Chapter 14 Iwake up in a fantastic mood. Hazel is feeling it too, and we get dressed in outfits worthy of a bright spring day even if it's still winter doldrums outside, singing songs, and then skipping our merry way down to the T. I tell her all the places I want us to travel to one day and all the funny foods we can try. She scrunches her nose at most of them, appalled that people eat things like octopus, horse, deer, and frog legs. By the time we get off the T, she's in stitches over it, and it has me laughing along with her. I can't explain what this feeling is. Hope, maybe. Hope that things are finally on the right track, which honestly should make me nervous since nothing good has ever lasted long for me, but I can't help it. I'm riding a funny high. It could be residual effects of the orgasm I had on Monday or how things are going well with school for me or how Hazel is really enjoying her new daycare more than any of the others before it. Maybe it's the optimism that with this job, I can finally climb out of my financial hole, and Hazel and I can move to a better place. It's the notion that things will be okay for us. That we might have hit some bumps in the road and maybe fallen into a pothole or two, but we can climb ourselves out of them and get back to a smoother, more even road. I don't even seem to mind that I have to work in the club tonight because working there feels more temporary than it ever has. Whatever it is, there isn't a lot that can dampen my mood. I kiss my girl a few extra times, tell her I love her to the moon and back, and get on the elevator to head into work. The office is quiet as I'm the first to arrive. Things seem to get going a bit later here than what I'm used to. In the hospital, change of shift is at seven a.m. Most people arrive here around nine, and that's likely because Vander comes and goes at weird hours. Champagne wasn't lying about that. Sitting on my desk are two thick contracts that require Vander's signature. I set down my things, tuck my cell phone into the pocket of my pants, and carry the contracts down the two doors to Vander's office. His door is open, and I walk in, feeling a little intrusive for doing so. His door is usually closed, whether he's here or not. I have no idea what time he left last night. I sent him a text asking if he needed anything because I hadn't seen him much all day, and he said no, and that was that. I left. What happened the other day in the garage is where we left it. It was scratching an itch. Working out some of our tension, and now we're back to cold and distant. Which is exactly how we need to keep it. I set the contracts down on his desk and take a moment to look around. It's a big office with multiple spaces. The far wall is all windows, same as mine, and to the left is a short hallway that's almost closed off from the rest of the space with a door at the end of it. His closet, or whatever you call it, has fancy and forbidding locks on it. It's somewhere he doesn't want anyone to gain access to without his permission. On the other side is a brighter hallway that has two closed doors. The rest of the office is a standard office. A large desk with monitors, a table with four chairs, and a stiff leather sofa that looks relatively unused. Something catches my eye, and I walk over to the table and smile when I see the long, pale wooden sticks with white plastic tips. Drumsticks. I pick one up, running my fingers along the nicked wood. He still plays the drums. For some reason, this makes me insanely happy. Like not everything about him has changed. There are still pieces of the boy I knew in him. He loved to play. He'd do it for hours, and by the time he was done, he was a shirtless, sweaty, delicious mess. It used to turn me on like crazy. The power and strength in his muscles, the music he'd make, the calluses on his hands from it. Maybe that's what's in his closet. His drum set. Maybe it's where he goes to unwind and destress and that's why he doesn't like to be bothered. He used to hate it when someone would interrupt his sessions. The far door down the right hall suddenly opens, startling me so badly that I jump and the stick goes flying out of my hand, clattering loudly on the floor. Shit. I dive down quickly to retrieve it, feeling like I just got caught touching things and being somewhere I shouldn't. Vander walks out of what is obviously a bathroom with his hair damp and wearing nothing but a black undershirt and charcoal pants with bare feet. He sees me standing here with nothing but his stick in my hand, and a slow, easy smile spreads over his lips. And holy hot sexiness. I can feel my lips part as my jaw goes slack. I force my gaze away from his colorful, muscular arms and broad shoulders, and his hair-good Lord, his stupidly sexy hair. I clear the lust from my throat. "Good morning, Mr. Moore." He raises an eyebrow at me calling him that. "Coming in early to sneak into my office, Miss James?" "What? No! I got in early today and found two contracts on my desk for you to sign. Your door was open, so I came in and... put them on yours." He stalks toward me until he's standing directly in front of me, closer than social bubble space allows for. I can smell his masculine shampoo and bodywash and feel the heat of his skin. It makes my pulse race and my toes curl in my terrible heels. His finger runs down the length of the stick in my hand. "And this?" "I was touching your stick." His lips twitch, and my face heats. Did I actually just say that? I set it down on the table with the other. "I see that." "It's memories, you know?" He nods as he slips into a long-sleeved black button-down, and I can't help but watch his skilled fingers as he buttons it from the bottom up. My stupid nipples are getting hard just thinking about those fingers and what they're capable of. S~ᴇaʀᴄh the Findηovel.ɴet website on Gøøglᴇ to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. I sigh and turn toward the window. "Do you ever wear color?" "You wear enough for both of us." "Probably true." Today I'm in blue and cream floral pants with an orange cropped sweater that hits right at the pant line. It's one of my favorites that I found in the thrift store. "What are you doing here so early?" "I couldn't sleep, so I ran in." My eyebrow hit my hairline, and I flash back to him. "You ran here?" "Yes. It's only like five or six miles." "Five or six miles?" "Are you going to repeat everything I say that way?" I laugh lightly. "Only when you throw stuff like that at me." But now that I'm getting a better look at him, he has dark shadows under his eyes. Before I know how I got here, my fingers run along them. "You should take something to help you sleep better." He moves into my touch, and my hands drop. I shift my weight under his steady gaze. "I do sometimes if I really need it." "Okay." He slides further into me until we're nearly breathing the same air. "Okay." His hand clasps mine over my wrist, where it was touching my bracelet. "Am I making you nervous?" "A little," I admit and shake my head as I peer up at him. "I don't even know why." He drags his thumb along the inside of my wrist under the delicate chain of my bracelet, and a shiver runs up my arm, raising the hairs on my skin. "You should get this tattooed on you." His thumb swirls around the sensitive skin. "Right here on your wrist." That draws me back. "Tattooed?" "Cass had his half heart on a black leather band. He was buried with it, right?" I swallow and nod, my throat feeling tight as I think about Cass's bracelet. My mom bought us the diamond hearts when I turned sixteen and Cass turned eighteen, since our birthdays are only a day apart. Two halves that always came together to be a whole. She did it two weeks after my father had roughed her up so badly she couldn't get out of bed for three days. Cass was furious and hit him over it. I was terrified with how they fought that night, but shockingly, my father backed down. My mother got us the charms to remind us that despite everything, we still and always had each other. Then, seven months later, Cass was dead. I stare down at the bracelet where his fingers are playing. "A tattoo? You think?" "It would be easy. Even I could do it." For some reason that makes me smile, and I look back up at him. "You want to tattoo me?" He's smiling too. "Actually, I do." "How could I trust that you wouldn't stencil your name on me instead of this half heart?" "Who said I wouldn't?" I laugh and start singing Mariah Carey's "Obsessed" completely off-key since I can't sing to save my life. Good thing Hazel doesn't mind yet. "Obsessed or not, I could still do it." "Thanks, but I think if I have anyone ink my skin, it'll be your dad since he's the professional. He's pretty hot too." He chokes and rolls his eyes. I used to tease Vander about how hot his father is. That he's a DILF. Irony at its best since Vander looks so much like him. "Are you hungry?" he asks. "Hungry?" "We really need to stop this repeating stuff. Yes, hungry. Have you had breakfast yet?" "Breakfast?" He groans, and I laugh, nudging him with my arm, only to realize he's still holding my wrist and we're insanely close, practically chest to chest. "No. I haven't eaten yet." "Give me two minutes, and we'll go get something." He releases me and takes a seat in one of the chairs at the table so he can put on his socks and shoes. It feels weird watching Vander do something so basic and human since he's the least basic and human guy I know. "I can grab you something. I believe that's part of my responsibilities. Then we won't have to eat together." "Nice try, Angel." He stands and grabs his coat, then drapes it over my shoulders. "I'm hungry, and I'm sure you are too. It's not a date." "A date?" I cackle since I did it again with the repeating stuff. "Who on earth would ever suggest a date? We don't even like each other." "Consider it a work meeting." "I should grab my things then. At the very least, my purse." "You have me. You don't need anything else." My heart jumps because once upon a time, I believed that. His hand meets my lower back, and he walks us through the empty office to the elevator. I slip my arms into his coat since mine is in my office, dwarfed in its size but intoxicated by how it feels and smells. Vander is quiet. Not a new phenomenon, but it feels off. There's an unspoken tension that's different from before. We let it lead us down the elevator and out onto the street before I stop him short. "Wait. I'm not going back to the café." I smack his chest. "I still can't believe you did that." He grabs my hand and holds it against his shirt. "I wasn't going to take you to the café." "Oh. Good." "Breakfast burritos?" I squint at him. "Now you're not playing fair." He grins and drags his fingers across my cheek and through my hair, toying with the strands. "With you, I'm starting to think that's the only way I'll ever have the upper hand." "Probably. You're very touchy this morning." My eyes cast over to his fingers in my hair and my hand on his chest that he's holding. "You're letting me be." His green eyes look like spring leaves after rainfall. "Sometimes it's difficult not to be that with you. It feels... natural. Almost like a muscle memory." "Yeah. Kind of how it used to be but not, right?" "Something like that." "Are you okay?" He tilts his head and studies me. "Why would you ask that?" "I don't know. You're being more... reticent than you typically are, which is saying something. But are you?" "I have a lot on my mind." We dodge two early morning joggers, his hand on my hip as he shifts me around them, and he leaves it there. More of that contact we can't seem to stop having despite the angst between us. "Are you mad because of what happened in the garage?" "No. That's not it." "You can tell me." He flips on me, narrowing his eyes. "Can I?" "Why are you asking me that way?" I stare up at him as we walk. He puffs out a cold, bitter breath. "You hate me, right? Isn't that what you've been saying? How can I trust you when you hate me?" I look down toward the sidewalk and give him my truth. "It's difficult for me to hate you, Vander. I want to. I think my self-preservation side demands it, but my heart remembers you fondly, and it's a tough paradox." "Back at you." I look up at him and study his handsome profile. "So we'll stay... adversarial? For our own good?" "It seems we have no choice." I give him a little hip bump. "Good thing I like riling you up then." He shakes his head, sarcasm and maybe a little ire in his tone. "Are you ever not smiling and happy?" I snort. "All the time, actually. About ninety percent of my life is spent not smiling or being happy. That ninety percent is spent on barely surviving. But it's that ten percent that drives me and reminds me that there's happiness to be had and that maybe if I hold onto it, it'll bleed into that other ninety percent and take over." The hand on my hip pulls me into his side and holds me close. He doesn't say anything, and I think I prefer it that way. What is there to say? This is just how things are between us. And it seems that's how it's going to stay.