She turned away, giving him her back, and he sucked in a quick breath.
In that moment, Vincent knew precisely the reason he avoided falling in love.
Because it meant feeling like this. It meant feeling half-alive.
“I’ll be here,” he said again. Quietly. Weakly.
She turned then, walked slowly toward his front door, and he willed himself to call out to her.
But he was also mad. Mad that she was so wrapped up in her little dream bubble of what romance looked like that she couldn’t even see that he was trying.
He waited for her to turn back around. To come back and tell him that she wanted him, flaws and all. That staying in with him was better than going out with someone else.
She didn’t.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Lying about being sick did not exactly rank in Jill’s Top Moments to be Proud Of.
But since facing Vin was so not an option just yet, Jill was on day four of “the flu.”
Vincent, of course, would know better.
But her bosses wouldn’t.
Still, Jill had found a way to assuage her guilt, slightly: by working.
Granted, she wasn’t working on a case she was supposed to be working on.
But in a desperate move to stop the ache that happened every time she thought about Vincent, she’d thrown herself into the Lenora Birch case.
Sure, she had explicit orders to let that one go—but she was willing to bet that if the higher-ups had their choice between her sitting and watching soaps while eating Ben & Jerry’s, or her going through decades-old news articles in an attempt to find something they’d missed, they’d choose the latter.
Still, the task was daunting. Lenora Birch had been famous and old. The result? Hundreds of articles mentioning her name.
There were casting announcements, casting rumors, film reviews, film screenings. And that’s before you even got to the gossip rags, where there were feuds and catfights and tantrums and divorce.
Jill’s cell phone buzzed as she was reading a particularly juicy account of Lenora’s on-screen chemistry with James Killroy.
A quick glance showed it was Elena for, oh, the millionth time.
Jill put the phone back down without answering. Was she avoiding her best friend? Yes. Was she proud of it? Certainly not.
She wasn’t mad at Elena. Not at all.
But Elena had the misfortune of being related to the one person Jill couldn’t even think about right now.
Her phone buzzed once more. Elena again.
Jill was just about to put the dang thing on silent when there was a knock at her door, timed in perfect rhythm to the phone. Almost as though the person knocking was also listening to the phone ring.
Jill gave a rueful smile as she pushed herself off the floor where she’d been sitting cross-legged in a pile of paper and went to the door.
Unsurprisingly, it was Elena.
Her best friend was dressed in a knee-length sweater dress and killer boots, and was holding a grocery bag.
Elena held out the bag. “I would have brought chicken soup, but I hazarded a guess that chips and wine were a better remedy.”
For a moment, Jill had an odd flashback to that first night back from Florida when Vin had held out that smashed doughnut for her.
She pushed the thought aside.
Jill smiled as she took the bag. “You’d be right. I’m not sick so much as—”
“Being a bit of an idiot?” Elena asked, pushing her sunglasses up on top of her head.
Jill set the grocery bag on the floor with a thump and threw her arms around Elena and squeezed. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for avoiding you.”
Elena wasted no time hugging Jill back. They were both huggers by nature. Always had been. “I don’t blame you. Not one little bit. Vin can be an utter monster—”
Jill pulled back. “Wait. For God’s sake, let’s do this while sitting down, preferably with junk food and an adult beverage.”
Elena’s eyebrow lifted. “It’s three o’clock on a weekday.”
Jill shrugged. “That’s cool. We can talk about the dirty handcuff sex I had with your brother sober if you want…”
Elena groaned and grabbed at the grocery bag as she headed toward the kitchen. “On second thought, do you have any really long straws? I’m thinking of just going straight from the bottle.”
Five minutes later, they were seated on Jill’s couch, armed with a glass of pinot grigio and a bowl of salt and vinegar chips.
“You making a creepy scrapbook?” Elena asked, gesturing toward the papers strewn about their feet.
Jill pulled her knees toward her chest. “I’ve been trying to distract myself.”
Elena nodded. “I suppose that’s one of the perks of your job. Homicide’s about as good of a distraction from relationship issues as any.”
“Right?” Jill said. “Although it all feels like a waste of time. Vincent and I had weeks to turn up a suspect, and nothing stuck. Nothing clicked. I’m missing something, but I just don’t know where to look.”
Elena gave her a steady look. “Perhaps the problem is all the ‘I’ in that past statement. Isn’t the entire point of having a partner, to well, partner on these things?”