Page 273

“You need to talk to my son.”

Silence.

Oh God.

My heart is so loud I almost miss the first stair creak.

Paul is climbing toward me, and suddenly six months is nothing. The cool facade I’ve built goes shaky like scaffolding.

I face the window because turning around too soon feels desperate. Which is ridiculous, because I am desperate.

The footsteps reach the top, and the room holds its breath with me.

“Clint?”

I barely hear it over my own heartbeat.

I turn.

Paul is at the top of the stairs, still polished enough to make me want to mess him up on principle. But he looks different too. Leaner maybe. Less wrapped around himself.

His eyes move over me. Face. Shoulders. Hands still clenched and fighting the urge to touch him.

Then he sees the room. I watch it happen, the paintings hitting him one at a time.

His mouth opens slightly.

“I moved your studio,” I say.

Brilliant opening. Very cool.

Paul looks back at me. His eyes are wet.

“You still haven’t texted that invite.”

My laugh comes out wrong. Too shaky and too relieved.

“Am I late?”

“By four days.”

“I know.” I take one step closer. “I was waiting for something.”

His eyebrows draw together. “What?”

“The pizza oven.”

He stares at me, then something breaks across his face, half laugh, half disbelief.

“You’re late because of… an oven?”

He says it like he’s mad, but he’s already moving.

We meet near the middle of the room, and then his arms are around me, mine are around him, and cool doesn’t matter. Cool can go fuck itself. I hold him so hard he makes a little sound against my shoulder.

Paul thumps my back once. “You kept me waiting over an appliance.”

“I had to do it right.”