Page 117 of Rough Hard Fierce (Chicago Underground 1-3)
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m…attached.”
Disappointment tinged his good-natured smile. “No problem. Gave it a shot.”
I returned home with Bailey, bemused. I’d never been hit on before when I’d been out with her. What man w
ould want to take on a young woman with a young child, except a self-destructive guy with a hero complex like Colin? This guy had, though. I wondered now if maybe I hadn’t been giving off a don’t-fuck-with-me vibe all along. Thinking the worst of men and only seeing what fit into my ugly little expectations.
It probably also helped that the grocery store near Colin’s house was quite a bit nicer than the one near my old apartment. It was clean and stocked, and I’d never yet found dirty diapers in the carts.
Over the hour it took to make the cake, let it cool, and apply the frosting, Bailey nodded off. I tucked her into bed and asked Linda to watch her for me.
I marched into the restaurant and straight back to the office. I was a woman on a mission, the cake my Trojan horse. Colin opened the door. His face was pale and drawn, older than I’d ever seen it. His appearance shocked me into forgetting my purpose.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
His tired eyes looked me over. He was ancient today. “What do you need?”
I’d made a mistake. It hadn’t been a message, or if it had, the message had been to stay away. A good-bye enchilada with a side of “it’s not you, it’s me” rice.
I shrugged the cake box, a bulky movement. “I just brought this for the restaurant. Like we agreed, that’s all. Unless you didn’t want it. Then I could—”
“I’ll take it,” he said, taking the box from me. He didn’t sound happy about it, but then he didn’t sound mad. More flat, more distant, like he had a cold. Though I knew he didn’t, or at least he hadn’t last night.
I stood in front of him with no further reason to be there but unable to walk away. “Are you coming home?”
“No.” Not anytime soon, I understood.
Why, why, why, played in my head, but this wasn’t the place. He’d removed himself from the place just to avoid that discussion. Still, I was confused.
“Do you want me to move out?” I asked.
“No,” he said sharply.
I waited for him to say unless I wanted to. If I wanted to leave, then I should, and that would be my cue. The way a nice guy, a guy who’s unable to properly break up with me, would do it, but he didn’t say it.
“Okay.” Tiring, despairing, I turned to leave.
“Wait,” he said. “I want you to stay there. And you…you could keep sending these. Maybe…maybe send them back with Kai.”
I stopped and glanced back. “Yeah?”
He shrugged. “Nothing fancy. Don’t work too hard.”
I firmly resisted the urge to mimic don’t work too hard back to him. He was the one who looked about ready to fall over from exhaustion. Had he even slept? That wasn’t my concern. He didn’t want it to be.
We resolved nothing, really.
Chapter Twelve
I dragged myself home. The one high point was that Colin hadn’t wanted me to leave, which had to mean there was some hope for us. Or maybe he just pitied me. Either way, I wasn’t really up to tackling a new apartment so close on the heels of the encounter with Philip, and this was a reprieve.
Linda was reading a book to a sleepy-eyed Bailey when I got home.
“She woke up just after you left,” she said apologetically.
“It’s fine. Thank you.”
She looked up at my dull tone. “That man of yours at work?”
