Page 70 of Knot the Plan
It comes out rough, because it's the first time it's been out of my mouth and into the air where I can't take it back. Hudson goes still.
“Say it like you mean it, Morrow. I'm not building a pack on a maybe.”
“It's three.” Steadier. “Been three a while.”
He grins, quick and bright, and then he's already moving. “Okay. Good. Great. So we tell her. Tonight. We get Logan, we go over there.”
“No.”
He stops. Waits. He learned that from somewhere, waiting me out, and I hate that it works.
Because here's what he's not seeing. She built this thing to give back. She stood in this station four weeks ago and promised me an exit like she was doing me the favor.
“She built an exit,” I say. “She's still using it. Us falling doesn't mean she did.”
“She kissed you at the reunion, Morrow. There were witnesses. Well. There was a house.”
“Wanting isn't keeping.”
It lands harder than I mean it to. She could want all three of us and still hand back the coats, because that's what the plan says, and Josie follows her own plans off cliffs.
Hudson opens his mouth. Closes it.
“And we don't corner her with it,” I say, before he can wind up again.
“Why not.”
Because three of us on her doorstep with our hearts out isn't a declaration, it's an ambush, aimed at a woman whose plan is the one thing holding her steady.
“It'd be too much,” I say. “All three of us at once. She'd bolt.”
Hudson thinks about that. Nods, slow.
“So what, then.”
“We show her.” I pick the coffee back up, because my hands want something and it's the only thing available. “Stop performing. Mean it where she can see it. One degree at a time.”
“And if she never gets there?”
“Then she sends us home. Her call.” I look at him. “It stays her call the whole way.”
Hudson looks back at me for a second, and then the grin starts, slow, at one corner.
“You're describing courting, Morrow. There's a word. It's courting.”
“Get out of my firehouse.”
“You want to court her. You, personally, want to bring a woman wildflowers andmeanit?—”
“Out.”
He goes, laughing, hands up, and at the bay door he stops and looks back at me.
“For the record,” he says, easy, no joke left in it, “you've been different lately. Since her. Lighter. It's a good look on you.”
“Hm.”
He's half out the bay when he stops again.
