“Yep.”
“I was taught to make my bed every morning.”
“Yay for you.”
“If I have kids, I’ll teach them to make their beds every morning, too. But I don’t think I’ll ever have kids,” she added with a shake of her head, then stopped when the room rocked with the gesture. “I don’t want to pass on my Halliday genes to anyone and have them worry every moment of every day that they’re going to lose control and become some kind of crazy rage monster. That’s no way to live.”
With the room now darkened, she didn’t notice him move until he was kneeling right in front of her, his hands coming up to frame her face. “Worrying about shit that’ll never happen is no way to live, Alice. You’re not your father, just like I’m not my old man, who deliberately beat someone to death. That bastard didn’t succumb to temporary insanity like your old man did, and taking someone’s life wasn’t some fucked-up accident. My pops wanted to kill. That’s on him, and it has nothing to do with me. I sure as hell am not going to live in fear of following in his footsteps, or in my grandfather’s, because I’m me. I make my own path, and so do you. And so will our kids.”
“Our kids?” She pressed her hands over his in the hope of stopping her head from spinning long enough to think clearly. “You want to have kids with me? Or are you saying your kids and mine? Both? Neither?”
“I’m just going to say yeah and leave it at that. Legs up.” Suddenly her feet were up on the bed and her head was sinking into the pillow. “Get some sleep, yeah? We’ll talk later, when you’re not drunk off that perfect ass of yours.”
“I’m so glad you think it’s perfect,” she mumbled, rolling over onto her side, because her butt cheek still felt uncomfortable in a disconnected sort of way. “I’ll bet your ass is perfect, too.”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he promised.
Alice slowly surfaced from the wisps of sleep and into consciousness. She’d done this a couple times already; once with a pounding head and once because she’d rolled the wrong way onto her injured backside, only to find the borrowed T-shirt she was sleeping in was practically strangling her. Both times when she’d opened her eyes, she’d found Loki there ready with ice-cold water, OTC pain meds and no-nonsense orders to go back to sleep.
Sleep was fine. She had no problem with sleep, especially since her body felt like it had been bounced around in a cement mixer. Sleep was her best friend when it came to getting over her soreness.
It was where she was sleeping that was the issue.
Loki’s bed was huge, a California king and about a foot higher off the ground than her own. With all that expanse of mattress going on, there was room enough for both her and Loki, and maybe a professional sports team thrown in for good measure.
But every time she awoke, she was snuggled right up against him like they were trying to occupy the same space. With his chest warming her back, she couldn’t help but notice how perfectly she fit the curve of his body, a little spoon to his big spoon.
This position wasn’t something that just happened while they slept. Oh, no. The second time she’d awoken, Loki had pulled her into the curve of his body as soon as she’d finished taking her medicine, draped a muscle-heavy arm around her waist and said, “Sleep, Stems.”
The craziest part of it all was that she had done exactly that.
No.
The craziest part was that he finally had her in his bed, and he wasn’t doing anything about it.
That was definitely crazy.
Then again, maybe it wasn’t.
A thread of corrosive insecurity wound its way through her, and no matter how hard she tried to ignore it, she couldn’t ignore reality. And the reality was that early on, she’d straight-up offered herself to him, and he’d walked away. Sure, it was nice to think that Joelle was right, and Loki was giving her the space she needed to realize she needed to chase him down like he was the only ice cream truck left on earth, but facts were facts.
Here she was, in his bed with him wrapped around her, and all he was interested in was sleeping.
Just that.
Sleeping.
She had to face it. As wildly attracted as she was to this complicated man, he didn’t feel the same way.
He just wasn’t into her.
And damn it, that hurt more than she could begin to express.
“You’re awake, aren’t you?”
The unexpected sound of his voice made her jump so much she almost parted ways with her skin. “Uh, yes. What time is it?”
“Morning. Beyond that, I don’t give a shit since we both have the day off.”
“Oh.” Of course. It was going to take a while for the gift shop to be put back to rights, so she doubted she’d be needed until the first of the week. “I guess you’re right, but I should still check in with Scout.”
“You don’t have to. She texted me around ten last night to see how you were doing, and to tell you to drop in on her Monday morning so you can get signed up with the company’s benefits package.”
She frowned. “I thought that only came with fulltime employees. I’m probationary.”
“Not anymore.”
“But…I have another month to go before they’d even consider keeping me on a permanent basis.”
“Apparently no one cares about that anymore. You proved yourself, Alice, though I’m not at all happy with how you did it,” he added when she shot him a searching look over her shoulder. “As far as I’m concerned, you never should have been on probation in the first place.”
“Yes, I should have, Loki. And considering how I started out there—losing my cool and getting into a fight with you—I don’t know if I’ll ever be comfortable with the people there.”
The arm around her waist tightened. “Are you comfortable with me?”
Comfortable wasn’t exactly the right word, since every nerve ending that was in contact with him was having a party. “I guess I must be, now that you’ve seen the absolute worst sides of me—my ass up close and personal, and how crazy I can be when I lose my Halliday temper.”
“Your Halliday temper,” he repeated slowly. “You know, I think I finally get you.”
“Get me?”
“Yeah. You seem to think you’ve got some extra-special, weapons-grade temper, Stems, but you don’t. Take it from someone who grew up in a biker gang, yeah? Your temper’s in the minor leagues, if that.”
“The way we met—”
“Is totally understandable, now that I know the story. You were pushed to the point where your very way of life was threatened. You literally didn’t know if you were going to have a roof over your head, or if you could even afford to buy enough food to keep you alive. Anyone would’ve been at the end of their rope. You’re special in a lot of ways, Alice Halliday. Extraordinary, even. But not when it comes to your temper. Your temper is as ordinary as they come.”
She wished she could believe that. But since he wasn’t exactly setting the world on fire trying to have sex with her, it was clear he saw her as a bad bet.
That thought made her squirm. “Well, I guess since it’s morning, I should—”