“So I gathered.” I sound annoyed, but I can’t help it.
“He’s going to check in on Kathryn in the morning and let me know how she is.”
I nod, silent as we turn onto Avery’s block in Forest Hills. The rain has picked up now, pelting the windshield and creating a pounding racket above our heads. I park on the street outside her house, but leave the car running.
“Come on. I’ll see you to the door.”
She starts to protest but I’m already climbing out from behind the wheel. I head around to her side and help her out, shrugging free of my suit coat to hold it over her head as we jog up the short walkway to her front door.
She turns to face me on the stoop, beneath the gabled overhang.
I’m suddenly glad for the noise of the rain. It fills the vacuum of everything I want to say to her right now. Possessive, demanding things that have no place here tonight.
That she is mine. That I can’t wait another goddamn minute to know if I still stand a chance with her or if I’ve lost her forever. Or worse, could I lose her to a smooth player like Jared Rush?
I can’t tell her that I’m losing my fucking mind without her. That what I want more than anything is to carry her up to her bed and take away all of the pain and fear and sorrow she’s feeling, even if she’ll only let me come back for this one night.
I’m not sure I’ve got the honor it’s going to take to leave her right now. But to stay a moment longer is to take advantage of her vulnerability, her misplaced trust in me—something I’ve done plenty of already.
“Nick.” Her eyes swim with unshed tears and confusion as she looks up at me.
I don’t wait for her to say anything more. I don’t dare. “I have to go.”
I press a brief, tender kiss to her parted lips. Then I dash back to my waiting car before I have the chance to change my mind.
Chapter 11
I close the door and lean against it with a heavy sigh after Nick returns to his car.
What does it say about me that I can spend two hours looking after my terminally ill friend yet come home feeling sorry for myself when Nick practically ditches me at my front door? I feel adrift in my own house, left alone with just my thoughts and my worry for the friend I already feel slipping away from me.
It’s too late at night to call Tasha or my mom, and when I phoned Lita from Kathryn’s to update her on the situation, she informed me that she’d caught a cab home from the auction and was headed to bed.
That’s where I should be heading too. That is, if I had any hope of going to bed and not lying there for the next several hours thinking about Nick.
Wanting him.
Needing the kind of contentment and comfort I’ve only ever felt in his arms.
I pick up my phone, my fingers itching with the urge to dial his number. I could ask him to come back. I know he would. I also know that if I’d invited him into my home tonight, into my bed, we’d be crossing a threshold with no turning back.
If we try to return to each other again and fail, it will be for the last time. For my own sake, for my sanity, it would have to be.
As much as I wish I had Nick’s strength to lean on, I’m not sure I’m ready to face that much finality in one night.
Instead I head upstairs to take a shower and try to relax. A few minutes under the hot water soothes my tired muscles. It washes away the tears I refused to let fall in front of Kathryn.
What it doesn’t soothe or wash away are my thoughts of Nick.
My longing to be with him.
Those feelings cling to me as I wrap myself in a short silk kimono and pad across my bedroom rug to draw the blinds. It’s still pouring outside, rain pelting wetly against the windows and sweeping in waves over the street below.
The street where Nick’s black BMW still sits parked at my curb.
“What the hell?”
He’s here? When did he come back? Or did he ever go at all?