Page 32 of Drilled

“I’ll go out first and pretend I was just looking for something in the pantry. Which I was actually doing before you decided to come in and intercept me,” I said pointedly, adjusting my bra beneath my work shirt. “I’ll direct him back to the basement, then you come out and say you used the guest bathroom or something. Got it?”

When I turned around, Dax was analyzing me with a look that straddled smugness and objective evaluation. Then he reached out and straightened the twisted, dust-stained hemline of my shirt.

I detested how quickly my heart skipped a beat, as though it hadn’t just been pounding at a hundred miles an hour. Dax just gave me a nod, then stood back and opened the door for me to leave.

Like a gentleman that hadn’t just fucked my brains out in my own pantry, right next to the canned tomatoes. But I simply returned his nod and walked out, head held high because in the slowly, agonizingly painful post-nut clarity that was setting in, I was only now starting to realize what we’d just done.

11

Lane

Lying, I discovered long ago, required the exact same mechanics as cross-examination. You had to control your breathing, fix your gaze on an unyielding point, and absolutely refuse to acknowledge the evidence stacked against you. I had the theory down pat, but the practical implementation left much to be desired, if Nance’s words were anything to go by.

"I still can’t believe you remembered," Silas said, his beautiful, rugged face lit up with a grin that made the guilt in my gut twist like a rusted wire. He was leaning over the kitchen island, eagerly helping himself to a massive second portion of the Italian beef. "The Blocks has the best giardiniera in the city, hands down. Miss Whittaker, you’re an absolute saint."

That was me, Lane Whittaker, the saintliest saint that ever lived. At the very least, I had the requisite religious-style guilt in my arsenal. Dax was notably not eating too much himself where he sat across the table from Sy and me. He was back to being unnervingly quiet, as per his own standards, and every once in a while, my eyes would drift to him.

The fact I never caught him trying to look at me felt a lot like a loss. He was apparently a much better liar than I was. Silas was none the wiser to the awkwardness that had settled between us, chewing happily around a mouthful of giardiniera while he made his way back to his spot at the dinner table.

"It’s just a thank-you for the extra hours, Sy," I said, my voice smooth, even, and entirely rehearsed. I kept my hands wrapped tightly around my wine glass. Whereas it was usually easy for me to make conversation and joke around with them, I was suddenly feeling hyper aware of every word I said. Like if I didn’t think it three times over, I’d give myself away and announce my guilt to Sy and Bear.

But why was I even feeling guilty in the first place? I wasn’t dating anyone, wasn’t betraying or hurting anyone. Yet every bit of praise from Silas made me want the floor to open up and swallow me. I hadn’t even looked at Bear yet.

I took a sip of wine.

Dax had still not said a word. He had already changed into a clean shirt, but the scent of the pantry and the heavy heat of what we had just done seemed to radiate off him in suffocating waves even though I was sure I was the only one who could smell it.

He was aggressively focused on rolling up a sandwich, his jaw set in a rigid line. And then it happened, the smallest break in his nonchalance. The sudden, sharp click of his fork against the plate betrayed the exact same erratic adrenaline that had just wrecked us in the closet.

This time, Sy did notice. He gestured to Dax. “And that? Are you feeling sick or something?”

Dax shook his head. “Just a bit overworked today. I’ll sleep it off.”

And of course, it was that moment that he chose to flick his gaze to me, just briefly enough for me to catch him. I swallowed hard and went back to my meal but that familiar, prickly feeling of being watched danced across my skin again and without even looking up I knew that it was Bear.

I didn’t want to look at him. Bear was frustratingly good at reading people. He’d done that to me once before already. He’d seen straight through my bullshit and called me out for it but this time, I couldn’t risk it. His stare burned a hole in the side of my head, and I warily made eye contact, apparently now fully committed to my new pastime of making bad decisions.

When our eyes locked, I couldn’t read the expression behind his. They were usually expressive even despite his more stoic personality, but now those brown eyes gave me nothing in return for my own candor except the obvious knowledge that he was tracking everything in the room.

He sat at the end of the table, his heavy shoulders hunched forward as he chewed in silence. My ears burned.

Did he know?

No, that was ridiculous. How could he possibly have known?

The atmosphere was a living thing, choking out the warmth that Silas was trying to bring to the table. My throat was so tight that it felt like every bite I took was getting stuck, not budging under the torrent of wine I was gulping like water.

I couldn’t take it anymore and excused myself early, citing a mountain of brief-prep for tomorrow's docket, and retreated upstairs to the cold, solitary comfort of my bedroom. The fact that Bear didn’t even try to stop me was one of the final pieces of evidence that I needed to at least suspect that he knew something.

*

Nance blinked at me slowly, her brain trying to compute everything I’d just told her. All of the words made sense in the order in which I stated them. The complete curveball to logic here, was that this was coming from me.

“Okay, wait, can you repeat the story again?” she asked, her face still frozen in shock.

I rubbed my temple with a sigh and flopped into my seat. We had a rare break today, one that offered enough time for me to finally fill Nancy in on everything that had happened so far. I’d kept her on the periphery of things, but after I lost all goddamn common sense with Dax, I figured what the hell. I might as well add more fuel to the dumpster fire that was my life choices.

“Do you really need me to go through everything again?” I asked and she snorted, clicking her pen as though finally having made her own ruling of the situation.