Page 182 of Wait for Him

It's all I can muster when I reach him.

"I wanted to make sure you got back to where you're staying alright."

His eyes are doing that thing they've always done, looking at me too closely, and I have to resist the urge to check whether my shirt is on backward.

"I'm right next door. You didn't have to do that." I glance behind him. "Where's Rian?"

"She went home. Early morning." He tips his head toward the doors. "Come on. I'll get you back in one piece."

I nod and wrap both hands around the straps of my backpack purse, then we walk. Slowly.

Painfully slowly, actually. The Sutton is three minutes away and somehow both of us have decided tonight is the night to obey every pedestrian safety recommendation ever published.

"You look so different," he says after a while. "I like the highlights."

"Thanks. It's au naturel. I finally stopped dyeing it."

He looks over, his eyes moving through my hair and across my face in a way that has absolutely no business affecting me after a year of therapy.

"It's called poliosis. James has it too."

"I never knew that about you."

"And I never knew how grown up you look with a full beard." I smile and bump my shoulder against his. "Rian seems nice. She's a beautiful woman."

He stops walking.

So do I.

His face has gone serious.

"Don't do that, Rosalie."

If it were anybody else, I'd have to ask what he means. But this is Jackson. We've known each other too long for either of us to pretend we don't hear what the other person is actually saying.

I nod.

We start walking again.

Neither of us speaks crossing the street. We don't speak in the hotel lobby either, or in the elevator, where I become intensely interested in the floor numbers because looking at Jackson is becoming a health hazard.

By the time we reach my door, I'm a fidgeting mess.

I want him to say something.

Anything.

Tell me he missed me. Tell me he still loves me. Tell me waiting wasn't a mistake. Tell me Rian was some bizarre corporate fever dream and he couldn't go through with marrying her because I'm back now and none of the rest of it matters.

Completely reasonable requests from the woman who specifically told him not to wait.

He says none of them.

He just stands there looking at me, and the worst part is I think he's waiting for me to say my own version.

Neither of us does.

"Thanks for walking me back."