But Connor looks totally at ease, comfortable in this environment, which surprises me after seeing how he grew up.
“Is this where Diana Nichols lives?” Connor asks the guy, putting a foot up on the second step. The guy leans back, evaluating us before answering. He’s probably trying to figure whether we’re trouble or not. We’re obviously not local missionaries. Or census workers. But Connor isn’t willing to wait for the guy to make a judgement call about us and rushes the decision along by reaching into his pocket. The guy on the steps stiffens but relaxes when Connor comes out with a folded-up bill, a five, I think. “Diana Nichols.”
“Yeah, this her place,” the guy says, pocketing the bill without verifying the amount. “But you ain’t gonna see her right now. Ain’t home.”
“She’s not?” I ask, my mood falling. “Where is she?”
“Work,” the steps guy says. “She does twenty-four-hour shifts. Won’t be home till tomorrow afternoon.”
“Where?” Connor asks.
“Everywhere. She’s a paramedic. She could be anywhere in town. Dunno if she’s got a station or not.”
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” I hiss, and the guy on the steps shrugs. He’s not bullshitting us, that’s just the way it is.
Connor sees it too and sighs. “Come on, let’s go home. You can work, and we’ll come back to see Diana.”
He ushers me back to his truck, and I’m quiet until he closes my door. As he goes around to get in, I let loose with a yell of frustration. “Fuck! We were so close!”
Chapter 15
Connor
Poppy is quiet on the drive back to her place. I can virtually see her brain whirling inside her head. I’m trying to decide whether she’s listening to the unique genius of her mind, creating storylines and scenarios and characters in her head, or if she’s mad at the delay in getting her laptop back, or maybe she’s finally remembering that she wouldn’t be in this situation if it weren’t for my stealing it in the first place.
When we pull up in my drive, she opens her own door and climbs out, and I can feel the silence pressing in on my skin. She’s going to leave now . . . and I don’t want her to. But instead, she meets me at the front of the truck, pointing over her shoulder toward her place. “You coming over?”
This is a bad idea. I should say no, and I know it. But some strange madness has seeped its way into my brain. When I saw that ruby on her finger, and then when we kissed, it infected me with an insanity that I can’t seem to shake from my mind. I don’t want to leave her. I can’t. She’s got me under some crazy spell, so instead, I say, “Yeah.”
In her living room, I perch myself on the edge of the couch, edgy and twitchy like a cat that’s about to go tearing ass out of the room at the first sound. I feel like a wayward kid who’s been called to the principal’s office . . . ready to get yelled at for misbehaving. But I didn’t skip school or get into a tussle in the hallway. I’m a thief, something much more serious. And a brute, breaking that cook’s nose to get what I want. It doesn’t matter that he deserved it or that JP would have done worse. It still speaks to my character and how far I’ll go to get my way, like bribing Pete and that guy on the steps. And I’m a liar, but she doesn’t even know how deep that goes.
Poppy leans her new golf club against the wall beneath her inspiration board and comes to sit beside me on the couch.
“I’m sorry,” I say suddenly, feeling like shit.
“For what? It’s not your fault Diana Nichols is at work,” Poppy says, not on the same deep, dark dive into my soul that I’m tripping on.
“Not that. For . . .” I let my head drop with a sigh, unable to meet her eyes. I don’t want to see the judgment there when I’m baring my soul. I deserve it, but I don’t want to see it because it’ll be something I memorize to take out and replay when I’m beating myself up. “For stealing your laptop in the first place. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. I was just . . . doing my job.”
I’m searching for words, trying to be real while protecting her from my truest ugliness. I don’t know if I’m looking for comfort, forgiveness, or an escape, but I can feel something inside me reaching for her. Something that wants the hint of what the ruby on her finger teases me with.
Poppy places her hand on my shoulder, her thumb making tiny circles through my T-shirt. I haven’t earned her kindness, but I let out a shuddering, needful breath, wanting her touch anyway. It’s been so long since I’ve received any softness from anyone that I can’t refuse her kind generosity. I’m even more of a bastard for taking it from her after I’ve taken so much, but I never claimed to be anything but an asshole.