“Rachel, please listen, will you?” Flynn tried as she stepped over the tub and onto the small bathmat.
“Oh no, I’ve made you feel awkward. I’m sorry, Flynn, I was really just sort of kidding around,” she said, her hand flailing helplessly. “Honestly! I don’t expect you to say anything in return, and really, I thought you’d just laugh,” she said gaily, and reached for a towel, hurriedly wrapped herself in it, then struggled with the wet mane of hair down her back.
“It’s not that I don’t have feelings,” he tried in desperation, but thought it sounded terribly hollow. He stood up.
Rachel thrust a towel at him without looking at him, and honestly, for the first time, she seemed afraid to look at him. “Oh, I know,” she said. “It’s obvious you like me well enough, or we wouldn’t be doing this, right?” she said, and stepped to the sink and mirror, and focused on her hair, watching herself comb it . . . except that the mirror was fogged over and she couldn’t possibly see a thing.
Flynn wrapped the towel around his waist as he stepped out of the tub, then stepped behind her, wrapped his arms around her. “I do adore you, Rachel. I do,” he insisted. “There are just some things I cannot explain, at least not yet,” he said, feeling fantastically phony for it.
“You don’t have to explain anything,” she said, and leaned forward to the mirror again at the same time she pulled her hair over her shoulder, forcing him to let go of her. She began to braid it.
“I’ve hurt you.” Stating the obvious made him feel like an ass.
“You haven’t!” she insisted in a high voice “Like I said, I didn’t expect anything in return. I was just . . . talking.”
“Rachel. Dear God, there is so much I want to say—”
“Oh stop, will you? You’re making this into a much bigger deal than it is, really,” she insisted with a laugh, and turned around, leaned up against the sink, smiling. A smile that came nowhere near her eyes. There was no masking the distress and humiliation he saw in her eyes, and he’d never felt like such a cad as he did at that very moment.
“Come on, Flynn!” she said, laughing again. “It’s not as if I thought this was going anywhere,” she said, motioning vaguely to the bathroom. “I mean obviously, you’re British, I’m American, we live thousands of miles from each other, our lives are very different—”
“But I thought we were entirely compatible. You said so yourself.”
“Phhht,” she snorted with a roll of her eyes. “Yeah, I did. But you know, the fact that we both like Coldplay does not mean that we are going to be a couple, right?” She stepped around him. “You took it too seriously. You know me, I like to talk. Chatter chatter chatter.” She opened the bathroom door; a rush of cold air hit him square in the face, sobered him even more. “Speaking of chatter, I’m going to have to run. I have to call some people tonight and make sure they’re bringing stuff to Thanksgiving. And a turkey. I really need to get a turkey.”
Flynn followed helplessly behind her, padding out into the bedroom and standing there like an idiot as Rachel found her clothes and began to dress, wishing he could think, could find a way to tell her everything. But his professional self convinced him not to say anything, not yet.
She chatted on about the turkey, but he was silently and fiercely debating what he should tell her—if he told her she was part of an investigation, he would tip his hand, and they might lose a very valuable link to solving it. He could not forget the job he was sworn to do, or the fact that he was breaking every law enforcement convention that he knew by falling in love with her. But that was the rub—he wanted to be with her, because he, too, had fallen in love, and God, he desperately wanted to say so.
Which left him standing there, wondering exactly what he intended to begin with—where had he thought this would all lead? Did he think he’d never have to face the truth? It was inevitable, and he was wholly unprepared to deal with it, bloody fool that he was. So he just stood watching miserably as Rachel dressed and stuffed her big bag full of her things that were scattered about, and when she turned to face him with that blindingly false smile, he opened his arms, wrapped her in an embrace. Rachel responded by pressing her face to his shoulder, and her body sagged against him.
“Rachel—”
But she suddenly lifted her head, stepped out of his embrace. “So you’re coming Thursday, right?” she asked.
“Yes, of course,” he said, trying to sound reassuring.
“Great!” she exclaimed. “I’ve really got to run.” She gave him a peck on the cheek and quickly proceeded to the door, her wet braid swinging above her hips.
He shoved both hands through his wet hair in despair. “I’ll ring you later, all right?” he called after her as she reached the door.