Page 142 of What We Break
"Okay." I blow out a breath. "Okay. Tea. Let's do tea. Before I say something else embarrassing."
Laine's apartment is a different planet after the chaos of camp. She moves through it like she belongs here — obviously she belongs here, it's her apartment — turning on lamps, filling the kettle. I like watching her in her own space.
Except I can't just watch. I'm already up, pacing the living room,scanning her bookshelf, picking up a candle — vanilla, nice — putting it down. There's a picture frame on the shelf that's tilted maybe two degrees to the left and I fix it even though it was fine.
"Chamomile okay?" she calls from the kitchen.
"Perfect. Great. Whatever you've got." I catch myself bouncing on my heels and lock my knees. "You have a lot of books."
"I like to read."
"No, I know, I just —" I grab a paperback, thumb through pages I'm not reading, shove it back. "Sorry. I'm being weird."
Laine comes back with two mugs. "You're coming down from an adrenaline spike. It's normal."
"I know it's normal. I literally do this for a living." I take the tea and immediately scald my tongue. "Shit. That's hot. You should warn people."
"It's tea, Reid. It's supposed to be hot."
"See, that's the kind of critical information I need." I blow on it like I'm trying to put out a house fire. "Safety first."
Laine settles onto the couch and waits. Patient. She knows I'll land eventually.
I last maybe thirty seconds.
Then I drop down next to her, close enough that our thighs press together, and the buzzing under my skin all night dials down a notch. My leg's still bouncing, but slower now. Manageable.
"Better?" she asks.
"Getting there." I take another sip. Still too hot. "What about you? You seemed pretty calm for someone who almost got grabbed by a paranoid vet."
"He didn't get that close to me." Laine shrugs. "I'm used to being the target. When people are in pain, they lash out at whoever's closest. Usually that's the nurse."
"That doesn't make it okay."
"No. But it's part of the job." She curls against my side, and my arm goes around her before I even think about it. Muscle memory even though we’ve only just started getting comfortable with each other. Weird how fast your body learns a person. "Tonight was different though."
"How?"
"Usually I handle it myself. Or security handles it." She tips her face up to me. "Tonight I had you."
I pull her a little closer. Press my chin to the top of her head.
"You'll always have me," I say, and then immediately want to shove the words back in my mouth because that's — that's a lot. That's a whole thing. But it's also true, so. "I mean — shit. I know that sounds intense."
"It doesn't sound intense." She's smiling now. "It sounds nice."
"Nice. Okay. I'll take nice." My leg's going again, heel bouncing against the floor like it's got its own agenda. I'm not even going to try and stop it. But she didn't run out of the apartment screaming at the idea of us together long term. I mean I could come right out and say 'I want your forever,' but even I realize that four months in that's a lot.
Doesn't mean I don't feel it though.
"Blake was scary tonight," Laine says after a moment. "The way he handled that guy."
The subject change catches me off guard. "Yeah, Blake's got skills. You didn't know?" I guess we didn't talk about the kind of unit he worked in, so maybe it's normal that it took her by surprise. Blake was an operator through and through.
"I don't— well maybe I. It's just..." She hesitates, like she's not sure she should say whatever she's thinking. "He seemed different tonight. More like himself."
"More like himself?"
