Nothing I could think of sounded appealing.
“I’ll bring you something.”
I fluffed my pillow and rested my head on it. Why was I so tired? And why did I have to get sick at Christmas when I was already off work? Actually, no. I didn’t have the kind of job where I could afford to take sick leave. Investigations didn’t stop because the person responsible fell ill.
“Try eating some toast,” my mother said, coming back into my room with a tray that had far more on it than toast. Just the scent of the two roses she put in a small vase was turning my stomach. “Can you take these away?” I asked, handing her the flowers.
My mother raised a brow.
“What?”
“Your symptoms are…interesting.”
“Please. Just take them.” I shoved the vase in her direction on my way to the bathroom.
“Hey, sorry about last night,” said Knox, who met me in the hallway. I held up one finger and raced past him. When I came out, he was leaning against the wall.
“Sorry,” I muttered.
“Are you feeling any better at all?”
“I thought so, but now, not so much.”
Knox followed me into my room and pulled a chair over when I got back in bed. He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “I screwed up.”
“How?”
“Tackle told me the thing about the woman in confidence. I never should’ve mentioned it to you.”
“What your friends do is none of my concern, Knox.”
“He said you asked about his girlfriend.”
“I was making a joke.” I sounded pissy even to myself. I hoped Knox would attribute it to my being sick rather than wonder why talking about Tackle and his girlfriend made me so mad.
I picked up a piece of the dry toast my mother had brought to me. One wouldn’t think eating the equivalent of a roof shingle would taste any good, but I was hungry enough that it did. When that stayed down, I tried some of the chunks of fruit she’d also brought.
Why didn’t I eat more cantaloupe? I mean, God, was there anything better? And the strawberries? Wow. Where had she gotten fruit this good in December?
“Are you okay?”
I opened my eyes, which had been shut in food ecstasy, and studied my brother. “Yeah, why?”
“You look like Tackle and I did after spending a couple of days in the Somalian desert with no food and little water.”
“I was sick.”
“Right. Anyway, if you could forget I said anything about Tackle’s…uh…friend, I’d appreciate it. I guess she isn’t as into him as he was her.”
I was tempted to pick up the bowl of fruit and hurl it at my brother, but only because he was sitting in front of me and Tackle wasn’t. I guess I had my answer as to why he was in such a big hurry to make nice with me. She wasn’t that into him, so he’d get it where he could.
After Knox left, I rested my head against the pillow and thought about last night. Remembering Tackle’s finger on my neck, and then his lips, sent a shudder running through me now like it had then.
“You know you want me again, Sloane. Just as much as I want you,” he’d said. Want him again? No. I wanted him forever. He wasn’t a slice of pizza I wanted another bite of. I wanted to wake up next to him every morning for the rest of my life.
I’d spent plenty of afternoons, when I was a teenager, writing Sloane Sorenson over and over again on a piece of paper that, afterward, I’d rip to shreds. I even came up with names for the children I fantasized we’d have one day. Not names so much as one name. Landry. Whether we had a boy or a girl first, that’s what I’d want to name the baby.
God, how long had it been since I thought about any of that? Silly, childish fantasies—that’s all they were. The reality was, I’d been a “I just almost died and I need to get laid” booty call.
After eating the rest of the fruit and the toast, I decided I felt good enough to take a shower. When I finished, I felt like I needed a nap, so I took one. When I woke again, I could hear voices from downstairs.
I’d heard one in particular often enough that I recognized it immediately. What the hell was Tackle doing here so early? I rolled over and checked the time. Noon? I’d slept another three hours?
“Hey, you awake?” asked Knox, sticking his head in my room.
“If I wasn’t, I would be now.”
“Tackle’s here. We were hoping we could take you out to thank you for picking us up last night.”
“Why? So I can be the designated driver again?”
“I didn’t mean it like that. We were thinking lunch or dinner.”
The look on my brother’s face almost made me cry. I thought back to the day at the airport and how he’d said he wanted to spend more time with me. “I was joking. That sounds really nice. When?”
“Now. Or, um, later. Whatever you want.”
“I am hungry.”
“Get ready and we’ll go. What do you feel like? Or should we just pick something?”
“Pizza.”
“You got it.”
Knox backed out of the room and went downstairs. I could hear him tell Tackle that I’d agreed to go with them, but I didn’t catch his response.
After brushing my teeth, I got dressed, put my hair up in a bun, and sat down to lace up my boots. Was this a good idea? Was Tackle trying to make things seem “normal” between us? Would he treat me like his kid sister the same way Knox did? If so, it would kill me.
I slowly made my way down the stairs, thinking that when I reached the bottom, I’d tell them I wasn’t feeling well enough to go with them after all.
However, when my eyes met Tackle’s, who was standing by the door, I decided not to.
Like at the airfield, I imagined he
