Antiques meant money.
“You didn’t have to,” I said with a sigh. “Thank you, Rush, but I can’t accept it. It must have cost you—”
“It didn’t,” Rush cut in. “I, um…”
The uncertainty in his voice had me lifting my eyes. A wave of vulnerability and hurt washed over his expression before he dropped his eyes to the table so I couldn’t see them anymore.
“It belonged to my parents,” he said softly. “I think they would have liked for you to have it.”
His comment didn’t make much sense, but the hurt in his voice did.
“Come in,” I said quickly as I pulled the door open farther. I made sure to pick up Pip so he wouldn’t cause another accident. I watched in silence as Rush carried the weighty side table inside and placed it in the spot the other one had been in. I caught my breath at how perfect the piece of furniture looked.
“Rush,” I said with a shake of my head. “At least let me pay you—”
“Christopher, I’ve got three storage units full of my parents’ belongings. Everyone kept telling me to sell it all off in an estate sale before I left Colorado, but I couldn’t do that.”
The raw pain in Rush’s voice as he spoke had me moving closer to him. I wanted to offer some kind of comfort for the loss he was so clearly still dealing with, but I didn’t know how.
“You weren’t ready to let them go,” I suggested.
Rush nodded. “I’ve got the stuff from my own apartment in another unit, so when I get my own place, I’ll do some mixing and matching and sell or donate what’s left. I like knowing that a piece of my parents is here with you, even if it’s just so you can tell someone the story about the clumsy idiot who broke your original table.”
I found myself smiling. And then I did something I hadn’t been planning. I cuddled Pip with one arm and stepped into Rush and wrapped the other around him. I couldn’t say who was more surprised at the move, him or me, but before I could try and undo it, Rush’s head was dropping to my shoulder and his arm was going around my waist.
Alarm bells should have been going crazy in my head, but there was nothing but silence. There was no obsessive, insistent voice reminding me that the man could be reading too much into the gesture, and there wasn’t the perpetual sense of loss I felt when one of my family members managed to get their arms around me for a hug.
It wasn’t until Rush lifted his head and a few pregnant, silent beats followed that it became like someone had flipped a switch and all the easiness was sucked out of the room, only to be replaced by this heavy tension that had nothing to do with discomfort or awkwardness.
I willed myself not to look at his mouth, but that was exactly what I did. My body went haywire the second I took in Rush’s full lips, and it wasn’t until Pip let out a little squeak that I realized how much my body had locked up tight in anticipation of what was to come. To cover my behavior, I shoved Pip at Rush, giving him no choice but to take the kitten, and hurried to the kitchen. “I’m just going to get something to dust it off a bit.”
I sensed Rush’s eyes on me as I moved around the kitchen in search of a suddenly missing dish towel, but I couldn’t find it.
“I used it to clean up yesterday,” I heard Rush say from behind me. As he spoke, he moved around the island so I could see him since the boxes of books were still in the same place. “I’m not sure if that’s the one you’re looking for…”
“It is,” I acknowledged. “I threw it in the laundry basket.”
I pressed my back against the sink as he approached me. I couldn’t say if I was happy or disappointed when all he did was hand me Pip.
Rush took several steps back and leaned his back against the edge of the island, leaving only a few feet between us.
“I could offer to take my shirt off and use that to wipe it down, but that sounds like the beginning of a bad porno movie.”
The comment was so out of the blue that I let out a shocked little laugh. It was only when I saw the mischief dancing in his eyes that I realized he’d said the words for that exact effect.
“Do they even call them pornos anymore?” I asked. “How old are you exactly?”
“Touché,” Rush said with a smile.
I couldn’t resist the smile that crossed my own mouth. The only one I’d ever bantered with in any kind of way had been Gio, and that had been a long time ago. The mere thought of what I’d let my relationship with Gio become made something inside of me hurt. I eased Pip to the floor and then turned to face the sink and turned the water on. My hands didn’t need washing, but I needed a moment to get control of my wayward emotions. When I turned around though, Rush hadn’t politely moved away, and he hadn’t stopped looking at me with those all-knowing eyes of his.