Page 47 of Pick Me
“Did the relief throw you for a loop?”
“Not exactly. The thought occurred to me that this could have happened while I was in Boston. Webb might not even have called me. I wouldn’t have been able to help. And this whole terrifying possible scenario where Aiden was hurt played out on an endless loop in my brain, and my chest got tight, and I…” He cleared his throat. “It took half an hour to talk myself down, but I’m good now.”
God, the man was so sweet. And so frustrating.
“That sounds awful. I wish you’d told me or someone else. I wish you hadn’t gone through that alone. But those intrusive thoughts are something you could, you know,talk to your therapistabout. You don’t have to white-knuckle your way to being okay, Knox. In fact, I don’t think you can. Wasting your time trying is inefficient,” I teased gently.
Knox shrugged. “I’ll mention it next time we do a telehealth visit. It doesn’t matter, though. Iwashere, Aiden is fine, all is well,” he recited. “And I’m gonna make sure it doesn’t happen again.” He finished his drink and winced at the burn. “Webb needs a lawyer. He can’t afford it, and he doesn’t want to accept my help to pay for it, but good lawyers aren’t cheap, and I need him to have the best. Whoever represented him during his divorce must operate their law practice out of the back of a Ford Pinto, because Amanda cleaned Webb out financiallyandhe didn’t even get sole custody of Aiden.”
“How are you going to make him change his mind about you giving him the money, then?”
“I’ll reason with him.Strongly.” He shrugged. “Webb’s my younger brother.”
“Oh, Lord. What does that mean?”
Knox’s sideways grin was a little bit wry, a little bit mischievous. Not quite his happy-go-lucky smile, but one that made my heart pound nevertheless. “It means I’ll do whatever it takes to make sure he and Aiden are okay.”
Seriously,sosweet. And so goddamn frustrating.
“Whether Webb likes it or not? And yet you think thatWebbshould simply stop worrying aboutyou?” I sighed. “You are the biggest of all big brothers. It’s a two-way worry-street, Knox.”
I fetched him a bottle of cold water before coming back to prod at his beefy shoulder until he stood. “Plan your strategy tomorrow, Genghis Khan,” I instructed. “For now, sleep.”
I followed him to his room and set the water bottle on his little nightstand. “You need anything else? Puke bucket? Bedtime story? I’ve got one about a warrior mage that’ll knock your socks off.”
Knox sat on the edge of his bed, ran a hand through his thick, dark hair, and looked up at me solemnly. “You know, all this was so much easier when I told myself I didn’t like you.”
“Yeah?” I set my hands on my hips, torn between decking him and kissing the life out of him. I didn’t have to ask whatall thiswas. I knew because I felt it, too. “You want me to start ignoring you again? ’Cause I can do that for you.”
And I meant it. I was so fucking annoyed at the big lummox for denying us what we both wanted that if he’d said yes, I vowed I’d ignore him so powerfully he would fuckingglow like nuclear wastefrom the force of it. I would ignore him so loudly his ears would ring, and he’d get no rest by night or by day. Legends would be told about the magnificence of my ignoring.
But instead, he shook his head slowly and said in a soft and totally un-Knox-like voice, “Nah. I don’t think I could make myself believe it anymore. I don’t think I believed it then. Night, Goodman.”
Ugh. What kind of utter asshole took away a man’s anger by saying something sweet like that?
I wanted to punish him for it. I wanted to push him down on the bed and do unspeakable things to his lumberjacky body. I wanted to bite his incredible ass like it was a damn Westfield Seek-No-Further and taste the salt of his skin on my tongue. I wanted to reach out a hand to his face like I had at the club just a few days before to erase the serious little pucker between his eyebrows. I wanted to curl up beside him and rest.
Instead, I clenched my hands into fists and stuffed my fists into my pockets, vowing to give him the space he said he wanted.
“Night, Knox,” I said just as softly, and then I turned and fled.
Chapter Eight
Knox
“Morning, Goodman.” I leaned back against the counter in the efficiency kitchen and sipped my coffee as Gage shuffled out of his bedroom. He wore flannel pajama pants, a T-shirt bearing a picture of a beaver above the word “dam,” and a pair of heavy woolen socks he’d “borrowed” from me when the first October cold snap had hit.
It had been nearly two weeks since he’d last worn shorts and done his stretches right in front of me, since he’d casually informed me that we would have the hottest, most satisfying sex ever, since he’d last given me a flirtatious look or let his eyes linger on me.
Instead, he now gave me polite but distracted smiles when I joked with him. He’d thrown himself into his work, getting to his desk before I finished helping Webb with chores each weekday morning, and returning to his desk after supper nearly every evening, except for the nights when he helped Aiden with his science project. On Saturday, Gage had let Em talk him into wearing a green Statue of Liberty toga and body paint for some historical society presentation she was running—which I’d naturally had to attend due to my deep love of history and for no other reason—and on Sunday he’d greeted customers in the orchard gift shop like he’d lived here forever and wasn’t the closest thing to a tourist himself.
The whole time, he’d been sweet and friendly, not cranky or sulky in the slightest. He’d put his coffee mug directly into the dishwasher each morning without fail. He didn’t chatter at me incessantly anymore.
In short, he’d done everything I’d ever asked him to do. Become exactly what I’d wanted him to be.
And I was contradictory enough to miss every single part of the way he’d been before.
“Mhmmnfh.” His grunted reply went straight to my dick, but the jaw-cracking yawn that followed made warmth blossom in my chest. His hair stuck up from his head like he’d suffered a terrible electric shock in the night, and his big brown eyes were still mostly shut. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to open my arms wide so he could burrow into me and I could inhale that saltwater scent that seemed to have seeped into his skin, which was so far from what I should want that it shocked me.
