Page 34 of All Our Secrets

He lifted his hand and smiled. “It’s fine. Home is home. I get that.”

My shoulders loosened. “Thanks for installing the security for me.”

“I’ll call and tell King.”

“No need,” I responded. “I’ll tell him later. He’s rearranging my bedroom for me since I’m not supposed to do any heavy lifting for a few more weeks.”

Gerald’s gaze hardened on me. “Why so suddenly?”

My stomach lurched. “Oh, I’m not sure,” I lied. How was I supposed to tell him I wasn’t sleeping in my bed and somehow, Silas seemed to know?

“I can…” Gerald drifted off as the sound of a loud vehicle revved in the hollow. Silas’s truck pulled in behind my Tahoe seconds later. Gerald stepped around me, his brows knitted together. “He’s off work early.”

True, but Silas was also his own boss.

I switched the car seat to my other hand as Silas stepped out of his truck. Even his gait was overbearing and pebbled my skin with goose bumps. I sighed. I really couldn’t figure him out, especially after last night. He crossed the line when he barged into my room, and yet… I glanced down at the hairs raised on my arm. The weird cloud hanging over my mind couldn’t stop the strange response I had to him.

Shaking my head, I rushed through the door without greeting Silas. Gerald could speak to him. Heck, maybe Gerald would tell him he planned to rearrange my room for me since I was pretty sure he was about to say that when Silas arrived.

I went upstairs and changed into something more comfortable, ignoring the scorching heat on my cheeks. I focused on my son’s button nose as I fed him. The human I created was so beautiful my heart ached. When he fell asleep, I brought him downstairs to sleep in his bassinet because I didn’t know when Silas planned to rearrange my room.

Silas.

Guilt soured my stomach. Covering my face, I let out a shaky breath. I hated my brain for going back to thoughts of him. It didn’t help that I heard his deep, barbed voice barking out orders to the poor workers installing the security.

The grump hadn’t greeted me either, but he was inside my home—the one I’d shared with Theodore—doing things he shouldn’t.He’s got to go.

It’s strange.And so wrong.

I’m a horrible person.

The second I saw Silas King six years ago, I thought my soul had left my body, and every molecule in me had burst to life at our accidental contact. And then Theodore called him King. My brain had stopped functioning, then, and my heart had taken control. Silas hadn’t been my King. But I’d wanted him to be so bad that the disappointment still echoed in my ribcage years later.

So no matter how grumpy Silas was or how angry he made me, I still occasionally remembered the way I responded to him when we first met. I disliked when he came to my aid and coddled me like I was something broken. I cried for my husband on the nights after I saw him because when I did, I’d spend all my hours thinking about his best friend King, even if the emotion was irritation.

I missed Theodore so much. Without him, there was no one to erase those thoughts of the King I never met and the one I wished for him to be. There was no one to hold me, so instead, I looked to the sky and begged someone to take my ugliness away.

Gerald knows.Why else would Theodore’s dad act so strange about Silas helping me? Did my gaze linger? Did my cheeks flush? I didn’t dare let my brain think such thoughts about Silas unless my darkest moments hit. Like right then.

In a few minutes, I’d go back to pretending.

Everything’s strange. I’m strange. Life is strange.

But that was it. Nothing more.

∞∞∞

“Gerald would have changed it around,” I said to Silas as I stood in the doorway.

“I said I’d do it. It was my idea anyway,” he replied.

He already had most of the room rearranged. His arms flexed as he scooted the bed against the wall. The master bedroom was oversized, but with Silas standing within its walls, the space felt tight. His big body stretched and lifted things like they weighed nothing. Yeah. Either the space was too small, or the grump was toomassive.

I covered my warm cheeks and averted my gaze. I peeked into the hallway, listening to Gerald and Rosie speaking downstairs. They were spending time with my little dude, but they lingered more than usual. Was I imagining it? Or did it have something to do with the grumpy, scarred man currently in my room?

Biting my lip, I looked at Silas. “Has Gerald said anything to you?”

He stopped. “Said what?”

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