Page 54
Chapter Twenty-one
Baxter
Lake had been quiet all the way back to his place. “Are you pissed at me?” I finally asked once we were through the front door.
He gave me a long look. “Don’t you already know the answer to that?”
I shook my head. “I’ve been trying to stay out of your thoughts. It feels invasive now that we’re…”
“Sleeping together,” Lake finished for me.
“Yeah.”
He shrugged off his coat, tossing that and the reclaimed leather jacket over the back of the sofa. “I probably won’t even wear it again,” he said. “It’d remind me too much of him. I’ll give it to charity. Or burn it.”
“At least he won’t be wearing it anymore.”
“True.”
When he headed into the kitchen, I followed, leaning against the counter while he fiddled with the central heating. Given how cold it was in the house, I assumed he was turning it on. It hadn’t taken me long to work out that Lake’s financial situation was precarious. Every third thought seemed to circle back to money. And instead of teaching to earn some, he’d been helping me.
“You didn’t answer my question,” I said. “About whether you’re pissed.”
He turned to face me, arms crossed. He got handsomer with every passing day. Or maybe I just liked him more. “I should be,” he admitted. “What you did wasn’t nice.”
“It wasn’t,” I agreed. “But what he did wasn’t either. And sometimes, with people like that, you have to speak a language they understand.”
Lake nodded slowly. “His face,” he said after a moment, “when you started naming all the men in his life… He had no idea how you were doing it. It scared the crap out of him.”
“Good. Between that and his father knowing the truth, maybe he’ll find a source of income that doesn’t involve prostituting himself and fleecing everyone he meets.”
“Do you think he can stop?”
“Maybe. Maybe not.”
A quiet moment settled between us before Lake spoke again. “I’ve gotten used to you doing it. Reading my mind, that is. I don’t really have anything to hide. Except…”
The familiar flush crept into his cheeks, and he looked away.
“Except what?” I asked, my curiosity well and truly piqued.
He cleared his throat. “I don’t want to scare you away.”
“You won’t.”
“I might,” he said quietly, “if you poke around in my head and realize how much I like you.”
“Oh.” A tea towel with a picture of Big Ben on it had suddenly become fascinating for Lake. “Nice tea towel,” I said dryly.
“Did you know Big Ben was destroyed by fire in 1834?”
Instead of answering, I took his hand and tugged him out of the kitchen. “No more Big Ben facts.”
“Not even that there are three hundred and twelve pieces of glass in each dial?”
I nudged him toward the stairs. “Definitely not.”
“What about the numbers being approximately sixty centimeters tall?”
