Knowing that Collin desires me like this is enough to make my eyes go misty. He catches the hitch in my breath and pulls away from me enough to search my gaze.
“Everything okay?”
I nod, placing a final kiss to his jaw. “Better than okay.”
Collin slides his hands into the pockets of his jeans. He stares at me as he brings his breathing back under control, a smile tipping at the corners of his lips. “Good. Feel free to level the playing field anytime you want. I might even let you win.”
“I’d win outright, and you know it.” I wink. “Come on, let’s get to work.”
I load up my picture frames, and he starts stacking up my books. We’ve got plastic bins and cardboard boxes to work with.
“Do you have tape?” Collin asks after a couple minutes.
I’m wedged behind the TV stand, trying to reach the outlet where my favorite lamp is plugged in. “Yeah, in the drawer next to the bed.”
I go up on one toe and lean as far forward as I can, my chin flush with the top of the TV stand, and my arm extended up to my armpit behind it, trying with all my might to reach the outlet. Why is it that outlets are always just out of a person’s reach? It’s one of those things that isn’t a big deal until you find yourself literally sweating as you contort your body to try to unplug your reading light to take it with you to your fake husband’s house.
As one does.
I get enough of a fingertip grasp on the plug and am able to wrench it free. The back of my hand skims the textured wall, and I’ll have a skinned wrist to show for my efforts. But the lamp is free!
“Genie, you’re free,” I whisper.
“Noli, what is all this?”
At Collin’s serious tone, I slam my elbow into the wall. “Ow! I was quotingAladdin.“ I rub my arm and glance over at him where he’s standing next to the bed. “Jeez. What’s the prob—”
My question dies on my lips when I see what he’s holding.
Oh no.
How could I have forgotten that all of Nelson’s threats were in the drawer next to my bed?
The same drawer as my tape.
Collin is pressing his mouth into such a flat line it’s like it’s been erased from his face, and all I can focus on is the fact that his skin is fire-engine red.
When he speaks again, his voice is deadly quiet. “Nelson has been threatening you?”
It’s a question, but it comes out as a statement. He knows. He’s seen the writing on the wall—or on the eight-and-a-half-by-eleven white computer paper, as it were.
I take a step toward him. “Yeah, um, I—”
“How long has this been going on?” Collin shakes the stack of threats Nelson has been sending me for the past year.
It’s a pretty big pile. I haven’t made it a point to look at all of them together. I shove them in my drawer and try to forget about them. But seeing them all in Collin’s hands makes me cringe—not only because I hate that Nelson is doing this but also because I hate that Collin found out this way. I wish I would have been honest.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” He raises his voice ever so slightly.
“Yes! Of course I was.” I take another step toward him.
He throws up his arms. “When? We said we’d be honest, Noli.”
“I know, and I have been honest! Just not about this.”
“This is a pretty big thing to leave out.” He steps toward me, and we meet in the center of the living room.
“I’m sorry, okay? Are you happy?”
