Page 74 of Handcuffed to the Bear

“Could we stop at a coffee drive-thru, please?”

She ordered the biggest, most indulgent and sugar-laden frappuccino on the menu. Avery asked for a plain latte. As the barista withdrew to make their drinks, Casey gasped in dismay.

“What’s wrong?” Avery asked. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine, except I don’t have any cash on me. Or credit cards. Because fucking Fallon got rid of it all.”

“It’s okay,” Avery said. “I’ll treat you.”

She hadn’t meant to ask, but—”I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“Doing what?” He looked as confused as she felt.

“Helping me. Going out of your way like this. I get that it’s your job, I guess, but buying me coffee isn’t your job.”

She felt immediately foolish. But Avery just smiled, seeming unconcerned.

“Because I want to,” he said, and passed her frap over to her.

There wasn’t much she could say to that.

They drove away from the coffee place with the windows rolled down, the warm summer breeze coming in. “I should have said thank you,” Casey said. “That’s probably more appropriate than quizzing you about your motivations.”

“You’re welcome. Although, actually, I do have a slight ulterior motive. A very tiny one.”

Casey glanced at him sideways. He’d slipped on a pair of sunglasses as soon as they’d left the clinic, which meant she couldn’t see his eyes. The wind whipped his dark hair back from his forehead. “What’s that?” she asked.

“You made a big impression on Jack,” Avery said. “So I wanted to get to know you a little bit.”

She tried to figure out if he was joking with her or not. “I don’t seem to have made much of an impression at all. He hasn’t tried to get in touch with me, or come to see me, or anything. I think it’s safe to say Jack has decided there’s nothing else we need to say to each other.”

“Yeah,” Avery said, “you’re only saying that because you didn’t hear him at the hospital, grilling me and Cho for regular status updates on you. ‘How is she doing?’ ‘Have you seen her yet?’ ‘How did she look?’ ‘Oh, no reason.’ I told him we should just make a Twitter hashtag for Casey updates, so he didn’t have to keep asking all the time.”

“Really?” Casey asked. From the heat in her cheeks, she was very much afraid she was blushing. “I mean, he really asked about me. Not—the other thing.”

“Incessantly, for him. Not that he’ll cop to it.” Avery tapped his thumbs idly on the steering wheel as he drove. “The thing about Jack is, he’s a really personable guy. He gets along well with most people, and he can really turn on the charm when he feels like it. He’s got friends everywhere—or I should say acquaintances. Mementos of his, uh ...”

“Less than savory past?” Casey asked. “He told me about that.”

Avery’s eyebrows rose above the smoked lenses of his shades. “Wow, you twodidget to know each other. He doesn’t even mention to with most people.”

Casey tried not to feel pleased about it. She failed.

“But he isn’t good at taking it to the next level,” he went on. “It’s not even fear of commitment, exactly. It’s more like an instinctive pulling back. He has lots of superficial friends, but very few close ones. And he does the same thing with relationships. It’s not that he doesn’t want to be close to someone, or even commit to them for a lifetime. Actually, I think he wants it very much. He’s just absolutely terrible at it. This is your building, right?”

The car stopped. Casey looked up from contemplating her nearly empty frappuccino cup, and nodded wordlessly.

Avery unlocked the doors, but made no move to get out. Instead he sighed and looked over at her. “Look, I know you’ve got a ton of stuff to deal with, and I didn’t mean to give you more. I just felt like you might’ve got to know the social side of Jack, because that’s what he shows most people right off the bat, and then you might be thinking he’s not getting in touch because he doesn’t like you. Usually, with him, it’s kind of the opposite. The more he likes you, the harder he pulls away. Does that make sense?”

“Yes.” She was surprised at just how much sense it actually did make.Because there’s something familiar about all of that, isn’t there, Casey McClaren?

“Is it okay if I get your number? I’m sure it’s in our paperwork somewhere, but I’d like to text you mine, in case you need to get in touch in a hurry.”

“ShouldI need to?”

“Well, hopefully not,” Avery said. “Like I said at the hospital, we don’t believe you’re in any danger at all now. But call us immediately if you have any reason to think you are.”

Very comforting.

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