“Normal.” She lifted her arm so the bandage showed. “Did you give me fluids?”
“Yeah.” He nodded. “Eat your food, take a shower. Put onreal clothes.”
“Everything I had on was part of Raven’s new line. What did you do with my dress?”
“Threw it down the garbage chute.” She knew he was lying, but, again, it was fascinating to watch the clench of his jaw, the leap of tendons in the side of his throat. He almost seemed…
No, no. She wasn’t going to allow herself to thinkthat.
“I don’t have anyreal clotheshere,” she reasoned. “So have fun shimmying down the garbage chute.”
“You can borrow something of mine,” he said. “I’m not taking you back to your sister looking like you’re doing the walk of shame.” He glanced up at her face, his carved with disgust. “And wash your hair. It looks like shit.”
“You’re very sweet, Shepherd. Are you told that often enough? Do all your lovely ladies appreciate your chivalry?”
“Shuddup,” he said without heat, polished off the last of his breakfast like an Army recruit late for roll call, and stood to take his plate to the sink.
When his back was to her, she saw the tension in the muscles there, the bar of stiffness across his shoulders, the tight way he held his hips.
Affection swelled in her chest, deep and warm, crowding her lungs until her next breath came with a hitch.
“Frank,” she said, softly. So soft she thought he wouldn’t be able to hear it over the running tap.
But he froze in the act of rinsing his plate, not a muscle twitching.
“Thank you.”
After a beat, he nodded, and washed his dish without further acknowledgement.
Three
There were clothes waiting for her on the closed toilet lid when she stepped out of the shower: a pair of his dark blue sweatpants, a t-shirt, and hoodie, all of which swallowed her up and made her look like a little kid. She tied her hair up in a messy knot with an elastic she found in the drawer; Toly must have left it at some point, because he was the only one with long hair in New York.
When she went back out into the living room, she found her dress, shoes, and jacket waiting in the recliner.
“Aw. You went all the way down the garbage chute for me?”
He sent her a withering look and passed over a backpack and a spare helmet. “I called Toly. They’re up.”
She made a face. “What time is it?”
“Ten.”
Which meant they’d been up for a while, and would be fully alert and armed with questions for her.
“What did you tell them?” she asked, dreading the answer.
He let them out into the hall and locked up the apartment. He’d changed into jeans and boots, and added a Lean Dogs hoodie, leather jacket, and his cut to the ensemble. He smelled good, like laundry detergent and bacon. “I said you wanted me to pick you up from a friend’s, and that I’d bring you by when you got out of the shower.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that answer. “You didn’t say I was drugged? Or that…” She trailed off when he shook his head and sent her anothercome onglance.
“I’m not your dad. Tell them whatever you want.” He paused halfway to the elevator, so fast she bumped into his back.When he glanced back over his shoulder, his expression was serious. “But you gotta promise me something.”
She would have promised many things in the face of his stare. “Okay.”
“If you’re ever in that kind of situation again—and you better not be, that was stupid”—so much for not being her dad—“then you call me. Understand? Any time, from anywhere. Don’t stick it out. Call me, like you did, and I’ll come get you.”
In the early days, he’d bitched long and loud about being stuck on babysitting duty. His words now were not insignificant, and she didn’t treat them as such.
