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“Are you going to confront him?”
“Obviously.”
Their silence gave me two options: fight or flight.
I didn’t do well when people acted weird around me.
I hated putting myself out there like that—making myself vulnerable to two men I trusted—only to be left with this hollow, questioning void.
Fight it was.
“Give him hell.”
“You know it.”
We said our goodbyes, and I perched on the couch, contemplating charging the door when he came through. I could turn into a primal animal and fill the doorway just as easily as he could.
See how he enjoyed being ambushed.
No. It was better to stay on the couch. Calm and collected. Let his façade break for once. He had been so weird once we landed. On the ride home, he was silent, drumming the steering wheel and listening to jazz music.
I peeked out the window to see what was taking him so long. He had gone grocery shopping and was chronically determined to never take more than one trip if he could manage.
One year, I bought him this hook that lets him carry so many bags it doesn’t even look real and he uses it every single time he has more than one trip’s worth of bags.
He was hooking reusable shopping bags to it as I watched him, and I had to look away when the hook bent under the pressure. Even if things were weird between us, he didn’t deserve me looking out the window like Gladys Kravitz, waiting for his bags to burst.
Offering to help him was out of the question. He would refuse and become even more determined to make it in one trip.
I scrolled through my phone to distract myself. I hadn’t edited the latest batch of pictures and could get them organized before work tomorrow morning. Flipping my picture album open, my breath caught in my throat. There was a picture I hadn’t noticed. One of Bash and I asleep in the hotel room bed. A mirror in the background reflected the photographer—a smiling Mac.
My stomach twisted. The image was beautiful. I was cuddled up to Bash, who had one arm around me and one arm reaching past me. It looked like he was feeling for something behind me.
Mac.
In his sleep, Bash had sought him out.
Had Mac noticed that? Did he take it so I would notice it too? Or had he simply looked at our faces—so peaceful in our sleep—and wanted to capture it?
I sent the picture to Mac as Bash opened the door. Sliding my phone in my pocket, I got to my feet.
“Need help?”
He grunted, struggling under the weight of what had to be three trips’ worth of groceries. He typically over-shopped when he was stressed. Good. Not that I wanted him stressed, but it was nice to know I wasn’t the only one.
“I’m good.”
I followed him to the kitchen and guided the bags down with him. He thanked me and a strip of his belly peeked out as he stretched his arms over his head.
I bit my lip, wishing I could pounce him. Now that my body knew how good he felt on top of me, I craved him even more.
But the tension crackling between us held too many unspoken words.
No pouncing of any kind until the air was cleared.
I sucked in a dizzyingly big breath, and he tilted his head. “You okay?”
“Yes—no. I—” I puffed out an exhale and grabbed the back of a dining chair. “Why do you hate Mac?”
