Page 30 of One Night With You

I shrugged, trying my best and failing to act nonchalant. “Snowy.”

“Hmm.”

I Ignored his pointed cough, as we set out to playing. I wasn’t very good, but I was getting better. Thankfully I could mimic what Crew was doing, so it wasn’t that bad.

Halfway through Crew gave me a once-over and smiled. “Well, well.”

I looked over my shoulder and realized that the rest were paying attention to something else, and no one was looking at us. I leaned over and whispered fiercely. “How did you know?”

Crew just beamed and wiped his hand on his shirt. “I just know things.” Then he gave me a look, raising that pierced brow. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“I have no fucking clue.” It was the most honest thing I could have said in that situation because I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do.

I had always put Claire in a box, a friend of a friend, someone that I couldn’t get near because if I fucked it up, it would hurt Phoebe and that would hurt Kane. The fact that Kane wasn’t here today was helpful because he could read me like no other. Yes, Crew and Lex seemed to have read me just fine, but Kane? He would know. And then I would have to figure out what I was supposed to say. And yet here I was, trying to do the same.

“Well shit,” Crew mumbled. “Claire’s a nice girl.”

“Woman,” I corrected, and Crew nodded.

“Woman. She’snice. She’s been through shit, but then again, so have you. Mister ‘I got blown up in a warehouse and nobody likes to talk about it.’”

I winced. “Daisy wasinthe warehouse. I was just near it and got blown off my feet. We’re both fine.”

I could still remember the heat of it, the impact as I fell. Daisy had been hurt significantly more than I had but was back to her normal. I had been through another bomb, and a few knife wounds, and a bullet graze. All because I was in the job of protecting people. It wasn’t safe, not always, but it was my job to make it safe.

Most days it was paperwork and installing cameras. Boring, and didn’t give me the adrenaline that I needed, but it was enough.

But Claire? She had been hurt. On my watch. And that was something that was always going to be between us.

“Just figure something out, okay?”

I nodded, then remembered something that had happened that night. “Hey. You know that gym that you work at sometimes? Do they have open hours for one-on-ones?”

Crew nodded, a frown on his face. “Yeah, though you have a gym of your own, Mr. Montgomery.”

I grinned. “Yeah, I do. But maybe I don’t want to be working out right where my entire family’s watching all the time.”

Crew raised a brow. “Well, well. Things are going to get interesting.”

And then it was his turn, and I stood back, and pulled out my phone without thinking.

Me:

Hey, I have a place we could work out if you want to work on those self-defense lessons. No pressure.

Well, that wasn’t exactly what I had wanted to say right away, or how I’d wanted to reach out, but it was a good excuse.

Claire:

Okay. Just tell me where. And when I guess. And what I’m supposed to wear. And well, I guess I’m going to need a long list.

She ended it with the laughing emoji, and my lips quirked.

Me:

I’ll take care of you. I promise.

Before she could say anything to that, or I could think too hard, I texted again.

---