Page 50 of Hearts on Ice
But she didn’t want to stay here, either, especially now that the reporters knew about the place.
They could do this. As long as both of them had their eyes open, as long as expectations were clear, they could do this.
She closed the last of the rearranged bags with vehemence. How was she thirty four and still so unsure of her decisions? Shouldn’t she be certain of something at this age?
She hauled the two bags she’d decided to take down the stairs, remembering before she opened the door that she needed to call Declan.
But when she opened the back door, he was standing there on the back porch.
Her heart turned over in her chest, not just in surprise but just…seeing him. Knowing he was there for her.
“I was going to call you,” she said.
“Now you don’t have to. Is this everything?”
“No, I have two more upstairs, but Deck.” She looked down the alley, hoping none of the reporters had spotted him. Thankfully most of the neighbors had wooden fences, so maybe that made sneaking over easier for him. At the same time, she couldn’t see if any reporters lurked behind the tall fences.
“It’s okay, we got this.” He slipped through the door. “Where are they?”
“Upstairs, the bedroom on your left.”
She didn’t know what to do while he collected the luggage. She still felt like they were making a mistake, but she also didn’t know how she would be able to come back here.
“So weird how they were waiting for us,” Declan said as he came down the stairs. “I wonder how they knew we’d be coming here.”
“Maybe they didn’t know we were coming here. Maybe they thought I was already here.”
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs and rested the suitcases on the floor as he put his hands on his hips and leveled a look at her. “Maybe so.”
She started to open the door, then stopped herself. She knew that stance, that tone. “You don’t believe me. You think I called them.”
“No, I don’t think that.”
He had answered that pretty quickly. “Yes you do.”
His eyes narrowed, suspicious. “Why would I think that?”
“Because you still think I still want the attention.”
His shoulders slumped just a little, and he glanced to the side, like he couldn’t look her in the eye. “Do you?”
Her first instinct was to deny it, but she couldn’t lie to him. “I—I can promise you I didn’t call them. But I haven’t—I haven’t decided.”
Something shifted in his eyes. They darkened. No, not darkened exactly, because she’d seen that before. More like a film went over them. A protective film.
Protecting himself.
From her.
He nodded once, picked up the suitcases and carried them out the back door.
CHAPTER20
They spent the weekend laying low, which wasn’t a bad thing, really, spending time with each other in his apartment, ordering out food, watching old movies in bed.
Doing other stuff in bed.
They’d turned off their phones and put them in a drawer, out of sight but not always out of mind. Colby knew she needed to talk to her mother, especially since she was pretty sure her mother had called the reporters.
