Reclaim - Aly Martinez Page 0,90
way his gaze dropped to my boobs. “Then who is? I don’t know if you remember or not, Cam, but handouts are not my thing. Especially not from you.”
His head snapped back as if I’d slapped him. “Why especially not from me?”
“Because that’s not who we are. We’re give and take. You bring a sandwich. I bring a sandwich. You already dropped everything, flew down here, and are doing your best to dig me out of this mess.” I walked around the bar and stopped in front of him. Hooking my pinky with his, I swayed our arms back and forth. “I appreciate you being here more than I can ever express, but I can’t in good conscience let you pay for an investigator too. You’ve already brought a sandwich. A big one. Like one of those yard-long submarine sandwiches that I’m going to be eating for the next month. It’s my turn.” I glanced over my shoulder at the smorgasbord of food splayed across my counter. “Good news, you’ll probably be able to eat on it for a month too.”
“I can see this,” he teased. “But what if my dad wants to bring a sandwich?”
I did another round of the slow blink. “Your…dead dad?”
Releasing my finger, he stepped away, plucking his wine from the bar as he went. “Yep, that’s the one.” He walked over to my tan microfiber sectional that Thea had sold me for a steal when she’d moved and sank down right in the middle, crossing his legs knee to ankle. It was almost as sexy as the veins. “When he died, I inherited a good bit of money. My mom and I went round and round about me taking it. I have no idea why she was surprised. I’d refused to take a single penny from them when I went off to school, but she was livid when I refused an inheritance. She yelled at me that if I didn’t take it she was going to give it to Jonathan’s charity in Josh’s name.”
“Shut. Up.” I walked over and sat on the cushion beside him, careful not to touch him again despite my nearly constant desire to launch myself into his arms.
“I’d never snatched a check so fast in my entire life.” He took a sip. “My dad and I had a complicated relationship. He wasn’t abusive—at least not physically the way yours was. But he did a number on me trying to force me into this perfect mold he had in his mind of who his son should be. Square peg, round hole and all. It didn’t matter what I did. He always viewed me as a failure, and it took a long time for me to figure out that maybe I wasn’t the part that was messed up.”
I inched closer until my knee bumped his thigh. “He was a fool. Your square peg is better than his round hole any day of the week. And he missed out by being too damn stubborn to open his eyes.”
He grinned. “Please don’t say my square peg and my dad’s round hole in the same sentence ever again.”
I barked a laugh. “Yeah, as soon as it came out of my mouth, that metaphor went sideways. But I meant it. Look at you. Smart, and kind, and funny.” I batted my eyelashes. “Not too hard on the eyes, if I do say so myself.”
He shook his head, but that grin stretched.
I crinkled my nose at him. “Your dad can keep the sandwich. I’d rather have you and your square peg.”
It was his turn to laugh, and it was deep and rich, the soundtrack of everything I’d missed over the last five years.
“Don’t speak too quickly. I pay all my own bills and the mountain of student loan debt out of principle, and I use his money for things that would piss him off but mean a lot to me.” He smiled tight and gave a piece of my hair a gentle tug. “Like, say, a donation to a brown bag lunch program for the students of Clovert or maybe an investigator to take down his nephew.”
I sucked in a sharp breath, and it had absolutely nothing to do with taking down Jonathan Caskey.
“You donate to my lunch program?”
He shrugged. “It’s a great program.”
“Cam,” I whispered when all further words failed me.
He slid his hand over and gave my knee a squeeze. “You have no idea how proud I am of everything you’ve done for those kids.”
A tear