Page 41 of Justice for Francesca

A minute before six,Tripoli felt his eyes open. Francesca wasn’t in his arms. She wasn’t even in his bed.

The sound of a toilet flushing, then running water, let him know that she was at least still in the apartment. Her silhouettepaused in the doorway. She hadn’t put any clothes on to go to the bathroom, and he lay unmoving and silent, watching through slitted eyes to see what she’d do next. When she found her pants draped over the armchair next to the door, she reached into the pocket and retrieved her phone. As she tapped the screen, he watched her face as she typed. She didn’t check voicemails, just pulled up a contact and sent a text. She brought the phone with her to bed, and by the time she sat on its edge, a return text pinged. She checked the screen, put the phone to sleep, laid it on the nightstand, and then crawled back under the sheet, burrowing deep into Tripoli.

“Cold,” she mumbled against his chest.

Trying not to dislodge her from his body, he reached down to their feet and pulled the gray comforter up over them, tucking it tight around her. “Better?”

She nodded. “Mmph.”

He wrapped his arms around her, his hands brushing up and down her back. “Who did you text?”

Her voice was muffled as she answered. “Cruz. Told him I wasn’t feeling well and not coming in today.”

His hands stopped moving. “You called in sick?”

“Mm-hmm.” She burrowed in tighter to him, shoving her face in the space between his shoulder and the pillow.

“When was the last time you took a sick day?”

“Umm… never? I don’t think I’ve ever taken one.” She looked up at him. “You need me to go?”

“Hell no! I’m just surprised. When I woke up, and you weren’t in bed, I thought you had snuck out. Then you showed up in the doorway, texted, and crawled back into bed with me. Now I find out you’re taking a day off. Trust me, I want you nowhere other than where you are right now.”

“I don’t want to think today. If I work, I’ll think. If I go back to my hotel, I’ll make it about thirty minutes before I go back to work. If I’m here, you’ll keep me from working.”

“I hope that’s a good thing.”

She closed her eyes and smiled. “Good or not remains to be seen, but it’s definitely a thing.” She burrowed in again. “Now shush. I want another hour or two of sleep, and then you’re making me French toast.”

“Oh, I am, am I? What if I don’t know how to make French toast?”

Francesca yawned. “I know you know how. I saw the griddle in your kitchen.”

“Demanding minx,” he teased. “You want French toast, you get French toast.”

“Yum.”

In less than a minute, she was asleep again. Tripoli did not fall back to sleep, but he lay in that bed, his smile a mile wide and his heart bursting. There was hope yet.

Just after noon,he was standing over the griddle making her French toast when he felt her arms sneak around him from behind and the side of her face press against his spine. “Sleep well?” he asked as he flipped the bread.

“Yes. I probably could have slept longer, but that wonderful smell wouldn’t let me.”

He dropped a hand to the two locked around his waist, playing with the drawstring on his sweatpants. “You’re not going to get to eat that wonderful smell if you keep playing there, sweetheart.”

She started to draw away. “Sorry.”

“No, don’t move.” He pulled her arms back around him but slid her open palms underneath the hem of his T-shirt and placed them higher up on his ab muscles. “I need to feed you before anything else, is all.”

“Before anything else, huh?”

“Yep. Not saying anything else would be today, but no matter what happens, you need to eat.” He turned around in the circle of her arms. She had pulled a dress shirt out of his closet. “You look good in my shirt.”

“I’ve always wanted to wear a guy’s shirt. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not stupid. It’s a territory thing. Plus, your smell on it will remind me who I belong to. As to the ‘anything else’ comment, you took a sick day today, and you really do need to rest. There was a reason you did that after coming to my apartment. I’m not taking that for granted. So I’m going to feed you, and then we’re going to be completely lazy people. We can watch movies, we can read, or do anything else you want to do. But we’re not leaving this apartment to do any of it.” He kissed the top of her head and started to untangle from her. “Go sit down. I’ll bring you breakfast.”

After breakfast, Tripoli shooed her into the living room, again refusing her help. After cleaning up the kitchen, he joined her on the couch, where she was buried under a blanket and reading a book she’d borrowed from his bookshelves. He tipped the cover, laughing at what he saw. “Murder on the Orient Express? Don’t you get enough murder all day long?”

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