Page 2 of Teach Me to Laugh

Shit! Did I sound like an advertisement gone bad? Something about the woman had me teetering on the edge of my game. If I weren’t careful, I’d lose it.

“Beckett,” she gasped my name, sounding off. Amara had bite. Always.

Except now.

She was a scrappy little kitten that had most men cowering. Not me, though. She excited me.

“What’s up, peanut?”

“Get away from me.” The scrap I expected to back the bite of her words wasn’t there. Instead, there was fear.

What in the fuck?

“Amara?”

“I said—get away from me.” She said again, and this time I could have sworn the rattle wasn’t typical Amara annoyance, but panic. “Now!”

“All right,” I said, moving away in surrender. But I didn’t stop watching her.

My eyes clocked her every movement. I took note of the way her shoulders fell and her hands gripped the granite lip ofthe counter. Her arms trembled and she looked so impossibly unlike the strong scrappy woman I’d come to know this last month.

She looked fragile.

Afraid.

Beaten.

Adrenaline spiked. My fingers curled into my palms as I realized something was wrong. Seriously wrong.

And I wanted to know what the fuck that was.

My lips parted to ask when she turned to look at me with apology in her eyes. But then the apology bowed to a new bout of barely restrained terror as she took in the fisted hands at my sides.

“Beckett,” she whispered my name and I forced my hands to uncurl, hating the relief I saw light her eyes, and hating more that I didn’t understand what was wrong with her. I didn’t understand what I’d done to tip her over the edge.

Hell, I didn’t even understand what the edge was.

“What was that, Amara?” I asked low, watching as she hooked her finger through the handle of her mug. “You’re acting like you’re afraid of me.”

“I’m not afraid of you.” She said; her bite was back.

“I don’t believe you.”

Her eyes flashed and she lifted her chin. “I don’t give a shit what you believe.”

There’s my girl and her pretty little claws.

“Are you telling me if I came close, you’d be okay with it?” I challenged, feeling a little braver now that my kitten was back.

“No.” She said firmly. “I like my space.”

“You like your space?” I reiterated.

“You know I do.” I watched, studying her as she lifted her mug. The ceramic trembled—a visible extension of her unsteady nerves. “I’m meeting Maddy at the gym before work so I’m gonna have to ditch.”

“Right.”

She blinked, looking unsure. I thought maybe she was going to explain before she shook her head and strode past me into the hall. I heard the sound of her bedroom door latch closed and I decided right then and there that I was getting down to the truth of whatever it was Amara was hiding. I was getting to the bottom of it, and I was going to help her through whatever it was that I found and force her to face it when that time came.

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