The last time she’d called him, it was because she wanted him to check out the security on her house. Well, he’d not only done that, but he’d persuaded her to move as well. That she took his advice so seriously made a huge crack in the wall he kept trying to build between them.
“Mostly.” She sighed. “At the tail end of a killer headache.” Troy imagined her stretched out on her thick comfortable sofa. “I was just thinking about today.” He waited, not wanting to bring up something that was bound to take them in the wrong direction. “Thinking about what might’ve happened if you hadn’t been there.”
Yeah. He’d been thinking about it too. Wasn’t that the reason he’d been sitting in front of her house for the past hour? What did it mean that he’d been in the right place at the right time the last three times she needed him most? This had to be some kind of fated cosmic joke.
“Don’t think about things that didn’t happen.”
She snorted. “Are you practicing to be a shrink?”
He grinned. “Naw. I just thought it sounded good.”
“Mmm,” she said. “I, uh, was hoping to talk to you a little more. We didn’t really get a chance today since I needed to help Cal get Drew home. I’m not sure I thanked you properly.”
Troy closed his eyes and remembered the tight hug, the clean fresh scent unique to Julie, and imagined all the ways she could properly thank him. Like letting him have unlimited access to every inch of her bare skin. A quick vision of her spread out on a bed with his face between her legs whizzed through his brain and sparked a hot blast to his dick. Shit. He needed to keep his mind on the conversation.
“You did,” he assured her. Yeah, he got that she was giving him every opportunity to take advantage, and every instinct he had told him things with Ari weren’t what they looked like, but he still couldn’t step into uncharted territory with her. “How is Carrie Ann, by the way? Her ankle going to be all right?”
“Yeah, she’s fine. She just tweaked it a little.”
“What’s the deal with the guy today? Was that Carrie Ann’s boyfriend?” Troy asked.
“No. That was her brother, Drew. He has a few issues. Most of the time he functions very well. But he tends to crack under pressure. We went back to Cal’s place and he calmed down. Then we took the longest nap in the history of mankind on her sofa this afternoon.”
That explained why she was wide-awake and calling him at eleven at night. She didn’t say anything for a long time and Troy waited, knowing she had something heavy on her mind.
“I must have really been tired because I woke up feeling like I had a hangover. Falling asleep usually cures my headaches, it doesn’t bring them on. Boring stuff. So...are you doing laundry tonight?” she asked.
He chuckled at her delivery. “Nope. No laundry.”
“Do you think maybe...would you like to...” She huffed a sigh. “I’d really like to see you. Face to face. Do you think we could meet somewhere or maybe you could drop by my place? I mean, unless you’re too tired. I know it’s late.”
Troy leaned his head back against the seat, more torn than he’d ever been in his life.
“Troy?” she said again. “I wouldn’t ask this except I can’t ask my mom because she’s taking a road trip tomorrow and I know she’s asleep already and Cal is hanging with her brother since he’s staying at her place for a few days.” She stopped. “I’m sorry. I sound pitiful and stupid and—”
“Stop right there.” Troy sat up straighter, couldn’t stand to hear her say those things about herself when they weren’t anywhere near the truth. “I’ll be right there.”
Fuck it. He didn’t care that she knew he’d been sitting across the street in his car. Didn’t care about anything except that she was lonely and probably scared, not only because a stranger kept sending her flowers, but also because she could’ve died today just by a fall and not some stalker’s bullet. What kind of life lesson was that?
Troy got out of the car and walked across the street. He debated all of two seconds before he said another mental fuck it and rang the doorbell. He heard Julie on the other end. Knew she was checking him out through the peephole. Saw her wide-eyed fascination as she opened the