“Then come out here.”
“Definitely no.”
“You have exactly three seconds to open this door, or I swear to God I will…”
Before I had to make up a false threat, he opened the door. Files and papers flooded the small office. The cheap wood furniture peeked out between crumpled pages. I shouldn’t have even been surprised.
Rick turned away and squatted to rifle through a bookcase. Rather halfheartedly, considering the magnitude of disarray.
“What the hell, Rick? Now.”
He stopped and bowed his head. Then he turned and stood, with so much raw emotion on his face that my breath caught. In the year and a half that I’d worked here, I’d never figured him out, but in this moment his eyes told the whole story.
Nothing so mundane as details. The broken, raw, painful part of me recognized the same thing in him. We stood there, connected by this nothing, and everything. It was uncomfortably intimate. More intimate than sex, but I’d learned long ago that the recognition of pain was so much more potent than the sharing of pleasure.
He leaned in, his intent clear. I didn’t want to kiss him. He was a friend to me. Maybe even a surrogate father, since mine never came around. And there was Colin.
I jerked back, just slightly.
He froze, and then smiled a small, sad good-bye. It was a relief, to see he understood and accepted it, and a confirmation that we’d been real friends. A small rush of air escaped me. It was a miserable thing, not knowing a friend from an enemy.
“Allie,” he whispered. “Come with me.”
“Where are you going?”
“Away. Let’s leave this place. I’ve got a little money saved up. It’ll be just us.”
Even if there wasn’t Colin or Shelly, I wouldn’t have. Probably not. But stupidly, the first thing that popped into my head was, “What about Bailey?”
“She’ll come, too, of course.”
I shook my head against the crazy. “What are you saying? We aren’t going anywhere. You have the bakery. And I have…well, I have roots here.” That was an exaggeration. I had history here, in this city, which wasn’t quite the same. And I had Shelly, who’d just as soon transplant with me.
Colin counted as roots, however young and tender they may be.
I had to see him again. Right now.
Rick was searching again, picking through the papers like they were rubble from an explosion and babbling about finding things and running out of time. I wanted to help him, but sometimes I had to learn when to walk away. When I wasn’t really wanted or needed. And Rick, for all that he cared about me in his own way and had asked me to go away with him, was in his own world. I was a prop, not a player.
I put a hand on Rick’s arm, and he stopped moving. He looked up at me, lost.
“I’m going to go now. I’ve moved in with someone.”
“Okay,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“You have nothing to be sorry for,” I told him. “But…I quit.”
The relief on his face was answered by gratitude within me. There weren’t words, so I pressed a soft kiss to his lips before leaving the bakery for the last time.
Chapter Sixteen
“Is living with a man all it’s cracked up to be?” Shelly asked as she examined her nails.
I studied her, unsure if she was being sarcastic or not. A mist of caution had risen between us in the few days I’d been at Colin’s. “Oh, you know. The toilet seat’s up, and there’s extra laundry. That’s about it.”
She glanced up, a small curve to her lips. “You do his laundry?”
My lips answered hers in a smile. “Yeah.”
“Isn’t it sort of…weird? I mean, underwear.” She lowered her voice—this from the girl who’d taught me everything I knew about how to give great head.
I ducked behind my pizza slice as I took a bite. It was weird. Blowing a guy was one thing, folding his underwear seemed so…personal.
Still, I’d insisted. I picked up all the housework and even got a cookbook. It was the least I could do, considering I wasn’t contributing financially.
Speaking of which. “Where’ve you been staying? I stopped by the other day.”
Shelly grabbed another slice from the box and began picking off the toppings. She always picked everything off, though she insisted on ordering supreme. It added variety, she always said. “At a friend’s place.”
“A friend?” I didn’t mean to sound so skeptical, but she and I weren’t exactly the book club type. It had just been me and her. At least since Andrew had…well, since Andrew.
“A client,” she said.
That was new. Brand, spanking, completely against the rules new. I opened my mouth—to warn her, to chastise her—but she was a big girl, and I wasn’t quite that much of a hypocrite. In fact, that meant she was now living with a guy too, although I doubted he could pay her enough to do his laundry.
“So, did you bring me something fancy?” I asked.
“Some of my best stuff,” she said. “What’s it for?”