“Did things escalate between the two of you?”
“No, they can’t.” I grimace, waiting for him to dig deeper. Why am I talking about this?
“And the case you are working on, is that motivating you to get back to your former self?”
Is it? I ask myself. When I interview and go over files, I’m not thinking about my selfish reasons. Sure, they linger in the back of my mind, but they’re not at the forefront, propelling my motivation. Then again, in Kace’s presence, my libido is the only thing propelling anything. “It’s nice to work again and work together.”
“Have you finished the one hundred challenge?”
“No, I’m only halfway.”
“And the smile log?” He reaches into the side pocket of his armchair and retrieves a yellow ledger pad, tucked inside a thick leather folder, and rests it on his lap.
“Didn’t smile much on Saturday or Sunday.” Just a heart smile; those aren’t physical manifestations, so they don’t count.
He removes one of four identical pens from the inside pocket and uncaps it. “Why not?”
“It was busy. A lot of moving around.” The whole note-taking thing makes me nervous, so I stare at the abstract photographs on his walls. The more I look at them, the more they resemble each other.
Are they the same photograph? This must be some head shrink thing.
“Where did you go first?”
My eyes land on him, and my brain replays his question back to me. “For coffee, then I followed Kace around.”
His eyebrows perk up. “Followed?”
“He knew I was following him,” I clarify, not very well though. “I mean, I was in the car with him.” I liberate my hands from beneath my thighs and demonstrate my position in relation to Kace in the car. “Like next to him, not hiding in the back like some psycho.”
Nolan smirks and jots something down.
“Sorry, I’m a bit nervous.”
“It’s okay. We’re just starting to get to know each other. It takes time for patients to build trust.”
I barely know him, but I trust him, weird parallel lines and all.
“What was the favorite part of your weekend?”
My head drums up the part when Kace touched my knee at the cleaner’s office, and the way our thighs rested against each other while we worked through the app’s database to find possible courier jobs and send them off to Frank, who was leading a small undercover investigation. The Feds who came are still here, still annoying the captain and interfering, but since they have not yet connected their cases to ours, they have no jurisdiction.
Cap grows tired of the trafficking ring angle the Feds have been using as precedence to interfere in the Bullet Man investigation. He sure as hell isn’t going to let them take credit for catching this guy.
At least, that’s what Kace said while staring at my lips and forcing himself to focus on the job at hand, and not the hand job I heard him give himself in the bedroom on Friday night. His grunts had traveled through the thin walls and landed on my ears. My favorite part of the weekend was when he gasped my name.
I almost went to him.
Almost gave in to the lust pooling in my center. Almost went blind visualizing Kace’s strong hands, fervently gliding up and down and stopping when he saw me at the door.
I shake my head free of the fantasy I dreamt about all night long, making today feel like torture.
“Did you not find anything pleasant?” Nolan pops me out of my internalization.
“I got out of the house.”
“What else? How was it to work with Kace again, in a non-romantic setting.”
There’s nothing non-romantic about Kace. “Talking to Kace always feels good.” I pause and lower myself further into the couch. “I think part of my problem is I don’t want it to feel good.”
“Why not?”
Two words motivate my tongue to spill, and before I know it, I’m lying down and talking about my whole love life as if Nolan gives a shit.
Three hours later, after telling Nolan Mills about my relationship and getting more homework, Kace and I stand in front of a hospital—the same hospital I was supposed to have my baby in—the same hospital where I woke up, not a mother.
A lot of emotions flow through me, so it’s hard to isolate just one. They’re overwhelming and relentless, dredging up memories too hard to process in public. To hold myself up, I lightly place my palm on the cold stone of the building. Soon, Kace will use his presence to block my ability to think and insist I stay behind and let him take this one with his partner.
I have to suck it up. I need to talk to the Bullet Man before anyone else.
“You don’t have to do this,” Kace says, as he rubs my arms from behind. His body presses tightly against mine, reminiscent of the time in the kitchen. Allowed one time, and he’s taken the liberty of crossing my post-Tyler boundaries at will. His or mine… I have no damn clue.
“Yes, I do, if I ever want to get my life back on track.” I flip around to find Kace’s heated gaze, his pupils slightly dilated. The rich brown of his irises once turned me to liquid, and today, they almost soften me again.
I want the comfort of his arms more than I want to step foot inside this building, and he knows that. He always knows me too well, even when I think he doesn’t understand. He steps closer and wraps his strong arms around me. “It hurts me too, Ellie. Every time I drive by here, I picture the nurse telling me you were in surgery, but my son didn’t make it.”
I’m not ready for this conversation, but I’m trapped in his arms.
“It felt like I was alone, and all I wanted was to hold you.” His voice bears the burden of loneliness, strained and gravelly. “I didn’t know if you were going to make it. No one told me anything, just that you had been shot. I don’t even know how I got to the hospital that night.”
I force myself to listen because that’s what a partner does. I force myself to ignore my pain because that’s what a friend does.
“I think I started running, and the next thing I knew, I was upstairs with Cap, who was the only one making coherent sentences. It hurt so much, I couldn’t talk.”
At recognizing the sentiment, I sigh softly, easing the pressure in my chest. “Breathing hurt?”
“God, yes. It felt like someone filled my lungs with lighter fluid and set me on fire, burning me up inside. You were in the operating room for hours, clinging to life, and I couldn’t be there to hold your hand. People talked to me, trying to distract me, but I stared down the clock, daring it to move faster or rewind so I could save you. The seconds got louder and louder as my anxiety built … I couldn’t imagine a life without you and Tyler, but I never thought the two were separate until the nurse came out. She slit me open right there, cut me in two, and was ready to hack me into pieces. My gut thought the worst… I mourned our baby, but I clung to hope. I fucking prayed for you to survive, and I felt so damn selfish.”
“You don’t have to tell me this.” Please, don’t tell me this.
“You know why I felt selfish?”
I shake my head, not because I don’t know, but because I can’t handle him being flawed. His optimism and perfection serve as the barrier, keeping me from throwing my arms around his neck and burying my face in his warmth.