Page 84 of Unmade

“I know what you’re thinking,” he said and stood up. “I don’t need a reminder that you’ve had a two-hour workout by the time I roll out of bed.”

I snickered and followed him inside. “I wasn’t gonna say anything.”

“Uh-huh. Just remember, age before beauty. I can still kick your little ass.”

“Aww, you think I’m beautiful.” I grinned to myself and walked down the boring hallway toward the elevators.

Rooftop access didn’t mean access to the top floor. This corridor was cut off from any excitement; although, Beckett had said it was just offices up here.

We headed down to our floor, and we split up to get ready for bed. He went into his private bathroom, and I headed for the public one to brush my teeth and give myself a pep talk.

Because now was the time, right? I could, uh… I could maybe, at the very least, ask for one of those hugs after all. Bring us close and so on. Then take it from there? I had some melatonin I could take after he turned me down so I could fall asleep quickly, and then he’d be gone in the morning.

So…yeah, no workout tomorrow. I’d set my alarm for seven, like some slouch. I could train when-the-fuck-ever since I didn’t have Alex here either.

I returned my toothbrush, toothpaste, and mouthwash to my toiletry case, and then I went to the bathroom and washed up real quick before I returned to my room.

Huh. He’d left the door between our rooms open. It wasn’t abadsign, was it?

Take a risk.

Oh my God, I was gonna. The incessant inner voice needed to quiet the fuck down. And also, to stop sounding like Beckett.

I walked past the door and opened my closet. “Are you going alone tomorrow?” I asked loudly.

I heard him walk out of his bathroom, and a moment later, he appeared in our doorway with his electric toothbrush in his mouth.

“You never know,” he said. “Depends on the progress and what Intel finds out.”

I nodded in understanding and yanked my tee over my head. Then I stepped out of my sweats and removed my socks, and I dumped it all into my laundry bag on the floor of my closet.

He returned to his room and into the bathroom, where he shut the door.

Would it be too much to initiate a hug when I wore only boxer briefs? Would he see right through me? Would he put a stop to things before I could even touch him?

I glanced around my room and rubbed the back of my neck, having nothing else to do. Nothing to tidy up, nothing to kill time with. My phone was charging on my nightstand, my clothes were laid out on the sofa for tomorrow, my books were stacked on the coffee table in the order I’d need them, and my laptop was plugged in on my tiny kitchen counter.

I had a new class starting tomorrow that I was kind of looking forward to. It would bring us into the world of forensics, and we were gonna study crime-scene evaluation, gunshot residue analysis, and hydrodynamics within body recovery, all in order for us to get answers about our next step from a corpse.

An operator who was alone in the field needed to be able to extract information from their surroundings, no matter what. I’d spoken to Operator Riggs about it, and he’d said, “Say your informant turns up shot in the head, and you have nobody but yourself to rely on. Just knowing how blood splatters will tell you angles, positions, sometimes if the informant was alone or not, if someone pulled the trigger for him, et cetera.”

I wanted more of those classes. It was exciting to picture a crime scene and suddenly see leads everywhere. Like whispers from furniture, weapons, a dead body, and who knew what else.

I was about to sit down on the bed when I heard the bathroom door open in Beckett’s room, and it put a rock in my stomach and cleared my head of all other thoughts. This was it. He was about to hit the sack, and time was running out.

He flicked off the ceiling light in his room too. Only the dim glow from his nightstand was left, just like in my room.

Letting out a shaky breath, I walked over to the doorway and peered into his room, and he had his back to me while he was checking his phone. Goddamn, he was hot. He was only wearing boxer briefs too, dark green ones, and the way his body looked in the poor light, with shadows and contrasts, I almost lost my words.

“Beckett?”

“Yeah?” He glanced at me over his shoulder before he twisted his body toward me too. “What’s up?”

Fuck me, that noticeable outline of his cock, man… I swallowed and raked my teeth across my bottom lip. I had to do this fast, or he’d grow suspicious.

Please don’t laugh at me. Please reject me carefully.

I did my best to keep things light—and my tone even. “I wanna hug it out before you go off to war.”

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