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“That would be great.”
I walked over to the truck and started pulling out the bags, which were full to bursting with fresh produce and other groceries. My eyes popped, and I looked back at him in surprise.
“You do know that vegetables go bad pretty fast, right? This means that you’re going to have to go back down to town in less than a month to get more groceries.”
“I know,” he said, not looking at me as he came out for more bags. “I shopped a little differently this time, since for one, I have someone else here to eat the veggies before they go bad. For another thing, this person I’ve got here is from LA. Aren’t vegetables your thing out there in California?”
I chuckled, rolling my eyes. “Yeah. Up there with some of the biggest drug capitals in the world.”
He laughed too. “Fair enough,” he said.
We each went out to the truck to grab one last round of bags and settled into putting the stuff into the fridge and elsewhere throughout the kitchen. There was definitely tension there, but we managed to work through it. I wasn’t about to back down so easily.
“Listen,” he said, and I looked back at him, raising my eyebrows, “when I was at the store, I saw that someone had put up a flyer with your face on it.”
I froze, and my hand seemed to spasm as I thought about who would’ve put up those signs.
“It’s okay,” he said, coming to stand next to me. “The signs were for Macy Keene, so Alex wouldn’t have been the one to put them up. He would’ve put them up with your real name.”
“But now he’ll have someone to call and get information from about me.”
“What new information would he be able to get about you that he doesn’t already have, though?” he asked softly. “So he’ll know that you’re going by a fake name, which he would’ve been able to guess when nobody in town could tell him where to find a Macy Wallace. And when he calls the number on the flyer, someone might be able to tell him that you work at a supermarket and about what neighborhood you live in, which he already knows.”
I huffed a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “That’s true. He already trashed my apartment after all.”
He spread his fingers out so that his pinky reached toward mine, and I curled my fingers ever so slightly so that his came toward mine. “I promise you that you’re okay—I have your back, and you’re safe here.”
“Did you give anyone an update about me?”
“No, I didn’t. I couldn’t guarantee that none of them were talking to Alex. Also, selfishly, I didn’t want anyone to think that the hermit had kidnapped you.”
“Why? Because it’s true?”
He stared hard at me before backing me up to the ledge of the counter, coming close enough to touch me, but refusing to.
“If you want me to, I’ll drive you anywhere you need me to. All you have to do is ask.”
We took a second standing there, just breathing in each other’s air, and I felt desperate to touch him again… but Alex. Emergencies. Life.
There was also the inescapable fact that I was pissed at him because he still hadn’t managed to tell me a single personal fact about himself without me digging for it.
I edged out from between him and the counter, laying my hand softly on his chest as I did it. He needed to know I was still annoyed with him, but I was willing to forgive.
Eventually. And I couldn’t trust myself to maintain control when he was so close to me, with me breathing in his seductive, powerful smell.
“I’d really like to call my mom,” I said, looking at him straight on. “I honestly don’t think that that’s too much to ask, since it’s been a while since I’ve spoken to her.”
He bit his lip, and I knew he was nervous, but I gave him just enough rope to hang himself if he chose to.
“Okay,” he said. “Yeah—I don’t want your mom to think I’ve kidnapped you either.”
I snorted.
“Just try to keep it short, okay? There really is a chance that someone has a tap on her phone as a favor to him.”
“I will, I promise,” I said, feeling my stomach swoop as he led me over to the desk. He pulled out a sleek black smartphone and turned around to hand it to me.
“This phone stays off most of the time, unfortunately, otherwise I’d just give it to you to use.”
