Page 28 of Loaded Laces

Then I head down the stairs.

Maybe dinner burned. Or he needs a hand carrying everything up.

But when I walk into the kitchen, I find it’s empty.

“West?” I call, noting my purse on the counter and the pot of soup on the stove and…

No sign of my hockey-playing boyfriend.

Maybe he’s in the pantry?

But he’s not.

Or the bathroom?

Nope. Not there.

How about the laundry room? Likely, I left some laundry in the washer that needs to be moved into the dryer.

Only, he’s not in there either.

“West?” I call as I wander back into the kitchen.

There’s no answer.

And the soup’s simmering on the stove, a bottle of wine and two glasses on the counter next to it…and next tothose?—

My throat threatens to close up.

The lease and information about the apartment Jace gave me this afternoon.

Something West has no explanation for—except for, possibly, the worst sort of one.

Because I jumped him the moment I walked in, and I slept with him—sleeping that didn’t actually involve sleeping because it was pure fucking. And I didn’t give him the words I was practicing on the way home, the words he needs to hear to know that I have no intention of leaving him again.

And…I didn’t tell him I love him.

I just fucked him and he found?—

“Shit,” I whisper, dread slicing through me.

Dread that whips hard and fast when I hear the garage door start rumbling down.

Oh, God.

He’s leaving.

I didn’t tell West I love him and he found those papers and now he’sleaving.

I dash for the hall, sprint toward the garage door, and am just reaching for the handle when it turns beneath my fingers, starts to swing inward.

West freezes in the slender opening, his brows dragging together. “Bella bee? What the hell’s the matter?”

“I—” But my words stifle up in my throat because he’s standing there. No, he’s slipping a hand through the gap in the door, nudging me back, and stepping inside. A heartbeat later, I’m in his arms, one of his hands on my cheek.

“Is Quinn okay?”

The question doesn’t make sense with the whirlwind of thoughts in my head. “I—” I shake myself. “Yes,” I say. “He was stoked for the sleepover, and I haven’t heard anything different.” All of a sudden, my heart convulses. Maybe that’s why West was taking a long time to come back up. Had something happened? “Did he call you?”

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