Page 39 of Mack

“I know that. In my head I know that.” She pressed her fingers to her chest. “In here it doesn’t always work that fast.”

He nodded slowly, like he was turning it over, taking it seriously instead of dismissing it or trying to fix it with the right words. “So, what do you need from me?”

The question caught her off guard. She’d expected reassurances. Promises. The full performance of a man trying to talk her out of her own fear. She hadn’t expected him to just ask.

“I don’t know yet,” she admitted.

“That’s okay.” He reached over and tucked a strand of hair back from her face, just the lightest touch, nothing demanding in it. “I can wait while you figure it out.”

She looked at him for a long moment, this man she hadn’t planned on, sitting in the wreckage of an evening she hadn’t planned on either.

She didn’t say anything. But she didn’t move away.

****

Mack watched her hug her knees to her chest and wanted to close the distance between them. He didn’t. She’d just handed him something fragile and hard-won. The worst thing he could do was rush her.

He knew what had happened to her. You didn’t get that good at keeping people at arm’s length without practice. He’d chalked it up to personality at first, her sharp edges and how she could turn a conversation on a dime. But he’d caught glimpses underneath it. Moments where she’d go somewhere behind her eyes and come back half a second later like she hoped no one had noticed.

He did since he knew the signs.

‘I don’t know yet,’ she’d said, when he asked what she needed. Like the question had surprised her.

It bothered him that it had. It bothered him that somewhere along the way she’d been trained to expect anything other than someone simply asking.

He reached over and pushed the hair back from her face before he’d fully decided to do it. Felt her go still at the touch, not pulling away but not leaning in either. Holding her breath, maybe. Waiting to see what came next.

Nothing came next. That was the point.

He’d meant what he said about waiting. He wasn’t being patient to get something from her. He was patient because she mattered, and anything worth having was worth letting it come at its own pace.

What he didn’t tell her was that she scared the hell out of him, too.

Not in the way Troy had scared her. Nothing like that. But in the quiet inconvenient way of realizing that somewhere between the first conversation and this moment she’d gotten under his skin, and he certainly hadn’t planned for that. He wasn’t a man who fell easily. He’d always taken a certain pride in that. He wasn’t so proud of it right now.

She was still looking at him, trying to read him the way he’d spent weeks trying to read her. He wondered what she saw. He hoped it was the truth because he didn’t have anything else to offer her.

“You don’t have to figure it all out tonight,” he said as he touched her hair.

“I know.”

“I mean it. There’s no deadline.”

She was quiet for a moment. Then, so softly he almost missed it, “When did you get like this?”

“Like what?”

She shook her head, almost smiling, like she didn’t quite have the word for it yet.

He decided to count that as a good sign.

“I’ve been having… dreams about him. It’s like a warning that he’s not done with me yet, but I don’t know why he hasn’t been around. He knows where I am. He knows I’d stay in Clifton because my parents are here.” She looked at Mack. “Where else would I go?”

“If he does show up, you tell me, Mallory. Do you hear me? I want to know.”

“Alright,” she said softly and he wasn’t sure he believed her or not.

He got up, found his jeans, and pulled them on before heading to the kitchen without asking if she wanted anything. He just went. He came back to the doorway carrying two bottles of water like it was the most natural thing in the world.