“We should move in together,” I blurted out. “I have an empty house. You have a week-to-week rental. It doesn’t make sense that we can’t both just… share.”
She looked at me oddly.
“I have a week-to-week rental with my brother,” she whispered. “And if anyone should move out, it’s you. You’re in a haunted house.” She looked behind me as if she didn’t even want to come in the door. “But that’s beside the point. I’m thinking that, since this is the first time that you’ve talked to me in a month, that maybe we should start slow. You know, maybe grab lunch sometime next week.”
My lips twitched. “I was going to call you today anyway.”
I was, too.
After seeing her yesterday, I’d realized that there was no more putting off the mess that I’d found myself in.
Despite her words, she wasn’t going to wait forever.
I had a feeling if I didn’t get my head out of my ass, then she would bolt.
If her actions yesterday were any indication.
Despite her wariness with me and insistence that I needed to take some time to deal with my feelings, this last month was necessary.
I’d had to do a cross-country move with all of my stuff. Catch up with all the family that I’d left behind. Relearn all of my nieces’, nephews’, great-nieces’ and nephews’ names, find a job, move into a house. Get settled in with the other Souls Chapel Revenants. And that wasn’t even taking into account some of the shit that had gone down in the last month with the other members of the MC.
Needless to say, I’d needed the month.
I had enough time at night to fall right into bed, and enough time in the morning to wake up, main line a shot of coffee, and get to my new real job as a private investigator.
See, Lynn already had quite a bit of business for that, and I hadn’t realized just how chaotic it would be until I was thrust right into the middle of it.
I had a million and one things to do today.
I didn’t have time to take her to the doctor.
But I would.
Gesturing her inside, I stepped back and made a beeline for my phone that was on the counter next to my toothbrush I was just using before she’d knocked on the door.
When I turned around to address her, I found her still standing on the front porch.
“You can come in,” I reiterated.
She wrinkled her nose. “I don’t do scary stories.”
I gave her a look, and she sighed.
“Son of a bitch,” she grumbled as she walked into the house, expecting something to smite her the moment she breached the door. “I better not die, or I’ll haunt your ass for the rest of my life.”
I grinned at her and gestured for her to take a seat.
“What time do we need to leave here by to get there on time?” I questioned.
She looked at her watch, which was a cool Luminox.
It was way too big for her hand, and it was old to boot. I had a feeling that it’d been her father’s or grandfather’s at some point. There was no way that something that big and scratched up was hers.
“About twenty minutes or so.” She paused. “I wasn’t actually sure how long it would take to get here, or if you’d be ready by the time that I got here, so I wanted to give you ample time.” She paused. “Unless I could just borrow your truck?”
I gave her a look. “You don’t want me to come?”
Her eyes slid away from me to the sink where she took in where I brushed my teeth.
She curled her lip up in disgust when she saw the toothpaste tube. “That’s disgusting.”
I looked down at where my toothbrush was, and then at the tube that really was disgusting. I wasn’t one of those that kept the toothpaste tube clean, or, for that matter, the lid on.
I was one, in fact, that was a bit messy with it and didn’t really care.
In all other aspects of my life, I was clean and tidy. I gave myself that one out.
“You’re neglecting to answer my question,” I told her.
She turned her disgusted gaze from my toothbrush and toothpaste to me, and the look slid right off her face and became… more.
“I don’t hate you nor do I not want you to come,” she said softly. “It’s just incredibly hard to be near you.”