Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,89

hug. That side not being his left or his right, but rather a hug from my side and a stiff acceptance from him. Whatever. Close enough.

After that, I’d spent the rest of the afternoon cooking. Since my car wouldn’t be ready for a few more days, I’d luckily gone to the grocery store semi-recently and had all the fixings for baked ham, mac and cheese, and a salad. Halfway through making the mac and cheese, I realized Camden’s body didn’t exactly lead me to believe he splurged on anything with carbs or cheese often, so I sautéed up asparagus. While I was doing that, I realized asparagus could be a very divisive vegetable. People either loved it or hated it, and I had no idea which side of the fence Camden landed on, so I then baked two sweet potatoes, stewed some tomatoes, air fried a zucchini, and chugged a glass of wine.

It could be said I was panicking, but it had been a while since I’d been on a date.

Not that Camden’s coming over for dinner was a date or anything.

We were just two friends sharing a meal and a bottle of wine—or the three quarters of a bottle that was left, anyway.

I momentarily considered chugging another glass then talked myself out of it and headed for the door.

“Hi,” I chirped entirely too high-pitched for it to have been perceived as natural on any level.

He was in jeans again, but this time, he’d paired them with a button-down, the sleeves rolled up to show off the subtle veins on his muscular forearms. Jesus, I was seriously hard up, but when had veins become so sexy?

He opened his mouth, and I was positive he’d planned for words to follow, but as his gaze raked down my body and back up again, nothing came out.

I grinned, patting myself on the back for the extra time and thought I’d put into getting ready. “You want to come in?”

“Yeah,” he replied, stepping inside and robotically lifting a bottle of wine in my direction. “Here.”

Wow. Two whole syllables. Oh, yeah, I’d done good getting ready for my date.

Fuck. Not a date.

Not.

A.

Date.

Though the night we’d spent together in the hot tub hadn’t been a date, either, and it had turned out incredible.

“Thanks.” I shut the door and took the wine from his hand. “I already opened a bottle, but I’ll pop this one in the fridge.” I headed for the kitchen, putting an extra sway in my hips for his benefit.

“Fuck me,” he mumbled under his breath. “Fucking fuck me.”

Pretending not to hear him, I took his reaction as yet another good sign for my date, non-date. After pouring him a glass of wine and topping myself off with a heavy hand, I set his in front of him on the bar dividing my kitchen from the living room. “So, how’d the rest of your afternoon go?”

Twisting the base on the counter, he spun the stem of the glass between his thumb and his forefinger but didn’t take a sip. “Okay, I guess. I got a call from an investigator I hired to look into Jonathan.”

I tugged at my earlobe as though the audio had deceived me. “I’m sorry. Did you say you hired a private investigator? In Clovert?”

“Technically, he’s out of Chicago, but yeah. If Jonathan is pulling this kind of shit on you and your family, I’m sure he’s done other stuff too. We prove he’s a crooked cop and he’ll lose his badge. If we’re lucky, he could spend a few years behind bars. But regardless, your charges will get dropped and he won’t be able to target you anymore.”

I blinked, my lips curling up sardonically. All of it sounded great. Like great-great. Better than great. But there was one, teeny-tiny problem.

“Are you crazy? I can’t afford an investigator. Especially not one out of Chicago. I make Clovert money, Cam. Bad Clovert money at that. I know I told you about my rainy-day-slash-Louboutin fund, but I think you have vastly overestimated the contents of the account. And now that I’ve been suspended from work, the rainy day might turn into a rainy year. Truthfully, I don’t even know if I can afford you. I was planning to discuss a friends-and-family discount tonight after I thoroughly plied you with food and alcohol.”

“Nora, relax. I’m not expecting you to pay for anything.”

I crossed my arms over my chest, and had I not been working myself into a frenzy, I would have smiled at the