Page 78 of Reckless
“The family.”I sipped the tea and then added.“Me.”
Her eyes came back to mine slowly.
“Yes,” she said.“True.”
I respected that enough to ask the next question carefully.
“And now?”
She looked down at her tea.“Now I’m more rested.”
That almost made me smile.
Because it was evasive.Because we both knew it.Because Kelly, for all her clarity and backbone, still preferred to dodge in small ways when something got too close to the center.
Something moved through her expression then.soft enough that if I hadn’t been paying exact attention, I might have missed it and no one had ever been able to accuse me of not paying attention.
“You like being near me, don’t you,” she said quietly.
The room froze.Kelly seemed to hear what she had said one beat after saying it.
I set my mug down on the coffee table and looked at her.
Her lips parted.
“I like your apartment,” I said.“I like the way you move in it.”I let one beat pass.“And I like being in rooms where you forget to perform for a few seconds at a time.”
Color moved up her throat, but Kelly held very still.
Then she said, in a voice rougher than before, “That’s a lethal thing to say to a woman used to sitting alone on her own couch.”
I leaned forward slightly, forearms on my knees.“You asked.”
“That doesn’t mean you have to answer every question like a loaded gun.”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
She laughed under her breath.“You’re insane.”
“Yes.”And because we were alone and the room was warm and the tea had gone from practical to ritual and there was no one here to witness what it did to me when her mouth softened without defense in it, I found myself smiling back before I could stop.
She saw that too and the smile faded from her face not because she disliked it, but because whatever ease had been growing between us all weekend had crossed into something far more private and far less manageable.
I stood before I could overthink it.Kelly’s eyes tracked upward.She asked, “What are you doing?”
I had promised to let her lead and sitting that close made me want to touch her.I stepped back.“Looking at the rest of your apartment.”
I moved toward the bookshelves near the window.Photos.A stack of lesson plans.A child’s drawing taped to the frame with a note in shaky marker across the bottom: MISS KELLY U R PRETTY
I smiled despite myself.
“What.”She asked.
I pointed.“You have admirers.”
She looked over and groaned.“One of my kids made that.”
“That doesn’t make it less flattering.”
