“I think I’ll meet up with the girls for coffee. It would be nice to see them a few more times before they leave town,” Sloane replies, but something about the way she says it makes me think this is an impromptu plan she just came up with to get out of the apartment. “After that, maybe I’ll run some errands, I’m not sure. What about you?”
“I’ve gotta head to 3 In Coach when brunch is over. Jenna texted that they’ve had some problems with one of the exhaust hoods.” I let my fingers drift through Sloane’s hair, the waves still faint from last night. “How about you meet me there at four? Come in the back, through the kitchen. We can go somewhere and grab a drink.”
“Yeah. That sounds good.” Sloane rises and gives me a brief smile when she turns my way, but there’s a tightness in it before she lays a kiss to my cheek and takes her empty bowl to the kitchen. “I’d better get ready.”
With a final flash of a smile, Sloane picks up Winston and disappears down the corridor with the cat growling in her arms.
I contemplate following her into the shower. Maybe I should press her against the cold tiles and bury myself into her tight heat and kiss every drop of water from her face until she knows without doubt that she is not a burden. But I don’t. I worry that when she needs or wants space, she won’t ask for it, and I’ll push too hard. I’ll push her away.
I rest my forehead in my hands and stay like that for a long while, thinking about all the things we should discuss tonight when we can relax with a couple of drinks. We’ll find a private table at a quiet bar and talk it through just like we agreed at Fionn’s. And then we’ll come back to our home and this morning’s conversation will just be another brick in the foundation of a life we’re making together.
When Sloane appears from the corridor with her skin flushed from the heat of the shower and her hair damp, I’m still at the table, a second cup of coffee nearly finished.
“Four o’clock at the restaurant, yeah?” I ask as I rise from my chair.
She nods, her smile bright, but the tightness she can’t hide from me remains. “I’ll be there.”
And though she kisses me goodbye, and tells me she loves me, and casts a smile over her shoulder as she goes, that thin mask still remains to follow her out the door.
“Feckin’ eejit,” I say to myself as I drag a hand through my hair and flop down on the couch.
I made up this fucking game on a whim just to keep her around, and now I give her the impression that I think the whole thing is just a giant pain in my ass. And even worse, I make out like having her in my life is a fucking burden.
It’s not. It’s the farthest thing from it. I just can’t bear the thought of losing her, which is exactly what’s going to happen if I don’t get my shit together and we talk this stuff through.
So that’s what I resolve to do.
I haul my ass up and go to the gym down the street, then come back for a shower. I spend some time looking up some ideas for the New Year’s Eve menu which is still a few months away, but I know will creep up fast. Winston keeps watch as I do some chores and make lunch and give him a slice of bacon that he hasn’t earned, because he’s kind of a dick. Then I’m headed to 3 In Coach, giving myself just enough time to make it there after the staff have all gone so I can see if this fan is something I can fix myself before Sloane arrives.
I enter through the back door and disarm the alarm, then head down the dark, windowless corridor to the kitchen.
Everything is sparkling clean, all the utensils and pots and pans where they should be for Tuesday lunch when the restaurant will be open again. As I scan the prep area, my gaze snags on the framed sketch hanging on the wall, the one that Sloane left for me that first day she came in. A faint smile passes over my lips as I remember the blush in her skin and the panic in her pretty eyes. It was the first time I really let myself believe she might want something more than friendship, but she didn’t know how to make it happen.
A sudden noise from a darkened corner startles me and I whip round to see David sitting in the steel chair we set out for him next to the dishwasher.
“Jesus Feckin’ Christ,” I hiss as I bend at the waist and slap a hand against my heart as its chambers flood with adrenaline. “What the hell are you still doing here?”
David doesn’t answer me, of course. He’s not spoken a single word since we found him in Thorsten’s mansion. His vacant gaze is caught on the floor as he rocks a slow rhythm in his chair, something he seems to do on the rare occasions when he’s agitated.