There was nothing confrontational in the way he said it, but Drew saw the opportunity to come clean. More than an opportunity, it was the window for confession. If he didn’t say anything now, it would be so much worse if Mitch ever found out.
They were all adults. He was almost certain Mitch would be reasonable if Drew and Liz wanted to be in a relationship, not that they were there yet, if ever. Their two interactions in the past year had been a forbidden quickie and his response to her accident. Whether he was attracted to her or not, that was hardly a relationship. But, hell, maybe Mitch would even be happy for them if they were.
But that little bit of doubt kept him from spilling his guts. He and Mitch had been friends a long time. Mitch had been his best man when he married Mallory and the shoulder he cried on the night she moved out.
If Mitch felt betrayed—if Drew saw that in his eyes—it would cut him to the bone.
“Crazy,” he repeated to buy himself more time to think.
“I told Paige you’d never do that. You’re my best friend and she’s my little sister. I told her you’d cut your own balls off before you’d ever lay a hand on her.”
So much for reasonable. If Mitch would rather Drew castrate himself than touch Liz, it was probably best he keep his mouth shut.
“I knew there was a good reason,” Mitch continued. “Though I never thought you’d let anybody borrow that car.”
“She needed one and I had one. Simple as that.” More or less.
Mitch hit a button on his cell phone to check the time. “Gotta head to the diner. Paige isn’t feeling so hot this morning, so I called in a take-out order.”
“Feel free to take some of those tart things over there.” Drew pointed to the far corner of his desk, where a paper plate filled with some kind of baked thing with fruit in the middle and covered by plastic wrap sat untouched. Since his divorce, he’d noticed an upswing in the amount of baked goods brought to the fine men and women of the Whitford Police Department.
Mitch took a peek and then grimaced. “I’m all set, thanks.”
Drew couldn’t blame him. They’d both been spoiled by Rosie Davis. And, since Drew’s dad had surprised them all by getting Rosie to fall in love with him and moving into the lodge, Drew got enough of the good stuff so he was reluctant to make do with not-quite-Rosie’s baked goods.
Once Mitch left to pick up his wife’s food, Drew looked down at the paperwork again, but the words on the papers didn’t register in his head.
Maybe he should call Liz and give her a heads-up on the whole Facebook thing. Once the same people who wondered why his Mustang had been parked in the driveway of Lauren Carpenter’s empty house realized Liz Kowalski had been in the house at the time, the needle on the gossip meter would redline.
Calling her would have been easier if he’d gotten her cell number, he realized. He could always take a ride over there and tell her in person. See how she was making out with the house. She might need to make a shopping trip for more stuff than would fit in the Mustang or something like that. He could check on her, at least.
I told her you’d cut your own balls off before you’d ever lay a hand on her.
Or he could do his paperwork and let Liz’s family take care of her so he didn’t get himself into any more trouble than he’d already swept under the rug.
*
Liz stared at the unfamiliar ceiling, willing herself to get up and start the day. The only way it could be worse than yesterday was if she tripped and fell in front of a bus. Since Whitford didn’t have any buses, except school buses and school had just let out for the summer, today was bound to be better.
After wallowing for another ten minutes without going back to sleep, she got out of bed and threw a mug of water into the microwave before hitting the bathroom. Then, with a grimace, she dumped one teaspoon of instant coffee and two of sugar into the mug. While she’d packed those into a small box of food in the trunk of her poor car, she didn’t have any milk to add since she’d been too exhausted to run to the market. She hadn’t thought instant coffee could be any worse, but it could. Without milk, it was very much worse.