Page 5 of Pick One
John peered down at me over his shoulder. “Sounds like lots of your talents were wasted on him,” he said gently. “But that’s onhim. Notyou.”
I blinked. I melted.
Then I heard a voice in my head that sounded like a cross between Mufasa inThe Lion Kingand Fern on the phone saying, “Self-preservation, Teagan!”
So for once, I listened.
Well, mostly.
“John, I will bake for you bread every week for a year for the service you’ve done me this day,” I told him appreciatively. “It’s the least I can do.”
John shook his head, his gaze steady. “You don’t owe me anything, Teagan.”
“I want to do it,” I assured him, finding I meant it. “As much as you want.”
“You might not know what you’re in for,” he said dubiously. “You have no idea how much I like bread, T.”
It was probably pathetic, but theTthing twined itself around my heart. I’d never had a nickname before, unless you counted Jace calling me “runt” after I’d stopped growing at five foot six. Even my mom called me Teagan. And if you’d asked me, I would have told you that nicknames were absurd and reductive.
But it turned out that when John did it, it made me feel… important. Known.
My heart melted toward him a little more… and for the first time in my whole non-chilled life, the intensity of my emotions scared me because I wasn’t sure I could trust them. I wasn’t sure I could trustme.
So I took a step back. “M’kay. Sofa?”
John nodded.
“You know, Teagan, it’s incredibly immature to throw away a half-year relationship on the basis of a single indiscretion—” Martin began.
“Seems to me likeyoudid the throwing,” John said mildly. Then he looked over his shoulder at me again. “Ready?”
“Unquestionably. I’ll take that end.” I moved around to the far side of the couch with the confidence of a person who moved his own furniture all the time.
John nodded. “Good call. That way I’ll be on the lower step while you control the pivot.”
“Precisely my thought,” I lied. “M’kay, count of three—”
When John turned and crouched to lift the sofa, Martin saw an opportunity and darted around him to get to me. “Teagan—”
With a speed I wouldn’t have expected of him, John blocked his path by settling a giant paw against Martin’s silk-covered chest. “I think you should back up.”
Martin took a single step back and smoothed down his robe. “AndIthink nobody’s interested in your ignorant mumblings. You’re here to lift things.” His eyes found mine. “Are you going to let him talk to me like this?”
John looked at me also, like he was waiting for me to decide.
I folded my arms over my chest, copying John’s earlier stance. “Absolutely, I am.”
John chuckled briefly, his eyes dancing, then looked back at Martin, and he sobered. “For what it’s worth, I did my undergrad in applied math at Hannabury up in Vermont. Graduate degrees—both of ’em—at BU. Doctorate at Covington, which is where I teach now.” He shook his head in disgust. “But it doesn’t take any education at all to know how to treat people decently or to see that Teagan is a really special, vibrant, caring person who was badly hurt by your… indiscretion. You had your chance. You need to own that, and you need to stand aside.”
His words were soft, spoken with the quiet dignity that I’d been so incredibly unsuccessful at conjuring up, but they were effective… especially the last two, which came out in a near growl.
Martin rocked his jaw from side to side for a second before he took a step back, threw his chin in the air, and retreated to the kitchen. “Fine, then. Do what you want.”
“Oh, he will,” John said firmly, then looked at me and shrugged apologetically. “Sorry. That should have been your line, but I was on a roll.”
“You delivered itsowell.” I couldn’t hold back my grin, but tears pricked my eyes, too, from relief and gratitude and…ugh. Attraction. Overwhelming, all-encompassing attraction, not just to John’s height and his muscles but to everything he was.
Everything Ithoughthe was, I silently corrected, Fern’s warnings echoing in my head.
