The laugh Ben gives is quick, bright, and absolutely not real. “If we keep pouring at the rate we are, I’ll be horizontal the moment we close,” he says easily. “Rain check? Another time.”
“Yeah, yeah. Another time,” Jason says, already half-turned to call, “Table six! You need boxes for those?” at a group with only crumbs on their plates. He slaps Ben’s shoulder again, grins at me, and melts back into the crowded room.
Ben’s eyes flick back to mine. That was close. Or was it? I’m not sure anymore what’s totally normal behavior and what’s suspicious.
“Go steal dessert from my mother,” I tell him, because my heart is beating too hard. “On the house.”
He lifts his cup at me in a small salute, then angles down the counter toward Mom.
Chapter Twenty Eight
Ben
By the time I finally click the deadbolt on the Pint, my hands are shaking from the kind of tired that settles in your bones and drags you down.
Once again, the bar smells like citrus; the floor still damp in spots where we mopped the moment the last-call stragglers were out the door.
Charlotte waved me off an hour ago, swore she’d finish the cash-out. I didn’t argue. I just needed to be somewhere that wasn’t loud.
Outside, Main is quiet with only a few wandering out and about. Sweet Confessions is dark next door, the bell silent, that front window finally black. Her light was on for a long time. She deserves to be horizontal and unconscious.
So do I.
Preparing to head home, the truck’s seat hits my back, and I exhale like I’ve been holding a weight to my chest since dawn. The engine turns, and I point the nose toward home and go.
When my tires crunch up my gravel, everything in me sighs in relief at the sight of my porch.
Then I see her.
She’s sitting on the steps, elbows on her knees, the porch light shining over the top of her head and catching the wisps that’ve fallen out of her ponytail. My heart does a stupid, hard kick. The relief is immediate and eclipsed by irritation so quickly that I don’t have time to digest it.
I kill the engine, step out. “Paige.” It comes out as a growl because I am absolutely not ready for the tight fear that flashes through me at the sight of her alone here, this late. “What are you doing?”
She stands. “I couldn’t rest.” She lifts a shoulder in a quick shrug. “Adrenaline. I went for a walk and found myself here.”
I scowl harder before I can stop it. “You were walking around by yourself at this hour?”
She blinks, then her chin lifts subtly. “In Paducah?” she says sarcastically.
“Yeah. In Paducah,” I snap, and the demanding note in my own voice makes me want to hit myself. “At 1:00 in the morning, where the tourists outnumber the locals right now and most of them are drunk. Get in the truck. I’m taking you home.”
Her eyes go narrow and hot. “I’m not a child, Ben.”
“I didn’t say you were.”
“You’re lecturing me like one.” Her hands go to her hips. “I’ve lived here my entire life. I know where to walk. I know what blocks to cut around and which to—”
“Know it all you want,” I cut in, too fast, too sharp. “Knowing doesn’t stop something from happening if it’s going to happen.”
She flinches like I slapped her. Then she nods, once, slow—more to herself than me. “Right,” she says, voice flat. “I shouldn’t have come.”
She starts down the walkway.
“Paige.” I hear the exasperation in my own voice and hate it. I scrub a hand over my face and try again, less cop, more human. “Hey. Wait.”
“Don’t bother. I’ll try not to die on the ten-minute walk home,” she throws over her shoulder.
“Paige, wait.” I walk after her and put a hand on her arm.
