Page 19 of No Small Sin

“Am I?” I quirked a brow at him.

He released a breath. “Yeah. You are.”

We spent the rest of the time not speaking. When I pulled into LC, he clapped me on the shoulder. “I have work waiting on me that I need to take care of before heading home.”

Entering through the back leading directly into his office, I found that hisworkwas exactly what I’d expected. A man I vaguely recognized was unconscious and tied to the only chair in the room that was bolted to the floor.

“I’ll leave you to it,” I nodded. “I need a fucking drink.”

He started to say something else, but I was already out the door. Indulging in alcohol was rare for me, but I needed something to calm my unsettled mind before I could even consider getting any sleep tonight.

LC had been closed for hours now, and the bar out front was calling my name.

CHAPTERSEVEN

TK

Icouldn’t open my left eye. The pain that radiated just behind it was too much.

A pulsing, dull ache.

We’d closed hours ago, but I was still here.

Alone, because I’d insisted to Andi that I would lock up and that I was certain I didn’t need her help at the end of the night.

Fuck me for trying to be a useful employee and a satisfactory coworker, I guess.

I’d gingerly nestled my way into a booth seat and made it my bed for the foreseeable future.

Migraines were the fucking worst, especially when they hit out of nowhere. I hated nothing more than feeling like this. I needed to be home. In bed. Definitely not here.

But this is how it was for me, so I was stuck. A subject to my own traitorous body.

Footsteps sounded somewhere nearby, but I couldn’t lift my head to find the source. I hoped that whoever it was would simply not notice me here. I didn’t have it in me to explain myself.

For a second I thought they’d continue on past, but the sound faltered a moment before they redirected and steadily came closer.

Great.

I felt him before he made his presence known, and somehow knew that it was Beck before he even spoke.

His nearness prods at my awareness like my fucking soul knows his on a baser level.

“TK?” He sounded uncertain.

I made a solid attempt at lifting my head but failed miserably.

Even with blurred and partially obstructed vision, the way his dark honey-blond hair fell over his face in the dim lighting twisted my insides.

“Hmm?” I moaned almost inaudibly.

He took a step closer. “Are youdrunk?”

Of course, that was his first thought. I mean, I’m sure that’s how it probably looked. But damn. Give a girl the benefit of the doubt or something.

“Migraine. Just need to lie here a bit,” I managed.

He shifted, now looming over me, placing himself directly inside my personal space bubble. Under any other circumstance, I would have been thrilled with his forwardness.

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