up a link for the local golf store.
Ever since that night we spent at David’s a week ago, he’d been pulling back, doing exactly what he’d asked me not to let him do. But it was so subtle, some moments, I was still trying to figure out if he really was becoming distant, or if I was imagining it. He did have a lot going on. A ton on his mind. He had double the workload, a Dad who was ill… it wasn’t like I expected him to be at my beck and call every single moment of the day.
Yet, since I’d met him, he had been. And I could feel the difference now. A wall went up between us that night. I felt it before we went to bed, when he first kissed me in the kitchen and felt it more succinctly when this morning, he’d barely looked at me or spoke to me as we got ready for work and he drove me in.
“I won’t be able to drive you home later.”
I jerked in my seat, not at his tone, but at how he didn’t even look at me. His hands were wrapped around the steering wheel, eyes straight ahead in his parking spot outside Valor. He acted like I wasn’t in the car and I reached over to cover my hand with his, just to get his attention, but he flinched as I did.
Pulling my hand back into my lap, I asked, “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
“I’m good. Just a business dinner. About the river project.”
“I thought it was still in the proposal stage.” Confusion knitted my brows. Sandra and I had been working on this for weeks, Brandon for longer. They wouldn’t present it for a couple months yet.
His jaw tightened. My blood chilled as he still didn’t bother glancing at me. He’d been this way all morning and I couldn’t figure out why. He’d been this way for a week, in short spurts of moments, gone before I could question him but this was different.
A block of ice was between us, and I didn’t carry a pickaxe.
“Did… did something happen?” I asked. With David? I didn’t voice that. He’d tell me, wouldn’t he?
“No. I just… I have dinner with some of dad’s friends, okay?” He turned to me then, a dark pool of emotion was in his eyes that stole my breath. This wasn’t him.
I fell back into my chair. “Which is it?”
“Which is what, Lilly?” He sounded tired. I wasn’t trying to exasperate the man, but he was hiding something.
“Is it a business dinner or a dinner with your dad’s friends?”
A muscle jumped in his jaw and he reached down and yanked out the keys from the ignition. “I have to get to work. We’ll talk later.”
He jumped out of the truck like I’d tried to physically assault him and left me breathless. Once his door was closed, he rested against it and shoved his hands to his face before rolling his shoulders. He glanced at me through the windows. Brows raised. Impatience coating him.
Right. Because I was still in my seat, gawking at him.
I climbed out and when I met him at the front, he acted like I wasn’t there, and my fear along with my anger pulsed to my fingertips.
“It’s just a dinner. Nothing big. I’ll see you later tonight.”
He stalked away then, leaving me in the parking lot, staring after him. He’d never treated me like that before.
Never.
And worse—he lied. Straight to my face. I still couldn’t get over it and we were halfway into our workday.
He was pulling away and I was pretty certain lingerie might bring him to my bed… but it wouldn’t fix the space he suddenly put between us.
“Spoilsport.” She checked her watch at the same time her phone on her desk rang and patted my shoulder. “It’s Friday and we’re practically dead. Why don’t you go see Hudson or go home for the weekend?”
There was no way I was arguing with her. With Brandon on his honeymoon until Sunday, we were slower anyway. “And you?”
“I’ll head home in an hour. Go.” She waved me off. “Call a friend and go shopping. Have Angie take you to the mall. Maybe she can help you pick out something for Hudson.”
Like I’d take Angie shopping with me for lingerie. Her head would explode with excitement and then she’d spend the next year begging me for details on how much Hudson liked it.
“Thank you. I’ll see you Monday then?”
“Bright