Kyle shrugged. “You can never be a hundred percent sure. People can trick you.”
He knew that better than most. “Yes, but only some people. A woman like Noelle would never trick me.”
“I hope so.” Kyle sighed and then moved to the kitchen. “So why do you not have dishes? You have coffee mugs and a bunch of barware, but you seem to run on paper plates.”
“He had a crazy ex. She tossed them at his head when she found him playing video games with the guy she was cheating on him with.” Noelle walked out of the hallway looking sunny in a yellow dress and white flats.
“That’s a good explanation,” Kyle said with a laugh. “You have a creative mind.”
“She does, but not about this. I really did have every plate and bowl I owned tossed at my head because I wasn’t sad enough,” he admitted.
“I still don’t think she was your worst.” Noelle grabbed a mug. “He was friends with benefits with a woman CIA operative who threw knives at him after she realized he only considered her a friend.”
“Kelly with the knives. Good times.” He’d been grateful she’d only been trying to make him pee his pants.
“You told the new girlfriend about the old ones? Isn’t that something you shouldn’t do for a couple of years?” Kyle asked, pouring Noelle some coffee.
They’d been up most of the night. When he hadn’t been on top of her, they’d lain in bed and talked. They’d talked about sex and their previous relationships and how sad his had been. He probably should have glossed over a couple of those, but he’d been honest with her. She’d told him how hard it had been to date in college, how hard it still could be because being in a relationship with her meant adapting to moving slower, to planning out every date to accommodate her needs.
His heart had clenched because she’d been trying to warn him.
She didn’t understand that making things comfortable and easy for her would be one of his favorite things in life. He liked planning. It was a thing no one understood about him. He enjoyed the notion that he could be important to someone he cared about. Hell, once he’d given up a year of his life, walked willingly back into hell because a man he thought of as a brother had asked him to. He wasn’t about to be scared off at the prospect of not being able to take Noelle on a particularly rugged hike.
He got into her space because it had been a whole ten minutes since he’d kissed her last. “We move on our own time.” He brushed his lips over hers. “You want some breakfast? I’ve got frozen waffles and maybe some eggs.”
She sighed, a happy sound, and wrapped an arm around him, hugging him close. “Tempting, but I think I’ll grab something on my way in. Pete texted me and he’s got the experiment ready for me. I’m hoping to run it a couple of times today.”
He didn’t want her to work at all. Well, he didn’t want her working at Genedyne until they figured out what was going on. The thought of her going into that building alone scared the shit out of him. Kyle would be somewhere close, but he wouldn’t be standing over Noelle making sure no one could get to her. “I’ll be there at five.”
She stepped back. “Hutch, I might need to work late.”
“I’ll be there at five, and you can work right here in this house.”
She stared at him as though trying to figure out how far to push him. She finally grimaced. “Fine, but I have to have this report done by Monday.”
“I would rather you worked on Saturday than late at night.” He would bet a lot of people worked Saturdays at a place like Genedyne. She wouldn’t even be alone in her lab, which he knew was part of the attraction of working at night, but he couldn’t let her do it now.
She frowned but still went up on her toes to kiss him. “Fine. But I better get to the office. Are you coming with us? Your car is still dead, right?”
Yeah, he hadn’t even thought about the fact that he’d fucked up his battery. But he had a plan in place. “Theo and Erin live a couple of doors down, and whichever one isn’t on kid patrol can give me a ride.”
They switched off carpool duties for their son and daughter, and