Page 61 of Your Place or Mine

But something had shifted.

I wasn’t here for banter or bickering or another round of backhanded compliments.

I was here because I couldn’t stay away.

“You okay?” I asked again, softer this time. “No sarcasm. No me being dick. Just, are you okay?”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

But her voice was low and uneven, like maybe I wasn’t the only one who’d been knocked off balance by all…this.

“I should’ve watched my step,” she added. “It was a dumb move.”

I took a step closer. “It wasn’t dumb.”

She eyed me. “You looked like you were ready to call 911.”

“You didn’t see how fast you went down.”

“I tripped, Callum. Not got hit by a car.”

“Still.”

Another beat passed.

The silence stretched, but it wasn’t awkward.

It was heavy. Thick. Charged.

Like if either one of us moved the wrong way, the whole damn room might explode.

She cleared her throat. “So… did you come back to tell me I’m a liability to the structural integrity of your beer crates?”

I let the corner of my mouth twitch. “Thought about it.”

Her gaze dropped to my mouth for a split second, and I felt it like a hand on my skin.

Dangerous.

This woman was dangerous.

“You got paint on your leg,” I said, because it was either that or tell her she looked good enough to drive a man mad.

She looked down, flustered. “Yeah. I’ve kind of given up fighting it. I’m half primer at this point. It’s from the hallway between the laundromat and nail salon.”

“It suits you.”

She blinked up at me.

I shouldn’t have said that.

Idefinitelyshouldn’t have meant it.

But I did.

Every time I saw her, she was doing something…fixing, moving, building. And every time, I found myself more caught up in her than the last.

“You’re not what I expected,” I said quietly.

---