Chaos & the Geek (Grace Grayson Security #1) - Elizabeth Stevens Page 0,11

it always had been, as we stood silently for far too many minutes.

Now and then, her eyes slid to me, until she realised I was looking at her. Then she’d tuck her hair behind her ear or push up her glasses and look away again. She’d always been shifty around me, always awkward and uncomfortable. But this was a new level of uncomfortable I didn’t remember seeing in her before.

She was hunched over and curled in on herself, like she was hiding.

She tucked hair unnecessarily behind her ear one last time and finally said, “Um, so. I slept until like five. So I’m not going to sleep anytime soon. But I can get out of the way if you’d prefer?”

I watched her carefully, wondering what was going through her head.

My training had made me watchful, always looking for motives and more than people wanted you to see. It had saved more than my team’s lives more times than I cared to remember.

“No. You’re fine. Like I said, make yourself at home. I want you to be comfortable.”

She gave a small smile, but like she knew it was polite rather than that she was feeling it. “Thanks.” She gave a weird nod. “I’ll get back to it then… Stay out of your way…” she mumbled, pushed her glasses again and turned back to the table.

I had no idea how to assure her she wasn’t in my way. All I was going to do was find something to eat and go to sleep. I had to be back at the office in something like seven hours anyway.

So instead of telling her she was in no way in my way, I shucked my jacket and dropped it over one of the bar stools. I grabbed a beer and some leftovers out of the fridge, chucked the food in the microwave and popped the top of the beer. I happened to look up and I saw Amber staring at me, her mouth dropped open in a perfect little ‘o’.

Fuck me.

My thoughts tried their darnedest to veer towards highly inappropriate at a sight like that and I put a stop to it straight away. There was no way in hell I was allowed to think something like that about little Amber Grace. Not even if the Amber Grace in front of me was all woman now.

“Did you want one?” I asked her.

She shook her head and didn’t close her mouth.

I raised my eyebrow at her as I took a sip. “You okay?”

She nodded. “You have a…”

I waited for her to continue, but she didn’t. “You’re going to need to be more specific.”

“Gun,” she hissed.

Fuck. “Uh, yeah. Sorry…” I put my hand to it self-consciously. “I usually get changed as soon as I get back. It’s either out of here or locked up. So…you don’t have to worry about it.”

She nodded, still looking like she was about to run.

“Amber?”

“Yeah?” she breathed.

I think it was the longest time she’d ever looked at me. Or maybe the only time she’d ever actually, properly looked at me.

“I can lock it up at the office if you’d prefer?”

She shook her head again, seemed to get control of herself and looked down as she pushed her glasses up again. “No. No. It’s fine.” She waved a hand at me in what I assumed was supposed to be reassuring, but just felt dismissive. “I’m fine.”

Something about the way she said that hit me. It was too much like a mantra. Too much like the way we laughed about Rollie’s naked arse being the most scarring thing we’d seen together. Too much like she thought it would be true if only she said it enough.

The microwave beeped and my head was so deep in thought that I actually jumped at the sudden noise. My heart raced like I was back on a mission and we’d narrowly missed a bomb. But Amber’s eyes were focussed on whatever was in front of her, her hand on her forehead and over her eyes like a shield, like she’d rather forget I was there.

I took a deep breath, shook myself out and went to lock up my gun.

As I went back out to eat and finish my beer, we didn’t talk and the silence was deafening. My skin prickled as though her eyes were on me and there were scathing judgements on the tip of her tongue. I never knew why one of my greatest fears was the time I stopped assuming and finally knew that Amber