Once they’d maneuvered the locks, the subbasement spaces beneath the abandoned Quik Mart weren’t so different from the ones Will had designed under the old clinic. Big rooms, thick walls, and luxury furnishings Aidan must’ve had brought in by the truckload.
Mirren had left them an envelope taped to the hallway wall, with keys inside to adjacent rooms. They’d each taken a key and stood in the corridor like bloody idiots for a good thirty seconds, dithering. He didn’t know whether to shake her hand or kiss her. If he shook her hand, it might feel like a brush-off. He might not see a future for them as lovers, but he did want her as a friend. Last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.
If he kissed her good night, or good morning in this instance, it sent a signal he couldn’t follow up on. Not and live with himself.
Awkward as hell, the whole thing. First with Melissa and Robin squawking at each other like hens at the communal house, and then arriving here.
So they’d each paused between the respective doors whose keys they’d claimed, finally ending the indecisive stalemate in an awkward hug.
“We need to talk at dusk,” he’d said.
Ominously, she’d answered, “Yes, we certainly do.”
Fortunately, albeit for all the wrong reasons, his head had been abuzz with so many details he hadn’t been able to dwell on the pending conversation before daysleep claimed him. The job site sabotage. Matthias’s escape. The fire. Unidentified shifters mucking about.
Robin.
The annoying, fascinating little shifter was a complication Cage hadn’t expected. A complication he sure as hell hadn’t gone looking for, nor did he want. Now that she wasn’t nearby, filling his head with her colorful, unpredictable bluntness or searing his retinas with the sight of her breasts, forcing him to think about how they were the perfectly sized fruits, ripe for plucking or nibbling on. Well, now that they weren’t right in front of him, he could think.
He’d come to Penton with the notion of settling down, finding a home, and not following every adventurous road that beckoned him. Robin Ashton was an adventurous road, and he needed to remain on the off-ramp.
Cage walked across the room and held up the clothes he’d been forced to wear last night, after exiting the shower and suddenly realizing all his belongings had been incinerated. Mirren’s clothing was the right style—one could never go wrong with black—but he wasn’t comfortable stealing any of them, plus they’d make him feel rather like a child playing dress up.
Nik had rescued him with a pair of jeans that were a couple of inches too short and a button-front shirt that stretched too tight across his shoulders and wouldn’t button. Not a look he’d ever try to achieve intentionally. Robin would wind him up mercilessly.
And since when did you dress for any woman, Reynolds? Take a reality pill.
The sound of the adjacent door opening, then softly closing, preceded the knock by a few seconds, long enough for Cage’s heart to speed up. Fuck, but he hated dealing with feelings. Analyzing everyone else’s made a great hobby, but putting his own into words?
It wasn’t akin to being back in Paris—the standard by which he judged horrific experiences—but it was bad enough.
Time to man up, as the Americans liked to say.
Melissa had ditched the paint-spattered T-shirt from last night and wore a pale-green sweater that gave her hazel eyes an extra shot of sage. They were dark and serious when she nodded at him from the doorway. “I’m sorry this is so awkward; I wish we’d had a chance to talk the night you flew in.”
He stepped aside, closing the door behind her. She sat on the sofa and he wavered. Sofa or armchair? Too intimate or not? Why did every damn decision have to carry so much weight?
Melissa laughed. “You look like your dog just died and you might be blamed for it. Come and sit in the chair. That way you won’t be too close in case I decide to bite you.”
He smiled and relaxed his posture. This is Melissa. Whatever else she was or wasn’t, friend applied. “Sorry, I seem to be better at listening to others’ problems than discussing my own.”
“Well, duh.” She patted the arm of the chair next to the end of the sofa where she sat and waited for him to get settled. “Whatever you might have done in your human occupation, you’re a guy first. We women don’t expect you to talk about feelings without hemorrhaging.”
“Right.” Cage crossed his legs. Uncrossed them. Cleared his throat in order to launch into why things wouldn’t work between them. “Speaking of dogs, do you know if they ever found Barnabas?”
So sue him, he was a right bloody chicken as well as the bastard who’d originally planned to screw Melissa Calvert but never had plans to love her.