Page 124 of Caught from Behind

I love him so much.

This is so fucking great.

And…we might not work out.

He might leave.

I might fuck up in a way that can’t be fixed and?—

No, dammit. I won’t let that happen. I won’t. I fucking?—

“Ella?”

I blink, realize that he’s looking at me, that although he shifted from park to drive, he hasn’t taken his foot off the brake, hasn’t maneuvered onto the road.

Damn. I’m messing up, even right now.

“I’ll just steal that flannel I’ve been eyeing of yours,” I say lightly. “With these leggings”—I nod down—“and my boots, I’ll be full-on lumbergirl chic.”

But he doesn’t bite, doesn’t smile, and he doesn’t look away. He just holds my gaze, his seeing far too much, I realize, when he cups my jaw, leans over to brush his lips over my forehead. “I’m here, chérie,” he says softly. “Just know that I’m here.”

I clench his thigh. It’s tense beneath my palm, and holding on to the strength of him, inhaling the scent of him, helps me shove down the panic eating away at my insides.

I nod. “I know.”

He closes his eyes for one brief second, features softening, relief in his eyes, and then brushes his thumb over my cheek, nods once. “Good, baby.”

Then he drives us back to my place.

Because, of course he does.

And when I wake up to my eight alarms in the morning, it’s to find his flannel at the end of the bed, and a note on the pillow next to mine, the one that smells like Riggs.

Turns out he can write sweet nothings too.

I’ll be thinking of you every moment, chérie. How can I not? My heart is half-empty when you’re not with me.

“Apple fritter?”

I hear a few days later and freeze, mid-wrap of the cord around my blow dryer handle—shh, don’t tell Donna, who I just lectured on not ever doing that this morning—then turn to see that Kit is standing there with a white, grease-stained bag.

My heart starts slamming against my rib cage.

His eyes slide from mine then come back. “I was…” A shrug. “Well, I had an extra and I thought it’d been a while since you had one.”

That’s not true.

I devoured two before I came into the salon this morning because I bought my usual extra for Kit before I remembered we aren’t talking—or weren’t, anyway—and they’ve sat in my stomach like lead all freaking day.

Now, though, with the offering up for grabs, my stomach rumbles.

He grins, shakes his head, and passes it over, slumping into the seat next to my station. “That last one was tough, huh?”

I’m here well beyond when the appointment should have finished, so late that I figured everyone else had gone home.

Everyone except for Kit, I guess.

I slump into my own chair and rub at my throbbing temples. “Yeah,” I admit. My client didn’t like what I did and it was a I-want-more-blond-but-now-it’s-too-light, more-brown-but-now-it’s-too-dark situation.

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