Irritable, she decided. Because if that’s what Thorne wants, he’s shit outta luck. That is not me and never will be.
It wasn’t like she was unhappy with her body, because she wasn’t. She was thirty-eight but barely looked thirty. At least that was what she was told. And she was vain enough to want to believe it.
Thorne, of course, was built like a god. That was indisputable. And if she said she’d never wondered what it would be like with him, she’d be a dirty liar. She hadn’t gone to all his neighborhood league soccer games because she’d been a sports fan, for God’s sake. It was because Thorne in a pair of shorts was too much perfection to pass up. But she’d never let it go beyond idle wondering – and maybe some lusting – because they’d been friends.
And because she’d never thought she would have a chance in hell. He’d always dated women who looked like the airbrushed bimbos on the posters. Flight attendants, traveling saleswomen, singers who played Sheidalin on their tours. Nobody who was permanent. She’d never seen him in a real relationship.
Because he was waiting for me.
Bullshit, the small voice in her mind said very loudly. He can’t be serious.
But he’d seemed to be. And she trusted him. More than anyone except Lucy. I’ll figure it out, but not tonight. She found a blanket and sheets in his closet, then went looking for him, hoping she could convince him to go to sleep.
Approaching the kitchen, she heard Thorne and Jamie in deep conversation. About Phil’s heart. Oh shit. Not now. Goddammit.
Her own heart stuttered at the fear and pain on Thorne’s face. When Jamie rolled his chair out of the kitchen, he didn’t see her because he was heading down the hall in the opposite direction. But she saw him stop a few feet down the hall to wipe his eyes and square his shoulders before heading off to bed.
Poor Phil. Poor Jamie and Thorne. Quietly she dumped the blanket on the sofa and went to the kitchen, where Thorne sat with his head in his hands.
Baltimore, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 12.50 A.M.
Thorne’s chest hurt, burning from the shuddering breaths he was forcing in and out. When he caught the scent of lavender, he didn’t move. Didn’t look up. A chair dragged across the floor and she was there, sitting close enough that he could smell her vanilla shampoo. The next breath he drew was easier, the next even easier.
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘For yelling at me?’ he asked.
‘No. I’m not sorry for saying you needed to rest or that you were much more than a guardian. I’m not even sorry for the way I said it.’
‘Then for what?’
‘Taking your bed.’
He snorted a half-laugh. ‘Really?’
‘Well, no, not really. I would have totally slept there, but I couldn’t take all the Pamela posters. That much boobage, Thorne . . . That’s just wrong.’
He laughed quietly, then stiffened when her hand touched his knee. Quickly she retracted it. ‘And I’m sorry about Phil.’
He sighed. ‘You heard what Jamie said?’
‘Yes. I was coming back to tell you to sleep in your own bed and I heard.’
He sighed again, his head still in his hands. ‘I have to figure out how to fix my face so that Phil doesn’t know I know. He’s bringing me an air mattress any minute.’
‘Not tonight. He came to look for the mattress and I told him I’d just take the sofa.’
Thorne lifted his eyes and met hers. They were filled with compassion and kindness and affection, and the sight made his eyes sting. ‘I remember the day I came home from school and found all those posters on the walls.’
‘You didn’t put them there?’
He scoffed. ‘Hell, no. They did, thinking I’d like them because I was seventeen and straight. Women like that aren’t my type.’ You are, he wanted to add. But he didn’t. He’d give her space to be in control of her own decisions even if it killed him. ‘I took them down eventually. They just put them up today as a joke.’
‘Why didn’t you tell them you didn’t like Pamela? I think those guys would move heaven and earth for you.’
‘They would. They did.’ The memory was bittersweet. ‘I had no home. No one who cared. Sherri was gone, and I thought my life was over. At seventeen. But Jamie and Phil, they cared when they didn’t have to.’
Her swallow was audible. ‘I love them for that. For being what you needed.’
‘They always have been. During the trial, I continued my studies with a tutor – paid for by Jamie – because Phil asked me not to give up. Not to assume I was going to prison. He had faith in Jamie, so I did too.’
‘When did you realize they were together?’
‘The first day.’ His lips turned up. ‘They told me. Said they didn’t want me to feel pressured to stay if I didn’t want to. But Phil already knew I was okay with it. He was also coach of the debate team, and Sherri and I were both members. We’d debated the topic of marriage equality and Phil knew where Sherri and I both stood. We’d seen the wrong side of discrimination too many times to be okay with doing it to someone else. But I felt . . . more secure that they told me. Because it meant they trusted me in their home, with their private lives. They weren’t afraid I’d kill them or steal from them or betray them.’
‘I’m so glad you had someone who loved you,’ she whispered fiercely.
He turned to search her face. ‘You didn’t?’ Because they’d never spoken of any of this, not in all the years they’d been friends. He knew precious little about Gwyn’s life before she’d joined his law firm. She’d had her secrets and he’d respected that. Now . . . now he wanted to know. Everything.
‘Not really. I had my aunt, but I was on the outs with my family long before I ran away from home.’
‘And joined the circus,’ he supplied. He knew that much because it had been on her résumé. He’d found her fascinating then. He still did.
‘Yep.’
It wasn’t enough, not nearly, but he could hear Jamie telling him to give her time and space. So he didn’t push. Just drew in her scent, letting it calm him as it always did.
‘I was lucky, I know,’ he said. ‘And after the trial, they kept doing nice things for me. It took me a long time before I could just accept it and say thank you.’
‘Kind of like today?’ she asked, and there was a wistful note to the question. ‘When everyone came together to help you?’
‘Yes. Exactly like that.’
She nodded once, thoughtfully. ‘It’s hard, learning to accept that people might want to help you, to do things for you, for no apparent reason.’
‘Maybe that they love us is reason enough.’
She was quiet for a moment. ‘I think that’s the very hardest thing to accept,’ she said, and he wasn’t sure who she was talking to, him or herself. She stood, the movement fluid and graceful. ‘Go to bed, Thorne. And please sleep there, under all the Pamela posters. I’ll be fine on the sofa. I promise. Tweety will sleep next to me.’
He swallowed hard, clenching his hands into fists because he wanted to touch her so damn badly. ‘All right. We’ll have to leave by eight.’
‘I’ll be ready.’
Annapolis, Maryland,
Monday 13 June, 3.15 A.M.
He woke with a jolt as cold feet pressed against the backs of his legs. ‘Wha . . .’ But then he smelled coconut and Kathryn. She’d showered with the special body wash that he’d bought her to cleanse the stink of her job from her body. ‘Mmm,’ he hummed when her hands roamed up his chest. One thing about a woman in her twenties, she had voracious appetites and he loved that.
‘Did everything go to plan?’ he asked her.
‘It did,’ Kathryn purred in his ear, then nipped his ear lobe. ‘Just like clockwork. How was your day?’
‘Had to get rid of the idiots I sent to bag Thorne. They nearly killed him.’
‘And I missed it? Did you film it?’
He chuckled. Kathryn was as bloodthirsty as Madeline had been. ‘No.’
She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. ‘What do I keep telling you? Those sessions are training gold. You show videos of them to your new recruits and I guarantee they will never fuck up.’
‘Next time you can film it,’ he promised.