had a hearing problem too.
He nodded. “After that night you saved me in the alley… I was just so curious. I wanted to see you.”
“So instead of getting the hell out of Dodge, you hung around, hoping I’d show up?” I surmised.
You ever hear that sayingbirdbrains? It applies here.
